I've been dying to do a Jedi-themed birthday party ever since Will became interested in Star Wars, but our rental house did not lend itself well to throwing birthday bashes, due to a relatively small living area and sloping back yard and retention pond. As soon as I saw the awesome backyard on the new house, and found out that we'd be moved in before Will's birthday, I decided this would be the year to do it. I pulled up a few online party ideas and showed them to Will to make sure he was on board (he was--enthusiastically), and started planning.
This is not a very original idea, and there are tons of blog posts with ideas for this party theme. I leaned most heavily on ideas from
this party (that mom is a bona fide party planner). I found most of my party stuff on either Etsy or Oriental Trading Co.
I purchased a downloadable invitation from Sarah at
Brown Paper Studios on Etsy. She was fantastic--she also custom designed a printable task list to give the kids, along with printable circles that I used to make medals for the kids.
Oh, and about that last line on the invite--since the yard is so big, I figured we'd just invite everybody, meaning his whole class, cub scout den, and some other assorted buddies. I think we invited close to 30 kids. I'm not sure any child needs 30 birthday gifts, definitely not our kids, so I talked Will into collecting donations for Kidds are First, and John and I gave him some birthday money so that he could pick his own gift after the party. It did take some bribery--he's a normal kid who likes presents, but thanks to generous grandparents and aunts and uncle, he did just fine. (Kidds are First stages a free "store" where foster parents can come by appointment and shop for items for their foster children. It's pretty cool. They needed summer boy clothing, so that's what we collected.)
My original plan was to stage the whole thing in the backyard, and rent a bouncy obstacle course slide to use as the main event. Unfortunately, the weather was NOT on our side, and it rained steadily the morning of the party. We cancelled the bouncy slide and I spent the night before the party adapting everything I could for an indoor party. On the upside, our new house has a lot of space and we have almost no furniture in the main living areas, so we had a big indoor area to play games.
So what did the kids have to do to earn their Jedi title and medal?
They had to complete "Flight Training" by making a paper airplane and sailing it into the Death Star (Will helped me with this one):
They also completed "Star Blaster Training", which involved shooting Storm Trooper balloons with foam bullets:
They had to build their own droids (using some foam cutouts I made, along with some foam stickers and markers), and then write down what they would have their droid do (clean their room, do their homework, etc.). Once done, they hung them up on some clotheslines in the dining room.
When we had breaks in the rain, the kids went outside to do "Light Saber Training". I made light sabers by cutting pool noodles in half and then decorating one end with silver duct tape, black washi tape, and adhesive rhinestones to make a handle. I also decorated some bubble wands to look like light sabers as well. The kids were supposed to use the noodle sabers to keep a Storm Trooper balloon in the air while going around some cones, then make bubbles with the bubble sabers. That game quickly devolved into light saber fighting in the backyard--thank goodness it's hard to do real damage with a pool noodle:
Finally, the kids practiced "Starship Assembly"--their mission was to make their own starship or jet out of Legos.
The last two games we did as a group. I knew we needed some sort of Darth Vader battle, but I couldn't convince John to dress up as Vader and battle the kids. I tried really hard to change his mind, until he pointed out that I could probably find a Vader costume to fit me and I had to admit I didn't want to do it, either. Enter Mr. Darth Vader Pinata:
The yard was wet so we nixed hanging him in one of the trees, and used a tailgating tent instead. The younger kids went first:
Dylan knocked off his light saber:
Ladies next:
Alexiya took it seriously, and landed a near fatal blow:
Note to self for next time: put the baseball players at the end of the line. Micah finished him off with a level swing:
Will and Anna were in charge of filling the pinata, and they stuffed him so tightly we had to shake him to get all the candy out:
For the last game, I had the kids divide into four teams and told them that the Empire had stolen 4 of Will's birthday candles. Each team had to use clues to find the stolen candles. I'd planned to plant the clues and candles outside, but again, the rain! So I hid some of the clues in the house, and then hid the rest on some of the parents. I texted them the day before the party and got them to tell me some interesting facts that I could use as clues---so some clues were things like "Find the dad who has been to Antarctica" and "Find the mom who has been National Watermelon Queen". (Seriously.) The kids and adults had fun with this one, and one team actually asked me if I'd been the Watermelon Queen, which, given that I've never won any sort of pageant ever, totally made my day. :-)
We even managed a family photo! Lately, we have been tickling Will to get a genuine smile for the camera. And it usually works:
And then we said 'bye to the guests, and enjoyed a little playtime afterwards with Donald, Alexiya, Dylan, and Ayva. Oh, and Darth Vader:
And that was it!
I have to mention, too, that I employed a lot of help. I love planning party details, but I don't like wrangling large numbers of children (this was a party of well-behaved kids, but it was still a large group!). John, while not being eager to be pummeled to death with pool noodles, still jumped in and did a lot of party prep and games. Barb/Grandma came over and did the whole droid craft with the kids, and she and Leah pretty much had the whole party cleaned up before I knew what they were doing! Leah came over to help with the kids and also grabbed my camera and took pictures, which was awesome. I also hired our high school babysitter, Amy, and asked her to bring a friend. She brought her friend Stephanie, who happens to be a big Star Wars fan, so she was a very enthusiastic helper, too. All those extra hands made everything go so much more smoothly than I expected.
So it was a fun day! Looking forward to more fun parties in the new place. Preferably with good weather. :-)
