May The Force Be With You!

This Saturday, we celebrated Will's 5TH BIRTHDAY!!!!

The Theme: STAR WARS

The Location: Wonderwild (a fabulous indoor playground complete with a two story netted maze, giant slides, bouncy mat and more!

The Scene: About 15 kids, wielding inflatable light sabers, chasing down adults dressed as Storm Troopers, while Star Wars music blared in the background!

The Nonsense: A family of four dressed up as Star Wars characters to appease a five year old who thinks role playing is possibly the coolest thing in the world to do.

The Cast: Will as Darth Vader, John as Yoda, Billy as a Storm Trooper, Me as Princess Leia

Will woke up that morning MORE than excited to get started!

Here are our two boys dressed in their Star Wars gear, ready to go!

I can't believe my little boy is FIVE!

Billy did his duty of updating our wall chalkboard to memorialize the occasion...(Will helped :) )

Before heading to the party, we took a few pictures...

I love John's face here...priceless.

As Yoda would likely say: "Stop taking pictures of me in this ridiculous outfit, you will"

Will, "air light-sabering"...

Once we were at Wonderwild, I took a few shots of the set up for Nana Julie and Papa Dave to see...

The Cake (definitely rivaling last years)...

 The Favors: Star Wars tins stuffed with silver intergalactic grass, R2D2 sidewalk chalk, Darth Vader Crayons, and a star lollipop...

 Of course, the invitation...

The balloons...

And the food!

Vader Ade and Yoda Soda (thanks Steph for the recipe!)

Sith Sticks (mini pretzel sticks dipped in green, red, and blue chocolate - thanks Will for helping!)

Wookie Cookies and Ewoks (gummy bears)...

Princess Lays and Padawan Puffs (my favorites! Cheese Puffs on skewers!)

Me with two naive Storm Troopers who have NO idea what they are in for...

 Acting all tough, not realizing they are about to be taken down by a bunch of crazed children...

Special guest Emily arrived not to soon after the party started!

For those of you who don't know, Emily is a 4th grader at Will's school, his car pick-up helper, and I'm pretty sure, his first crush.  (I've blogged about this before!)

Will's bestie Dylan showed up complete with his Storm Trooper Mask...

And then, the chaos commenced!

Rads and Will running up the stairs, light sabers in tow...

I'm not exactly sure what happened just prior to this picture, but it appears that both Radley and Will have been taken out by young Eva...

And if you've never seen a bunch of excited toddlers beating a Storm Trooper as hard as they possibly can all at once, you've not been to a party like ours!  They were screaming and squealing and giggling like crazy!

Meanwhile, Johnny B was hanging out with Nana Rosie in the infant area...licking balls in the ball pit as if claiming his territory...

My cute little turkey :)

Finally, it was lunch time.  Will was surrounded by some of his most favorite friends to ring in his 5th birthday.

Here he appears to be sizing up a Padawan Puff skewer...

I love this picture of Billy, he looks exhausted...as if he has been chased around by 4 foot tall people for an hour and beaten relentlessly with inflatable light sabers ;)

John as usual was all business when it was time for food...

And shortly after lunch, it was cake time!  I LOVE BIRTHDAY CAKES!

I mean, what's not to love about a cake topped with a Darth Vader Candle!!!!!!

Make a wish Will!!!

All the kids got blue mouths from the fondant...which I thought was hysterical of course...

One final family photo before presents...

And one final group photo when we were all tuckered out and ready to head home.

After a quick nap we took a few more family pics...(John, still non-plussed about being in a Yoda smock)

And then Sunday, Will's big birthday present reveal occurred....

A

New

Bike!

Happy Birthday Will!

We love you!!!!