Star Wars Birthday Party

Cooper turned six on Friday! How can this be!? I remember six literally being my favorite year of life until I was about 14. Not sure why, but it must have been a pretty good year! I hope this year is as great for Cooper as it was for me. He was so excited for his party and friends to come over on Saturday, he woke up before 5am.

Right now, we're on a big Star Wars kick. Ever since he received the Millennium Falcon as a Christmas present and we watched Episodes 4, 5 and 6 together, we've been on a big Star Wars kick. So, I was happy he was excited to use that for his birthday theme. I found a gazillion websites and pinterest ideas online that made the planning so easy.

DECORATIONS:

I was lucky and found star wars themed plates, cups, napkins, the banner, masks, and the tablecloth at the Euro store Tedi down the street. I hung a big fleece blanket over the dessert table with duct tape, added some streamers, and the number 6 with balloons on our chimney. For food and drinks, we kept it simple. Mixed sandwiches, fruit kabobs, chips, juice and water. I decided not to go overboard and name the foods funny star war themed names because the kids can't read yet and I think Cooper was the only one at the party who had actually seen Star Wars!

CAKE:
What I did go overboard with was the cake!  I used the tutorial from this blog to create the Millennium Falcon cake, but I made a yellow cake using a recipe from the Joy of Cooking, and a Marshmallow fondant from this recipe.

The fondant was actually easy to shape. Under the fondant I also made a butter cream frosting to hold the pieces together. I used gel icing pens for the black and red details.

GAMES
For the games, we started off with "Don't fall in the Lava" which consisted of the kids jumping from rock to rock (paper plates) on hot lava (red blanket or red tablecloth). I forgot to take pictures.

 Each Jedi was then rewarded with a robe! I stayed up the night before the party till midnight making sure each kid would have a robe. I used this tutorial to make the robes and used brown felt ($3 a yard) and an old torn curtain for the white fabric. Each one was quick an easy, but I should have worked on them earlier in the week.

Then each kid had to save princess Leia from the Storm Troopers by knocking them all down with a dart gun. The kids loved this game and wanted to keep doing it over and over.   I tried to keep them 10 feet away, but they kept creeping closer. Honestly, my windows are not that dirty. It was snowing!

Then we played "Watch our for Asteroids" and each kid had to train up on using their new light sabers! I kept seeing pool noodles online that people converted into light sabers, but these are even better! They have LED lights that can do 6 different light variations and I found them here on amazon for less than a dollar a piece! I added duct tape to make handles. The kids had to keep the asteroids (balloons) in the air either as a team or alone.  This was a fun activity, but only kept their attention for about 4 minutes total.

 

Our next game was "Unfreeze Han Solo"! The night before, I stuck 2 figurines of Cooper's in water with a little green dye added in. I set up 2 trays with spoons and a glass of hot water for the kids to use. This game was a huge hit! They loved it and it took the longest of all the games to complete. I found the idea here.

 



Our final game was to "Destroy the Death Star"! Frank and I made a Pinata a week before the party using a balloon and old paper. The kids each got their turn at hitting the pinata, and it broke open for Cooper on the third round of smacking. After this, each kid was an official Jedi and received a certificate in their goodie bags, candy from the Pinata, their light saber swords and Jedi robes to take home.

I think they all had a pretty good time. These pictures below are of Cooper waiting for the kids to come down from all over our house (I think they had more fun actually playing with Cooper and Lily's toys than during the games) to eat cake. The series of photos cracks me up!

Lily enjoyed having her hair done by a friend during the party and sat perfectly still. Why doesn't she do this for me! She runs away when I pick up the brush.

 

I love birthday parties. Cooper was so sweet the whole time I was preparing and kept telling me how good everything looked and thank you. He was very impressed by the iced Han Solo and the cake, and asked me at the end of the day what my favorite part of the day was. I told him it was seeing him so happy.  I hope he knows just how much we love him!