Star Wars Jedi Training Birthday Party

   So all the men in my house live and breathe Star Wars! My husband loved it as a kid and still does now, the boys have followed in his footsteps. I now find myself surrounded by Star Wars all day everyday. The boys have a star wars themed bedroom, we have every toy and Lego imaginable and even our dog is named Chewie! We went to Disney World in May 2009 for Star Wars weekend, the boys and my husband were in heaven! They had Jedi training there and it gave me the idea to do it for Josh's birthday.That year though, he had his heart set on doing a Halloween party (his birthday is only a few days before) and I had just had Emma so I happily postponed Jedi training for this year! It gave me plenty of time to get my ideas together!

                                       Invitations

  I had every intention of making the invitations from scratch. I made one and it came out great, but my new computer doesn't have publisher, or photoshop so I could not print them properly, and the photo sites couldn't read the file. I was running out of time, so I found a website online that personalizes your invitation and sends them to either cvs, walgreen or walmart same day. we mad a cute one up there and it saved the day! The website is personalizedpartyinvites.com. here is the original one I made though, I wish it would of worked out, but I couldn't stress over it!

                                                 Party Food and Decorations

       My husband is an FS (Food Specialist) in the Coast Guard.  This year for Fathers Day I got him both volumes of the Star Wars cookbooks along with a set of lightsaber chop sticks! I found them on Amazon and he and the the boys love them. We used the cookbooks to come up some star wars themed names for our party fare. I used the boys action figures and stuffed animals to decorate the table and made them hold signs to go with snacks, it was cute and the kids loved it!  For the Decorations I did : Black tablecloths on both tables with silver star confetti,  star wars streamers and banner, star balloons all over the room, and the boys various star wars toys everywhere! It was the easiest party to decorate for!

Our Yoda soda is 1 bottle of Sprite, 1 bottle of white grape juice, 1 can frozen lemonade from concentrate and a few drops of food coloring. it is really Yummy and a big hit with the kids!

Party Games and Favors

     I don't have many pictures of the games for 2 reasons. The first, I was the one running the games, the second my camera took a fatal blow from about 22 lightsabers!  When the kids arrived I had coloring pages and star wars puzzles,that I scanned from a coloring book to keep them busy while we waited for the rest of the party guests. I also printed out star wars masks for each kid at starwars.com. Then we got to the games! We played :

Pass the detonator : we used a gold plastic ball i got at Michael's and played hot potato to star wars music!

Pin the lightsaber on the Jedi: I made light sabers out of construction paper and used a star wars poster we had already.

Save Princess Leia:  I placed 2 pictures of princess Leia in balloons and had all the kids sit on them to pop them, the 2 who found the pictures got a prize

Jedi training trial 1:  lava walk  :   I put red table cloths down on the deck and but a long piece of wood down, they had to walk on the balance beam and not fall in the lava!

Jedi training Trial 2:  Trooper Target: i cut out pictures of 5 storm troopers and glued them onto empty soda cans with construction paper glued around them. I lined them up on the deck, gave the kids a bucket of plastic balls and they had to knock the troopers down.

Jedi training Trial 3: Use the Force: we made lightsabers for each kid using, pipe insulation from Lowe's and tape. I orginally wanted to use pool noodles, but they are hard to find this time of year. We gave each kid a lightsaber and a balloon, they had to keep the ballon in the air for as long as the music played. They also got to take the lightsaber home.

Death Star Pinata 2:  we made the death star pinata out of a soccer ball pinata. My husband taped over it, spray painted it and added all the detail using a paint marker and black glitter. Its called the death star 2 because our lovely dog Chewie, ate the 1st one while it was outside on the deck drying!  The second one was not as easily destroyed though!  We taped over the pinata stick to make it look like a lightsaber.

For party favors, I gave each kid a bag with star wars stickers, tattoos, a star wars yo-yo, a star wars pen and notepad, star wars fruit snacks, a glow stick and a ring pop. They each got to take home a lightsaber and I made them all Jedi training certificates. The certificates I made on my computer, but I found the wording on a few sites online.

                                                                Cupcakes

The cupcakes were chocolate with buttercream icing and a fondant lightsaber on top. A girl on the Coast Guard wives forum I frequent posted a picture of similar cupcakes to these, and I knew Josh would love them! I got a recipe for Marshmallow fondant from a friend of mine, and they turned out really cute and they tasted pretty good too! The kids were so happy they could eat the lightsabers!

The Attack of Darth Vader

  My parents came up to help us with the party and to celebrate with Josh! i had this great idea to have my dad dress up as Darth Vader and come down at the end of the party. He was all for it,(such a good Pop-Pop!) so I put on the Imperial March and down comes Vader. Seriously the kids didn't wait till he was off the bottom step, they grabbed their lightsaber and attacked him full force! It was so funny! I was trying to get through to let Vader make his escape but the little Jedi weren't having it! My camera got knocked out of my hand and kicked across the room! Thankfully i was able to get Vader back to safety and my camera didn't lose all the pictures, it was blurry after that though, and completely died 3 days later! Below are the pics of Vader being attacked and then him posing later on with Josh and Logan. ( sorry for the blurriness!)

 after the retreat of Vader, we opened presents and watched an episode of the clone wars while we waited for the parents to pick up! Overall the party was huge success, the kids had  a blast, the parents did too! Josh said I was the best Mommy in the World! And as I tucked him in that night he says "Mom, I wonder what we can do for my party next year?"..............