May the Force Be With You

January 24th, 2015

Star Wars Party

Paige recently discovered Star Wars and has fallen in love with it.  So, of course she wanted the theme for her birthday party to be Star Wars.  It's so hard for me to plan her parties because it's right after Christmas and I never want to plan anything big.  Which is why we didn't have it for a couple of weeks after her actual birthday.  It took me a while to get motivated to get to work, but once I got started, I was completely involved.  So much so that I may or may not have ignored my family for awhile.  I had A LOT to do to get ready!

 This was where I was working for days...getting things ready.

This was her invitation that we made and sent out.  I borrowed the images from some other website.

 Some of the decorations...I had made some TIE fighters out of black balloons and black cardstock paper...they are hung over the table and hard to see.  They turned out ok.

 Here's a better picture of the TIE fighter

 Star Wars toys for decorations

 I found this cool plastic tablecloth at some party store online and thought it would make the perfect backdrop for pictures.  I printed out the Star wars words and put it on there.  I also printed out pictures of the main characters so that the girls who hadn't seen the movies (if there were any) would know who they were.  Especially since our first game revolved around knowing the characters.  I liked the way it looked anyways.

I made some of these brown robes for the kids to wear if they didn't have a Star Wars costume.  They were fairly easy to make.

I also made these white robes for Bella and Paige to wear so they could be Princess Leia.  They were a bit more tricky and are are nowhere near perfect, but luckily, you can't see all the mistakes.

Maggie helped me out and did her hair.  Love her pose.

A Storm trooper, 2 Leia's and one padawan Jedi

Lydia wanted to stand at the front door in her Storm Trooper costume to "welcome" everyone to the party.  She was so excited about it.

Taking Princess Leia as a prisoner.

The guests started arriving...Brooke as Darth Vader

Charlee with the Leia buns

Ella as a young Jedi

Ashley as Darth Vader

Hailey as a padawan Jedi

and Katie as Princess Leia

Halfway through the party, Lydia changed her costume...this time she was Han Solo.

1st Party Game:

"Which Star Wars Character Am I?"

 When the girls started arriving, I put a sticker on their backs with the name of a Star Wars character on it.  They had to go around asking questions to figure out who they were.  I've always loved this game, but I think they got bored after awhile.  I also had a word search for them to do, but they were too excited to sit down and work on that.  

After this, we ate dinner.  Here's the food and the table:

I went a little overboard and made these awesome R2-D2 cups.  I couldn't resist.  They were so fun!

For drinks they could have Yoda soda (forgot to take a picture of it--just lime sherbet with 7-up) or Bantha milk--milk with blue food coloring.

Our main food was pizza--Padawan pizza, which hadn't arrived when I took the picture.  We also had Obi-wan Kabob-ies--fruit kabobs,

Vader Taders--potato chips, Sith sticks--pretzels, and Carbonite Jell-O--blue Jell-O with Han Solo inside.  Loved that one.

a little blurry,..

 Then for treats, we had Death Star Donuts--was hoping for chocolate, but could only find powdered; Han Solo Rolos, and Yoda Cookies--sugar cookies shaped like Yoda. :)

2nd Party Game:

Jedi Training: "Use the Force, Luke" Part 1

After we got the food cleaned up, we started with some Jedi Training.

I made everyone a light saber out of a pool noodle.

So we handed those out and gave everyone a silver balloon.  They were supposed to use "the force" to keep their balloon in the air.

It was quite crowded in that room. I guess I should've had that part outside.  Makes it hard when it's cold and raining.

3rd Party Game:

Jedi Training: "Use the Force, Luke" Part 2

To kind of see if they passed their training, they had to practice with their 'blast shields' down.  After all, Obi Wan Kenobi said, "Your eyes can deceive you--don't trust them."

 They had to see if they could hit the orb 3 times.  It was quite funny.

4th Party Game:

Final Training: Battle of the Star Wars Villains

We had all the villains on stakes throughout the back yard.  We gave each girl a can of silly string.  Although, when I do this game again, I will not buy silly string from the dollar store.  There wasn't enough silly string in the can to get each villain.  Luckily, I had a few extra cans for those that ran out before they were done.

There was a storm trooper, Darth Maul, Boba Fett, General Grievous, Chancellor Palpatine, Darth Vader, The Emperor, Count Dooku, Jabba the Hutt

The fighting begins.

 

Storm Trooper Down and the rebels win!

5th Party Game:

Destroying the Death Star

 We used bean bags and tried to throw them into the opening to blow up the Death Star.

6th Party Game:

Blast the Storm Troopers

We broke into 2 teams.  One person from each team came up to the line with their blasters.  They each had 6 storm troopers to knock over.  They were all so serious about this one.  It was really cute.

I LOVE this picture of Noah with Garrett's motorcycle helmet on.  It's so perfect!

7th Party Game: (Holy cow, this is a lot of games!)

Battle against Anakin/Vader on Mustafar (AKA Lava Game)

We created a lava flow in our garage with stepping stones to step on--even though they were robots in the movie.  The point was to make it to the end of the lava while fighting the bad guys (balloons) with your light saber.

We also made Darth Vader out of Garrett's punching bag.  We figured that the kids who were waiting could fight Darth Vader.  No one really did, but I thought it was funny.

Paige having her turn

and Bella

and Noah

and Ashley

and Katie.  

8th Party Game:

"Help me Obi Wan Kenobi.  You're My Only Hope!"  Part 1

I've done this game in other parties, and I really like it.  I love the team work that's involved.  

This was a game to rescue Princess Leia with the help of R2-D2.  

 First, I made up a bunch of these R2-D2 pictures (with a number and letter on the back). 

Then, I hid them around the house for the kids to find.  The message I wrote was 92 letters long, so each girl got to find 10 R2-D2's on their own and then they were all supposed to find the last 2 together.  After searching all over, we couldn't find the last 2...I couldn't remember where I had hid them.  They turned up days later.  Oh well...they solved the message without those 2.  

Paige showing me the ones she found.

Ashley and Ella still searching.  

Then they all came together and had to put them in order from 1-92 (isn't that from a Christmas song?).  They had to figure out the words because it looked like just a jumble of letters.  AND I didn't include punctuation.  

They worked on it for a while, but couldn't get it all, so we helped them a little bit.  

This is the final message:  (from Princess Leia) "Darth Vader has kidnapped me and hidden me on a distant planet.  Help me young Jedi's.  You are my only hope!"

So at this point we took them out into the garage where we found a Death Star pinata.  I realize now that I wrote "planet" in the message and that was a little misleading since the death star is not a planet.  That's ok--no one noticed.  

 This is the pinata.  It's really a soccer ball pinata that I spray painted grey/black and then painted with sponges a lighter grey.  

 We went youngest to oldest.  Naturally, Noah was first. For the stick, I spray painted it green and then put black electrical tape at the bottom for a light saber.  

 Bella

 Brooke

 Ella

 Charlee

 Paige

 and Lydia.  She was determined to destroy that thing.  She knocked it down...

 and then we let Noah whack it again while it was on the ground.  

Besides candy, we also found Princess Leia safe and sound!!

Games were over so it was time for opening presents.  

After presents, it was finally time for cake.  It was about 8:30 by now and Paige really wanted to watch part of the original Star Wars before everyone left.  

The Star Wars Cake...Anakin and Obi Wan fighting in the lava at Mustafar.

She's such a sweetheart! 

All of her friends (minus Lily, who wasn't able to come.)

After everyone finished, we turned on the movie and watched it until everyone was picked up.  This was the first time to watch it for Bella and Noah and they were entranced.  Noah had a huge smile on his face when Darth Vader came on the screen for the first time.  He loves Darth Vader.  

Goody bags

And they all got this certificate for all of their training.  

I do have to say that this was one of the funnest parties I have planned.  It's probably one of my favorites--right up there with Lydia's Detective Party.  The girls were a little crazy most of the night, so it was a little chaotic and loud with 10 kids. but it was all worth it because Paige had a great time!