zak's crazy star wars(ish) birthday party
On Saturday, my little boy turned 7. SEVEN. How do I have a seven year
old? And a five-and-a-half year old? And an almost-three year old and
ohmygod soon another newborn (WHAT am I thinking?! I can't even blame it
all on a surprise because we WANTED four. But now that we're almost
here... eek!)
Anyway,
my little Star Wars-OBSESSED boy turned seven and
wanted a Star Wars party. I wasn't really keen on a theme - is he too
old now? Don't kids that age just want to run around and play fights and
be crazy? So those two ideas collided immediately and I decided I'd do
the latter with a bit of a minor Star Wars twist to it. Why the heck
not! Here's what we did - glamour and Pinterest-style perfect photo
opportunities did NOT feature at this party. Fun, mess and noise did.
Invitations:
Inspired by Brooke from Inchmark's Valentines
a few years back, these invites were literally created in half an hour
before I had to pick Zak up from school. Thank you to my printer for
running out of ink and printing sooo incredibly badly. There was a
hand-written message on the backs of all invites: sorry for the
incredibly late notice (less than a week) and for the incredibly bad
print quality. As usual, though, the kids just loved the fact they had a
sherbet stick light sabre stuck on a parrty invite and couldn't care
less about the fact they font was splotchy and not all black. GOSH
they're easy to please!
ACTIVITY 1: Jedi Training Camp
So
we started with Jedi Training Camp - a bit of an obstacle course with
all those things little boys (and girls) like to do - whack each other,
jump, shoot things and get wet and messy (if they choose to). We
recently rescued a bunch of tyres from our local waterway - not just
because we're nice citizens, but because we decided to use them to grow
potatoes (clearly we haven't started yet). So they kicked off the course
nicely - the kids had to run through them army-style...
...Next
up was light sabre training - two jedis-in-training whacking each other
with half a pool noodle "light sabre". Well actually the rules were
they could only hit the noodle - not each other. Aside from a few
hiccups and one or two deliberate body smack-downs, they stuck to this
rule and had a ball. The first to fall off the balance beam or lose
their weapon had to move on to the next activity...
...Shooting
the bad guys! Of COURSE. I am pretty sure this was everyone's
favourite. I wish I had splurged on more cans of that crazy string so
they could have just had a crazy string fight - maybe if there had been
half the amount of children (we had around 25!). My kids aren't allowed
to play with guns (toy ones, obviously. Real ones? No worries -
KIDDING). I hate them and they are banned. So what do I do? Why I go and
buy them crazy string guns and SPRAYPAINT THEM BLACK SO THEY LOOK LIKE
PROPER GUNS so they can shoot bad guys. But really, there is no other
chance for them to play with the things so they might as well make the
most of it. What were the bad guys? Well they used to look like this...
I
drew them (copied from Google - thanks Google) with a black pen and did
some incredibly juvenile colouring in with said pen and a couple of
coloured pencils. I also attempted Yoda who turned out a little special
and probably more like a gremlin, but they got the gist. So there were
two goodies and three baddies on cardboard and stuck on metal poles in
the ground. Our mini jedis didn't care too much about Yoda or R2D2's
goodness - they pretty much just shot them all, though Darth Vader and
Darth Maul did cop a LOT of crazy coloured string. I was slightly sad my
pictures were ruined - I quite like the stormtrooper - he'd look pretty
cool on Zak's bedroom wall whenever we get to do his room. Might be a
repeat project...
Jedi Zak is on a mission...
Last
up in the obstacle course was the Dagobah Swamp - a small kiddie pool
filled with Gelli Baff and a couple of pavers as stepping stones. They
had to not fall in the slime - that came later.... I originally wanted
them to swing over this pool on a rope swing but seeing as the only
place we could hang a rope was on the edge of our pergola, it wasn't
safe enough as the pool would be half on concrete - so a no go. This
worked out better, apparently, as Luke Skywalker did walk through
stepping stones in the swamp - Steve told me so. (I wouldn't know. I
always fall asleep in Star Wars. I only recall Han Solo being put in
that freezie thing - I thought they snapped his neck.)
ACTIVITY 2: Alderaan Asteroid Field
So
after the kids get to whack each other (oh wait, the noodle) and then
shoot the bad guys, what is next? Why a food fight, of course. I spent a
couple of hours making a whole bunch of these marshmallow poppers.
Originally I was thinking some kind of sling shot, but found these on
Pinterest. They're paper cups (doubled up for each popper) with the
bottoms cut off and taped with masking tape. Then a balloon is tied at
the bottom and the tip cut off. It's then stretched over the opening and
the kids place a marshmallow into the cup, pull the knot, aim and let
it go! And do they go! I wouldn't put anything other than a marshmallow
into it though! Hello blindness....
They
LOVED this. I was worried about the sticky mess that would be my grass
afterwards but I only picked up about 10 marshmallows all up. I think
Immy did a great job of hoovering in the middle of the battle - and most
of the kids just picked them up and ate them as well. They had an
absolute ball.
Ready. Aim. FIRE!
ACTIVITY 3: Death Star Planet Destruction Zone
Instead
of a pinata this year, we did the same as we did at Zak's family party
last year - lolly-filled balloons the kids have to throw a dart at to
pop. This was the talk of Zak's class before the party had even begun,
apparently, after Zak mentioned it in news and all the kids eagerly
awaiting invites so they could pop a balloon with a dart (how novel!
bless them.)
So
they all lined up with their black and white striped paper bags
(cleverly lined up against the food table so they could keep themselves
amused stuffing faces rather than being bored in a line) and took turns
throwing the dart (heavily supervised by my brother-in-law - a teacher
at the kids school, so no one dared do the wrong thing!). They WERE the
death star and got to destroy a "planet" by popping a balloon.
So
the balloon popped, the lollies fell to the ground, they picked them up
and yay! Done. No fighting over who got more lollies from the pinata
and no painful "only one hit and not too hard because everyone needs to
have a turn" on repeat - also a downfall of pinatas.
ACTIVITY 4: Gungan Underwater World
I have no picture of this because I was the entertainment here. I made up a batch of great bubble mix and
whipped up some string and skewer wands and created some giant bubbles
which the kids ooohed and ahhed over and then had fun chasing and
popping. FINALLY a mixture that actually works and I didn't even have to
use Joy liquid soap (which all the good recipes call for).
ACTIVITY 5: Dagobah Swamp Lucky Dip
As
thank you gifts for the kids, I grabbed a bunch of fun and super-cheap
gifts- moustache and skeleton pencil ends, tiny water pistols, whoopie
cushions and playdough. One of each of these things was paired with a
punch balloon and placed inside a zip-lock bag. They were then thrown
into the slime pool and the kids had to grab them out of the slime.
In
my head, they had to really swish around in there and get dirty finding
a packet. In reality, the slime - although blue - was a very, very
translucent blue and the bags floated, so not quite the cool lucky dip I
envisioned. But that did not stop them from having fun - some still
jumped in!
So I have learned - as I do every party - that kids honestly don't give two hoots about what a party place looks like. What decorations are strung up. If your food matches the theme exactly. Or if there is a candy buffet. I did none of these things, plus my house was a tip as we had bathroom stuff everywhere for our renovation, a room full of sawdust from floor sanding that I didn't bother cleaning up (doors are there for a reason) AND there had been major storms the night before so everything was wet and gross. But they didn't care one bit! As you can see, below. I am sooooo grateful to the weather gods for not raining on the day - it was meant to, but the rain stayed away until nightfall. Phew!
And so that is another party done! Yay!
{All pictures by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home}