May the Force be with you. Charlie turns 7.

The birthday boy on his birthday with his best buddy.

 We did A LOT of celebrating this year for Charlie's birthday.  We had 3 separate events and they were ALL so much fun!  Daddy was unfortunately out of town on Charlie's birthday but Nana came over for dinner, hot dogs per the boys request and cake from Casa Dolce...yum!

Then the following Saturday we went all out.  First we had a handful of school friends over for a mega STAR WARS party.  All boys and one very sweet little girl :)

I made her these cute little Leiah buns (thanks Christina for the idea!!)

Trent made the coolest jet packs out of 2 liter bottles and light sabers out of foam and colored duct tape.  They were a HUGE hit!

We started the party by building spaceships out of LEGOS which the kids were more then happy to do and probably would of kept at it for longer if I didn't have an agenda and time constraints.

Then we headed them downstairs to an obstacle course, ie Jedi Training.  They had to jump through hot lava,




and then climb over an galactic asteroid (2 chairs covered in a grey table cloth), and then crawl through the slimy green swap (crawl through a tunnel that was covered with a green table cloth).  The kids loved it!  Then they headed back upstairs to design their Jedi wrist bands.  I used an old roll of wrapping paper and cut it into bracelets.  I spray painted some old wooden blocks gold and cut out the lets JEDI in foam and made my own stamps.  The kids stamped with ink, JEDI on their wrist bands and then decorated them with stars.

Now they were true Jedi's and had to return to the basement and battle the Stormtroopers that had invaded our home. 

I drew Stormtrooper faces on white helium balloons and Trent taped them to the basement floor.  The kids went NUTS!!!

Even Daddy had a good time!

Then it was time for cake, presents and for all little Jedi's to go home.

We were awaken bright and early by Tommy who was dressed in his Sunday school clothes, v-neck sweater on backwards and all, which he insisted on wearing backwards the entire day.  When asked why he was so dressed up he simply said with his shy little grin, "I wanted to look good for the party".  Adorable, Thomas, you are adorable!!

Then came round 3!  That same afternoon, call us crazy, we had our family and family-like friends over for our traditional birthday party.

Darth Vader even showed up!  Tommy took one look at her and said "Nana!"....it was so funny!

We had a Darth Vader pinata

The kids made paper R2D2s and Galaxy Playdough (black homemade playdough and they added glitter to it)

And then we had to have cake AGAIN!

Light Saber cupcakes

C3PO Hydro-Oil

 Trent made a lot of really cool graphics for the party.  He made the water bottle covers, the signage for the center piece, Edible Ewoks that were used with gummie bears as a favor and a light saber sign for light saber favors that were pretzels dipped in red and blue chocolate.  He also made the invitation and the sign for our Yoda Soda, green sherbert and 7up.

I totally cheated on the cake this year.  With everything else that we did to prepare, I just wasn't into making a big cake.  So the night before the party I called the local market and went and bought an undecorated cake straight from their freezer.  They sold me a bucket of frosting and I was off.  Unfortunately, they didn't give me enough frosting to cover anything but the top.  Thankfully, I had left over grey frosting from the cupcakes and a can of chocolate ready made frosting in the pantry.  Tada!!! Charlie picked Anakin's Skywalkers flying machine to put on top, I threw miniature R2D2s and his friends around the cake and called it a day.

I think that Trent and I had a lot of fun putting all of this together for Charlie.  But the most important thing was that Charlie had a great birthday surrounded by old and new friends and people that love him.

I can not believe that our boy, our baby, is 7 years old!!

Dearest Charlie,

We love you beyond the moon and back.  You are the sweetest, funniest, most loving boy and we are blessed to have been chosen to be your family.

Happy Birthday Charlie Barley Bear!