May the 4th (Birthday) Be With You

This weekend was the much anticipated, much prepared for, 4th birthday party for the Z man. It was obvious what the theme would be, and I decided pretty early on to do it at the park. At the time, I thought it would be a lot less work on me, but I was mistaken. It was just as much work as having it at my house, with the added stress of making sure we brought everything from serving spoons to cutting knives, tape, scissors, and whatever else we would or might possibly need. Plus, we had a good bit of clean up, loading, and unloading to do, which all got unloaded at my house which is now messy… Yeah, should’ve thought that one through.

Thank goodness, we had the foresight to borrow my dad’s car and have them come over and watch Z and Lu while we set up.

We really had a great turnout and everyone had a lot of fun. I bought a printable party on etsy, which got me, what I think are the cutest invites EVER

as well as a banner, food labels, cupcake toppers, and iron-on transfer for a t-shirt and all kinds of other stuff, many of which I didn’t end up using. We made a couple of things, bought most of it, and ordered some from Chick fil-A. On the menu was: Obi-Wan Kabobis, Wookie Cookies, Tie Fighters, Princess Lay’s, Captain Rex Mix, Padawan Puffs, Yoda Soda, and Jedi Juice (the water bottles were used to hold down the table cloths).

By far the most time-consuming, but also the thing that turned out the best were the pool noodle lightsabers. The intention was for them to have “Jedi training” and use them to keep balloons in the air. The reality was 4 year old boys battling with them. Either way, I thought they were great, and I was glad I took the million hours time to make them.

Couldn’t forget Lu’s lightsaber, which she loved and batted around making sword fighting noises the whole time the big kids were playing.

Then came the pinata.

 

Thankfully we made the game time decision to use the pull-string functionality as opposed to the beat the heck out of the thing traditional functionality, but either way, when the candy fell out, there was a mad dash, 20 bucks worth of candy gone in 60 seconds…

Then, we decided to let them take their energy out on Darth Vader.

Our sincere thanks to Mitch for risking his life for the fun of 6 children under the age of 8 :)

Then we sang to the birthday boy.

And, after several unsuccessful attempts, we lit the candle and he blew it out.

Is there anything more special than a crowd of people singing happy birthday to your child?! It makes me emotional every time.

It was a special day, and I want to give a special thanks to Mom and Dad, D, Amira Grace, and Margo for helping us out with everything. I don’t think Lu would have made it to the party dressed and ready to go if not for Amira, her best cousin (more on that later).