Happy Birthday, Mitch!

On April 22, Mitch turned 5! I can't believe it! He's such an amazing little guy. When he was younger, Gary and I were very curious to see what kind of personality characteristics he would take on. With him sort of being the oldest, and sort of being a middle child (with Jack and Alex not living with us full time). He has proven to absolutely be an "oldest child"! Oh...and he has an answer for everything. He's never wrong. He'll will argue his point endlessly to try to get you to agree with him...even if he is dead wrong! It's cute sometimes, and it will probably serve him well later in life, but it sure can be exhausting sometimes. He's very social. He loves to be with other people, and he loves to make new friends. He is at that difficult stage where he doesn't know if he wants to be a big boy like Jack and Alex or a baby like Jake. I know in a couple of months he's going to start kindergarten and he will grow up so much and he won't be a baby at all anymore.

Now, onto his party. I know this won't come as a shock to very many of you, but he wanted a Star Wars party. So, I decided to go all out this time. I scoured the internet for ideas, and found all kinds of wonderful ones!

When the kids arrived, they can info the dining room and got their Jedi robes or Princess robes and light sabers. The robes were made by just folding over a piece of fabric and cutting the neck out of it. Then I tied a cord around their waists. The light sabers were pool noodles cut in half and black duct tape wrapped around one for the handle.

Here's the table where we had it all set up.

The birthday Jedi!
Two daddies and their babies (born the same week) On the left, Leroy and Baby Christian. On the right, my brother, Josh, and Baby Becca.

Give the kids light sabers, and fights will begin! I definitely think they were the hit of the party!
Once everyone was there, and they had a chance to "train" with their light sabers, Darth Vader (played by Jack) invaded the party.

The kids all attacked Darth Vader (and yes, the dads insisted that the TV be on during the party...as you see in the background)

The Jedis and Princesses chased Darth Vader out the front door, and wanted to keep going after him. We had to guard the door and physically keep it shut so they wouldn't chase him all the way outside.

After they chased off Darth Vader, we played "Save Princess Leia". We dumped out a bunch of balloons and the kids had to pop them and find a picture of Princess Leia that was in one of the balloons.

Unfortunately, I think the balloons should have been cheaper balloons. They were a very strong and the kids had a really hard time popping them!

Then we played a Star Wars version of Pin The Tail on The Donkey.

After the games, we moved onto cake. Yes, I made the cake!

And...another picture of a very happy birthday boy! It's so rare that pictures of Mitch showing pure joy like these!

Blowing out the candles (as if you really needed a caption for that)

I probably should have thought about the mess the black icing would make. Oh yeah, and we had edible light sabers also. They were pretzel sticks dipped in red and green candy melts. Tabitha is eating one in this picture, while Jake is covered in black icing, and Savannah is trying to contain the mess at this table. In case you don't already know, Savannah is our little teenage neighborhood babysitter, who Mitch is in love with! Mitch absolutely insisted on inviting her, and she came. Isn't that so sweet?!

After the cake, we busted the Death Star pinata (actually a soccer ball painted with silver paint). We had planned to do this and hopefully a couple of other things outside, but it was pouring down rain, so we had to do the pinata in the garage.

After all of the chaos calmed down, Jake got some snuggle time in with Mimi.

And some coloring in with Uncle Josh

And Leroy and Christian took a nap!

It was a great party! The kids all had a wonderful time, and it was so much fun to watch them. There were a whole lot of kids in my house, but they were fantastic kids, and I would do it all over again...even though my mom and my sister in law, Leah, thought I was crazy! :)

Oh yeah...and a special thanks to Lindsay...always my event photographer! :) She even did a little photo shoot with Becca.