Daniel's 4th Birthday

This year for Daniel's birthday, he knew exactly what kind of party he wanted to have - STAR WARS!  His actual birthday fell on a Tuesday and we made sprinkle pancakes and sang him Happy Birthday but he was very confused that he was going to school and that there wasn't a star wars party for him there.  The whole concept of the party being a different day was a little lost.  That night for dinner, he got to choose wherever he wanted for dinner and he chose McDonald's.  Mostly just to play on the playplace.  Guess we should be grateful he's so cheap now? For his party, I found some fun invitation wording that I just took a little from here and a little from there and pasted it together.  I took out our address and phone number on here cuz you never know but I think the invites came out pretty cute.

Then for the party activities, I found a few ideas.  The kids would go through "Jedi Training," completing tasks.  Task one was making their light sabers.  Just pipe insulation that we covered in colored duct tape.  I only gave them choices of blue and green. 

Task 2 was practicing using their light sabers using the training orbs (aka spray painted wiffle balls hanging from trees).  That was highly entertaining to watch!

Task 3 was the agility training.  They had to climb the ladder, go down the slide, "tight rope" walk a line of duct tape, jump through 2 hula hoops, then pull down one of the streamers.  All while holding their light sabers.  We only have one picture of that but that was...uh... we'll say interesting.  Maybe too many steps for 4 year olds to follow.

After they completed all 3 tasks, they got Jedi robes (thanks to my mom and FAB who made them since sewing's not my thing!) and then it was on to the final task - destroying the Death Star.

Now I fully intended for this pinata to look like the death star but they of course do not carry a death star pinata anywhere so we had the task of spray painting a baseball pinata instead and the red would not cover so the fact that it even came out silver was quite the accomplishment (thank you Brent for painting it since being preggers and all it wouldn't have been a good idea for me to do it!).

This is obviously not every present he got, because let me tell you he made out like a bandit.  A lot of our pictures didn't come out very good.  Time for a new camera.  But he got clothes, Star Wars toys, Star Wars legos. a Cars bike helmet, and 2 light sabers (among other things!).

For the cake, Daniel insisted that he wanted a Darth Vader Cake.  I was fine with that - as long as there's a pan, I can follow directions.  However, the pan was not being produced again until this summer and the ones that I could buy on Amazon, etc. were going to cost about $40.  Not worth it.  I convinced him to have a light saber cake instead, thinking "I can pull that off - it's a bunch of straight lines so how hard can it be?"  The result was a totally ghetto light saber cake.  Good thing he's 4 and didn't realize that it sucked!  It tasted good though!

When all of Daniel's friends left and it was just family, Clayton put on Brad's Darth Vader helmet and red light saber and Daniel put on his Jedi robe and green light saber and they began a battle in our living room.  It was so freaking funny.  I tried to do the video but I'm special so all you have is pictures.  Clayton kept stopping the fight to push the buttons to make the Darth Vader breathing sounds on the mask.  It was hilarious.  The party was quick but the boys all had a good time so that's what matters right?  Until next year!