Star Wars Birthday Party

As much as I love doing family parties, I promised the kids we would do friends parties every other year.  So on their odd birthdays starting at five we try to do a friends party.  This year Tucker wanted a Star Wars themed birthday party.  We decided to make it a Jedi training party.

I always put off planning these parties because I really don't know where to start.  But from the last two I've found out that if I start with the invitations and send them out then I really have no choice but to plan the rest.  For this party invitation we did an evite.  We customized a star wars crawl ( I think it is called).  If you go here, you can make your own and write whatever you want then share them with friends.  Tucker thought it was the coolest thing ever.  This is what our said:

"IN A GALAXY NOT SO FAR AWAY, ON THE DAY OF JUNE 21ST, IN THE YEAR 2007, A BABY BOY WAS BORN. FROM THE BEGINNING HIS ENERGY DREW THE ATTENTION OF THE JEDI COUNCIL, WHO NAMED HIM TUCKER. IN THE 9 YEARS THAT FOLLOWED HIS BIRTH, YOUNG TUCKER HAS BEEN LEARNING THE POWERS OF THE FORCE.


THERE IS A  DISTURBANCE GENERATED BY THE DARKSIDE….  THE VERY FUTURE OF THE JEDI ORDER IS NOW IN JEOPARDY. THE JEDI COUNCIL HAS CALLED UPON YOUNG PADAWAN TUCKER TO SEEK OUT FUTURE JEDI.

YOUR YOUNG PADAWAN’S PRESENCE IS REQUESTED TO COMPLETE JEDI TRAINING ON WEDNESDAY JUNE 22. THE TRIALS WILL BEGIN PROMPTLY AT 3 PM AT THE WOESTMAN  SYSTEM OF THE ... GALAXY, DOCKING BAY (house number). PLEASE ADVISE THE JEDI COUNCIL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE AT 360.555.XXXX AS TO WHETHER YOUR YOUNG PADAWAN WILL ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE OF THE TRIALS.

The girls wanted to dress up and join in the fun.  Leon dressed up too, but mostly stuck with me.  You can see everyone is sporting their new lightsabers.  I made them out of pool noodles and duct tape.  We thought about asking the padawans to bring their own light sabers and us providing extras for boys who don't have them, but then I thought about it and I didn't really want a  bunch of 8 and 9-year-old boys running around with plastic hard light sabers.  So I made these noodle ones for everyone and they were perfect.  Nice and soft but they still looked like light sabers.

The first thing we did as the boys were arriving was an obstacle course to test their agility.

Here is a video of Tucker doing the course before the party.  My kids loved setting this up and planning it out. 

Next we had light saber training.

Once they were ready they got to test their moves on their own storm troopers.  I first had them practice the moves and then let them go crazy and destroy the storm troopers (pop the balloons).

They practiced dodging bullets.

One of their most important lessons was on using the force.  They had to clear their minds and focus all their energy on lifting the garage door.  It was pretty hilarious to see the boys do this.  Some were really focused on how it was opening but they couldn't figure it out (Bob unhooked the electric opening layed on top of our car, so they couldn't see his feet, and lifted it by hand).  Even though they thought it was fake every boy looked pretty serious when their turn came to try to use the force and lift the garage door.  This could also be done with starting gas fireplace or using a remote starter on a car.



Once their training was complete they got to destroy the death star pinata!

Ok, I know it isn't a star wars cake but Tucker wanted to try out this giant ice cream sandwich cake.  It doesn't look as pretty as I hoped but it was easy and the kids loved it.

Right before presents the boys were running around the back yard and Darth Vader sowed up at the party.  They all ran and attacked him.  It was pretty funny and the boys loved it!

The party went really well.  I was nervous because Tucker's party two years ago was pretty crazy.  I think it really helped that we kept them busy the entire time.  And that there was so many Star Wars party ideas all over the internet planning was pretty easy.

Happy Birthday Tucker!