Joy School Bday Party

I was not going to have a birthday party for Samuel this year because he had a friend party last year, parties are a lot of work and with the new baby I just feel like I don't accomplish very much. Samuel, however, really wanted to have a Jedi Training party and has been talking about it for weeks. I decided we wouldn't have a friend party but would instead do a little something when it was our turn for Joy School.

I was going to make very simple Jedi costumes for the 4 Joy School boys, but Chuck told me unless they were robes that had hoods it would just be lame. Luckily my friend Shelley had a Jedi robe that I borrowed and from looking at it I was able to sew my own. I told Chuck if he wanted the hoods so bad he was going to have to help - the poor guy always gets sucked into my crazy projects. So he cut out all the robes and hoods and pined them together while I sewed. Between the two of us it actually went fairly quickly.

This was me the night I was making Samuel's birthday cake. I was moving the bowl and managed to drop it. When it hit the concrete floor cake batter splattered everywhere. It was all over me and even splashed onto the upper cabinets. What a mess! I thought about making another cake, but decided I would just use what batter was left. This actually worked out really well because the cake was not as thick.

The R2D2 birthday cake. My mom had this cake pan and a Darth Vader pan from birthdays she had for my brother when he was young. Samuel choose to have the R2D2 cake. Even though I had lots of "help" while I was trying to decorate, it actually didn't take very long to finish and turned out better than I expected.

We had our Joy School lesson then we started the party.

The boys in their Jedi robes.

Chuck training the boys on Jedi moves.

The next part of their training was to knock down "robots" they built with the big blocks. Then we turned them loose and let them practice for awhile on each other.

Blowing up fighters by tossing water balloons.

Blaster training on a storm trooper.

The boys then turned their attention to using their blasters on Chuck. I was laughing watching Chuck run around in his work clothes with a black cape trailing behind as the boys were chasing wildly after him.

Each boy took a turn fighting Darth Vader.

Then they all gained up on him. Chuck was a great sport and really made this party fun for the boys!