Our Jedi Knight turned 5!

Thomas turned 5 two Sundays ago. He was so excited. He's been counting down for months. (Sounds a little like me.) He is obsessed with Lego Star Wars, so naturally we threw a Star Wars party for him. He invited 5 friends to come to the Jedi Training Facility to celebrate his birthday with cake and games. I was still working on decorating the Costco cake when his friends arrived, so they ran outside and played for a bit in the Jedi Temple (trampoline). Michael made some cool Padawan costumes for Thomas, Mason, McKenzie, and all our guests. Their training began by using their lightsabers to keep balloons in the air.

Once they were tired of that, we moved on to saving Princess Leia and Padme from some latex orbs, but three out of the six Padawans (including my own) promptly covered their ears and moaned about how they didn't like popping balloons. So we nixed that game and moved on to the podracers. The boys raced in wagons in teams across the lawn and back, switching places at the turnaround point.

The wagons weren't equal, so we wound up pushing them to make them go faster. No winners, no losers, just plain fun. Next up was the obstacle course. This was the most difficult part of training. The Padawans were split into two relay teams. I don't think many 5-year olds have much experience with relays, because this was a tough crowd. It took a bit for them to grasp the concept. Anyway, they began by racing across the patio on a speedracer,

then shimmying through a tube,

crawling under a balloon compactor,

going over, under, and over some beams,

weaving between galactic stools,

running in between ladder rungs, and then finally balancing their way up a beam to their teammates.

This was by far their most favorite activity. They wanted to do it over and over. At last we went in to open the presents, sing Happy Birthday and enjoy the cake.

The whole party was so much fun. The kids were great and Thomas had such a blast. It was challenging to explain to him afterwards that he was still 4 years old, and that we would be celebrating his 5th birthday as a family on his actual birthday, when he would really be 5. The day after his birthday, he wondered if he was still 5, or if he was 4 again.

(Maybe we shouldn't have used trick candles on his cake!)

Here is a shot of the cake before we put candles in the palm of Yoda's hand.