Birthday parties - you all know I love them like crazy. I've got nothing to hide anymore.
This year I didn't really have anything firmed up theme wise until just before Christmas. I was contemplating a water play/slip n slide party because lets face it, a party in January is going to be HOT!
But one day out of the blue Ollie asked me if he could have a Star Wars party. Being a huge Star Wars fan it was like a dream come true so I madly started pinning every Star Wars idea I could find. Naturally the next day he declared that he no longer wanted a Star Wars party. Well too bad buddy, once I've committed to a theme there is no backing down!!
Luckily pinterest is ripe with a million suggestions for this theme and I went about adapting and downright copying as many as I could. I figure why reinvent the wheel?!
The party food table was a LOT of fun with Princess Leia buns, Jabba Jigglers, Tie Fighters, Obi Wan Kebobis, Wookie Cookies, Thermal Detonators and many more. Honestly I think the grown ups got more of a kick out of it than the kids.
For party bags I whipped up a certificate signed by Yoda, light sabre glowsticks, stormtrooper badges, and assorted evil sugary treats. They were also meant to take home their light sabres (see below) but a number of parents politely declined and to be honest I can't blame them. We've had some pretty epic light sabre battles rage on since then and it does get pretty out of hand.
There was also a cake. It was ridiculously over the top. There is no denying that. It was a giant death star (made of styrofoam to keep it light enough not to squash the rest of the cake), an asteroid belt and a Tatooine sunset with R2-D2, Yoda and a Jawa. I had a heap of fun making this cake, although it didn't look like it was all going to come together at one point and I didn't really know what it was going to end up looking like. Thankfully it all worked out in the end, Ol was suitably impressed, kids ate it and I didn't have to rush out to the cheesecake shop for a replacement.
I organised a bunch of activities like pass the death star - the same as pass the parcel but you got to choose a little prize if you were holding the death star when the music stopped - death star cantina tune of course!
We also had Stormtrooper bowling with Stormtrooper masks attached to giant inflatable bowling pins, blaster practice where we used nerf guns to shoot ping pong balls that looked like death stars and a death star piñata. Death stars were everywhere. I actually got totally sick of saying death star.
But like all well laid plans, things didn't quite go smoothly. The other activities were fun but as soon as Nick brought out the giant basket of light sabres that I'd made from pool noodles (about an hour earlier than I'd planned) it was on for young and old. The kids basically spent the rest of the party absolutely flogging each other with the things. To be honest it was pretty awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed whacking a few of them myself.
