The Force was Indeed with Us

As you know from previous posts, I hosted a Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 3 premiere party last night. Thanks to House Party for providing the party pack and many of you for the suggestions on games and food.

I was told by my sister and a friend that I was crazy brave to invite nine children (and Going Jane's 3 who participated virtually) into my home and host a theme party. A party that was not celebrating a holiday or a birthday. I scoffed at them. I'm an AUNT. Aunt Mimi to be exact. I'm the fun aunt. I'm the one who bought all of my nephews Star Wars shirts to wear to the party! I can handle a 3-hour party, right?

How hard could it be? Put out some food, plan some activities and let them go at it.

Well, I forgot that I'm a nervous party hostess. I worry about the food. I worry that everyone is enjoying themselves. I worry about the kids (boys mostly) killing hurting each other as they wrestle on my rolling ottoman on my hard surface floors! More on that later...

I took Friday off of work to clean the house and prep for the party. It's amazing what you can get done in a day. In addition to cleaning the house and the garage and fixing way too much food, I also got four - that's FOUR - loads of laundry done. On a Friday no less. That's awesome for a working gal who usually has to fit housework and laundry into her weekend.

I have to admit that I took the easy route when it came to decorations and games. I snapped up some of the fun SW party paraphernalia from Wal-Mart, including plates, napkins, favor bags and stickers.

I even re-purposed the plastic tablecloth into a photo background that each child posed in front of at the start of the party. Kind of like those backgrounds on the red carpet. You know, the ones that celebrities pose in front of at movie openings and such.

When the boys walked in and saw the wall, they went nuts. "Yoda, mama. Look, it's Master Yoda!" Too cute.

Don't they look like lil' celebrities!

As you can see that the cool action figures from Hasbro were a HUGE hit from the very start. I meant to hold onto them for a big reveal but the nephews knew they were on the premise so I just went with the flow (that's important at a kids party, right?) and let them each choose an action figure.

House Party also provided some cool tattoos se we applied those as well. See... (it's Boo and Princess from Beyer Beware)

Even some of the big kids adults put them on. Doesn't Anakin look cool on Lil' Sister?

She couldn't quite convince her son/my youngest nephew to get one. This situation may be reversed in another 16 years! However, when she put him in bed that night, he asked for a tattoo!

Captain Rex even made an appearance!

Brat (aka my youngest sister) found the costume at a garage sale recently. It was a hit. We even got one of the nephews to do a classic Capt. Rex pose.

 

Well, we were supposed to play the cool new Galactic Battle Game with action figures but that required each child giving up his/her new action figure to use in the game and I'm sorry that was SO not happening. So, they just had some fun in the garage. My older sis took home the game board because as mother to three of four of my nephews, she has many Star Wars action figures at home and saw the value in the cool organizer on the back of the board.

After some serious playing, it was time to eat! Here are some of my fun Star Wars-themed goodies!

The fun moved inside after we ate and the kids really, really wanted to watch some Clone Wars. Unfortunately, it was about an hour until the new season of the show started on the Cartoon Network. However, I anticipated this situation and had DVR'd a few episodes of last season's show!

Everyone was interested at first...

But as the real show began, only the diehard fans remained.

The others were running in circles around my house chasing each other, spilling their bowls of M&Ms all over my floor and throwing balls into my bedroom while standing on the stairs! All except one, this precious, quiet child was hard at work on the fun activity sheets House Party provided.

By the end of the show, only the two 3rd graders remained! But they LOVED it.

Overall, a great time was had by all. The kiddos enjoyed the festivities and the adults enjoyed some "grown up" conversation among the chaos!

So in the end, it was a success but my confidence on my ability to host a rockin' kids party AND maintain my sanity was sorely tested. I'm still recovering. Thank goodness I have the weekend!

Blog Hopping and Party Prepping Friday!

Forgive me for the very short and sweet blog post today.

I'm actually taking a vacation day (yeah) and prepping for my Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 3 premiere party later tonight.

Baking, cleaning, setting up...oh my! But I'm going to do some blog hopping before I start.

All I can say is...Let the Force be with ME!!




 

Party Planning, Part II: Action Figures, Cookies & Pink

Hello visitors from Follow Me Back Tuesday!

My hostess pack from House Party came last week for my Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 3 premiere party. The season opener for SWCW is Friday night (September 17) on the Cartoon Network at 9 p.m. EDT.

My oldest nephew saw the action figures and went wild!

He honed in quickly on this one..

Captain Rex is his favorite character. He's already laid claim to this one but has to wait until Friday to get it!

I have talked on here already about this party and my baby sister's, aka Brat, baby shower and how I've been planning them. I have had some great suggestions from both old and new friends for both parties.

My college roommate told me that her son's birthday party later this fall is Star Wars-themed and she passed along these games: Pass the Death Star, Feed Jabba the Hut, Jedi vs Sith, Use the Force, Jedi Obstacle Course, and Meteor Shower.

I still need to finalize the menu and the games and the other entertainment for my SWCW party...so stay tuned!

As for the baby shower, it went off without a hitch this weekend. For the food, we decided to forego the cake and concentrate on cookies instead! We had quite the spread and they seemed to be enjoyed by all. Though we realized how easy it is to just pick up a cake from the bakery while we were each making several kinds of cookies!

I even tried to add some flair and used two of these 3-tiered cake stands and put a flower in the base of the middle and top tier.

Add a tablecloth, balloons, wildflowers and you have our decorations!

No shower is complete without some games. You can see the mommy-to-be judging the "babies" the guests drew on paper plates while their eyes were closed! In the background, you can see our Aunt Peggy passing the toilet paper.

No, we didn't use the toilet paper as hillbilly napkins. It was the second game...how many toilet paper panels around is the mommy-to-be's belly! Most people thought she was a bit bigger than she really is. Just in case you are curious, her belly measures 10 panels of Angel Soft toilet paper!


Then it was onto the gifts.

Now, I want to point out that I was sitting to the side the entire time so I couldn't see her face OR I would have told her that she had a piece of hair across her forehead! Oops...sorry Brat, but aren't the boots adorable!

See, there I am off to the side.

Isn't the quote behind her appropriate at a baby shower for a girl? I just know this baby will be smart, strong and bold! She has some great role models to help her down that path.

Of course, she got lots and lots of pink outfits. I think she said she got 25 outfits in total - not all pink, but the majority were!

Brat got 2 beautiful quilts made specifically for her baby girl. The one below was done by a friend of mine's mom after she saw my sis's blog post about putting together her nursery. She matched the colors of the room perfectly, according to my sister after she took it home and put it in the nursery.

So, one party down, one more to go...can't believe I chose to host two parties in one week!

Wordless Wednesday: Random Travel Photos from My Phone

To continue my theme from Monday and to go along with Wordless Wednesday, here are a few random shots from my phone of some of the places I've traveled to over the last three years and some of the sites (and people) I've seen. Enjoy...

Street performer in Chicago a couple of weeks ago...

Another Chicago shot...this one is of the Chinese circus I saw about a year ago.

View from my balcony in Kauai...oh I still miss it so.

From a walking tour of Savannah (anyone else fall in love with that city when they visited?), a shot of Clary's Cafe made famous by a certain book/movie based in the city.

Me during a haunted pub crawl in Savannah...gotta love their open container policy AND that they use 100% biodegradable cups made of corn!

Carrying on the corn theme...I had a little too much time on my hands before a recent flight out of Des Moines, Iowa. Here are some shots of what I found in their gift shop. A bit corny, I admit...

And to finish it up, a shot from our recent Disney vacation...not sure why I had to capture this moment on my phone...

It's Party Planning Time...

I have two very different parties to prep for over the next two weeks.

First, my baby sister (aka the Frugalista, aka the Brat) is having a baby in October so my other sisters and I are throwing her a baby shower.

I know what you are thinking. She's just a baby herself, how can she be having a baby! I still remember going to the hospital to meet this little baby girl that made her way into the world just days before my 8th birthday.

Actually, I'm super-excited for her and her HHBL. They will be great parents to a very lucky little girl. The Brat is having the first baby girl in our family. After having FOUR daughters, my dad hoped, prayed and loudly wished for a grandson for years. He now has 4 wild and crazy grandsons and what does he want? A granddaughter! The man is never satisfied.

So glad that the Brat - my dad's baby girl - is giving him his first baby granddaughter. Won't that be a great photo!

The other party is a kid's party to celebrate the premiere of Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 3.

My nephews are HUGE Star Wars fans. When we went to Disney World this summer, the older nephews were way more excited about the Star Wars weekend than meeting Mickey!

So they are so going to flip over this party! I'm planning to have up to 10 children under the age of 10, as well as at least that many adults, to entertain, feed and corral! The party will finish with the season premier of the cartoon series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

My party pack is going to have some fun party favors, including some Hasbro Star Wars action figures, but I want to carry the theme throughout the food, decor and activities.

Since food is the common denominator of the two parties, that's where I started.

I headed to my local Wal-Mart to grab some supplies! In addition to some fun Star Wars napkins and plates, I grabbed some treat bags for the baby shower. We are planning to serve bite-sized desserts and send a treat bag with some goodies home with everyone.

I want to try some fun decorated cookies/brownies and I'm not all that great with icing, so I wanted to practice before baking for the actual parties.

I decided to do to my test run with bar cookies instead of brownies - basically out of laziness - and used 2 tubes of cookie dough as my base.

Before I got started, I also stopped by my local Kroger's to grab some groceries.

You know the old saying, "don't grocery shop when you are hungry?" It's true!

I grabbed some honey BBQ chicken anytizers from Tyson (never had them before and have to say they are yummy) and one of my favorite quick and easy sides - Ore-Ida Easy Fries! I paired them with the healthy weight Green Giant veggie mix - black beans, edamame, sugar peas and carrots...yummy - and a fountain Coke Zero!

Overall, it was a quick and easy meal, except for one thing...I put my Easy Fries on top of my microwave cover dish (just too lazy to take out the cover dish) and this happened.

Oops! Guess I'm on the lookout for a new cover. At least the Fries weren't affected!

Now back to the party food trials. My good friend over at Going Jane sent me a couple of ideas for Star Wars party food. Her kids are HUGE Star Wars fans - fanatics, really - so she's the perfect gal to consult with. Her first idea was a Darth Vader shaped brownie using a bell-shaped cookie cutter and white icing.

Here's the first attempt...

Not bad, but I'll try again with brownies because the cookies cut awkwardly.

I also tried some butterfly and flower cookies for the baby show. Decorating is definitely not one of my fortes. I'll keep trying!

Any suggestions for food for either the baby shower or the Star Wars party? All are welcome!

What is it with Little Boys & Guns?

Spending the week with my four nephews at Disney World was great.

However, it reminded me that I grew up with three sisters and we spent our time reading, playing house and dressing up our Barbie dolls.

Not my nephews...they are too busy running, playing with action figures & dinosaurs and "shooting" everything that moves (and sits still).

I haven't figured out how little boys learn how to make EVERYTHING (even their fingers) into guns...but they all do it!

It doesn't help that three of my nephews are total Star Wars fanatics. 

For this reason, we planned our last day at Disney World so that we hit Hollywood Studios for the "Star Wars Weekend" festivities.

It was a hoot! Storm Troopers opened the park from the roof of the entrance gates. Star Wars characters roamed the park and posed for photos.

I guess Captain Rex (see below) is my oldest nephew's FAVORITE character (from Clone Wars, I believe) and we just happend to be in line when he came out! Notice the hands on the big guy forming a "gun."

It was great to see the excitement on BOTH of their faces when they met Captain Rex - totally priceless.

In addition to the Star Wars characters, we also met some classic Disney/Pixar characters, including the Green Army Men from Toy Story.

Guess what the boys liked most about those guys?

You guessed right...their guns!

 

 

I don't think they are ready for the Army yet, but you never know...