Star Wars Party & Cakes

Star Wars Party!

For my kiddo's birthday, we had a Star Wars Party.

Each child went through several stations throughout the party to go from Jedi Padawan Learner to Jedi Knight.

First, in the invitation, I asked each guest to wear a white shirt and khaki pants.  I made everyone a Jedi Padawan Learner Vest and a braided clip on hair piece.  As each kiddo went through Jedi training, they received the rest of their Jedi Padawan gear.

For their vests, I used a large bolt of brown felt.  I cut it into a rectangle.  Then for half the rectangle, I cut a vertical slit down the front.  Then I gathered some brown rope, and tied it around their middle.

For the clip on hair braid, I bought a wig from the dollar store.  I cut it into sections.  I braided a thin section, tied off the end with leather rope.  I hot glued the other end to an alligator clip I purchased at Michael's.  Then I simply clipped the piece to the back of their hair.  

At their first station, we discussed some of the things Jedi Knights needed to learn how to do and things they needed to know.  Mostly we talked about being kind toward others, protecting others who couldn't protect themselves, and giving assistance to others without being asked, and without asking for a reward.  At the end of this talk, I handed out their Jedi Padawan Gear.

At their next station, each person received an Ewok.

I gathered "donations" of teddy bears from friends, from the Dollar Store, and from Good Will.  I popped them all in the wash (JUST to make sure no one was going home with unwanted guests of the insect variety).  Then I made each Ewok an Ewok headdress.  These look a lot harder to make than they were.  I bought some leather-looking fabric at JoAnn's.  Again, I cut the fabric into a rectangle, folded it in half length wise, slid the fabric on top of the bear's head, then put safety pins on either side to secure it in place.  I sewed up one side, securing the front of the headdress to the back, then sewed up the other side so that the headdress was quite tight against each bear's head.
 Then, with sharp scissors, I felt for the bear's nose, and cut a small circle around the bears eyes and nose.  Then, again feeling around, I cut a small slit for each ear, and pulled the ears out.  They turned out SO cute!!!

Then each Padawan Learner took their Ewok through the lands of Endor on an obstacle course.  This task was to help teach the Jedi Padawans the importance of caring for others and protecting them at all costs.  They got to take their Ewoks home with them at the end of the day.

After Ewok training, we refueled;  eating pizza, and having a little cake.

I went to Build A Bear and got a sound piece (the round white speaker in front).  When you pressed the button, the button would play the Star Wars theme song.  How cool is that? His cake played the Star Wars theme song!!!

I made him a Death Star Cake for his family party a few days later.

After refueling, the Jedis headed back to the workshop to build their own light sabers.  We went to Home Depot and picked up several PVC pipe ends and pieces, and each person built their own light saber.  For the saber part, I bought pool noodles and attached them to the ends of their PVC hand grips.  Sorry I didn't get a better picture.

Then, after a brief training on best light saber fighting techniques (and how to make proper light saber sound effects), the Jedi Knights took balloons and played with their light sabers for the rest of the party.

No one wanted to go home.  At one point, several of the parents ended up with their Jedi Padawan Learner's light sabers, and a second round of duels ensued.  What fun!!

Each kiddo took home their padawan braided hair clip, their Jedi Padawan Learner Vest & belt, their Ewok, and their homemade light saber as party gifts.

All in all, it was a fun little party!

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The Magic of Santa: Passing on the Torch

The Magic of Santa

Passing on the Torch to the Next Generation

Last night my husband told me that our 12 year old son was asking some tough questions about Santa. He's ready to know the truth. His friends all know and have been sworn to secrecy, but he's a die hard fan, and wants so very much for the magic of Santa to be real.

Several years ago, one of his friends at school told him about the Tooth Fairy. My son didn't believe the boy, so his friend told him that the next time he lost his tooth, he shouldn't tell us, and then he should wait to see if the Tooth Fairy brought him something. Sure enough, the Tooth Fairy didn't come.

Once I found out that he "knew" about the Tooth Fairy, I shared the magic of the Tooth Fairy with him, and entrusted him with the secret, and told him that now that he knew, he was now gifted with the magic to be the Tooth Fairy for the next generation. I told him he could NEVER tell anyone, that the magic must be kept sacred, until his own children were ready to take on the magic and responsibility for themselves. I told him if he put his tooth under his pillow one last time, the Tooth Fairy would leave him one final present. I left him a crisp $20. The next morning, he came downstairs with a sparkle in his eye, and gave me a big hug.

So now that it's time for the magic of Santa to be revealed, I am so very, very sad to see this part of his childhood taken away. I want him to keep on believing forever and ever. I love the magic of Santa, and I hope that I can pass on that love to him. I found a letter on Pinterest that I saw, I borrowed a few of their phrases (thank you! I tried citing their pin here, but keep getting a bad link.  So thanks to you who wrote to Ryan and inspired my own letter to my son. ), and I wrote him a letter:

We watched him read the letter, and seeing his eyes fill with tears nearly broke my heart.  But at the end, he said, "I thought so, Mom."  And then he started crying.  Then he gave us each a big hug and said, "I'm so glad you told me."  And then he started laughing about all the little hints and clues he had figured out along the way.  And then he cried a little bit more.  And then he hugged us one more time.  And then he left.  

I'm so sad it's over.

Sniffle

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Raising teenagers -- it's all about the math

Raising Teenagers

It's all about the math

So, as is normal in the lovely Pacific Northwest, it rained on Friday.  Rain in Oregon is nothing like rain in the midwest, or even on the East Coast. Here, the rain is more like walking through a foggy cloud.  It's a wet misty drizzle.  Or, as we like to call it, a mizzle.

And even though Autumn has finally settled in (if you don't count today's beautiful, sunny 75 ˚ day), and starting tomorrow the rains are coming to stay until, oh, say, mid May, the children are in complete denial.  On Friday, the rain rain rain came down down down, so I sent them both to school with their raincoats.  They were prepared.  I was a good mom.  I was.  Really.

And yet, when we picked up our daughter at the end of the school day, her raincoat was no where in sight.  Standing in the drizzle, her hair growing bigger by the moment, she looked less like the dazzling, well-put together fabulous young woman we dropped off, and more like a half-drenched, pathetic dog.

Thank you to: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nerdvin/372908560/in/photostream/

When we asked why she wasn't wearing her coat? Her answer all came down to math.  "Mom, I think you underestimate how lazy teenagers are."  Yes.  I guess we did.

As she dripped dry in the back of the car, we got in the car line to pick up our son.  Not long after, he came trotting out to the car, hand over his head, raincoat tucked under his arm, trying to avoid the raindrops.

As he dripped all over the back seat, buckling himself in, we asked him why he wasn't wearing his coat.  His answer also came down to math.  "Mom, I think you grossly overestimate my common sense."

Yes, raising teenagers all comes down to the math.

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Girl Scout Cookies

It's that time of year once again.  Yes!  It's Girl Scout Cookie Season!  Yay me!!

I'm a proud supporter of the scouts.  After all, when I was a wee lass a gajillion years ago, I, too, was a scout.  My mom, in fact, was the "Cookie Mom."  Our troop would pre-sell Girl Scout Cookies and then, like a miracle, one day I would come home from school and our entire garage would be filled with boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of Girl Scout Cookies.

As a fat child -- a fat child who loved and adored Girl Scout Cookies, this day was second only to Christmas morning.  I truly believe the Cookie Angels descended down to bless us, making up for the thousand times my mother casually waltzed down the grocery store's cookie aisle, ignoring the Oreos, Peanut Butter Nutter Butters, and Chips Ahoy only to put a measly package of Fig Newtons in our cart.

Fig Newtons are a favorite cookie of my mother.  And evidently a fav of my husband as well.  But for me, Fig Newtons taste like year old graham crackers that have moved so far past stale they have taken on an entirely different consistency -- then, they've merged and melted onto year old raisins that have gone funky and now have a weird, well, crunch.  Nasty.  Nasty and, what's worse, not worth eating.  Buying Fig Newtons, I must admit, must have been a brilliant ploy on my mother's part because they truly were the only cookie that could remain on the cupboard shelf untouched by any of my siblings.  (I believe it's necessary to point out that this is the same woman who would buy Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies, take them out of the box, and then slip the plastic wrapped goodness between the mattress and box springs in her bed to hide them from the rest of us.  The fact that I know where my mother kept the LDOCPs is a testament to my perfectly honed hunting skills.)

If my mother ever did, in fact, buy Oreos or Nutter Butters or Chips Ahoy, you could count on one hand the number of seconds that passed between the time my father unsealed the package, and the time that the locusts, er, um, I mean my siblings and I, descended and systematically devoured the entire contents.

But I digress.

So back in the day when I was a Girl Scout, the instant I arrived home from a troop meeting with my Girl Scout Cookie pre-order sheet, I ran as fast as I could on my chubby, not-even-remotely-little legs across the street and three houses down.  That house was owned by a single man, a doctor by trade, who spent altogether too much time away from his cats drinking Diet Rite and working on premature babies at the hospital.  I loved him.  If I caught him before any of the other Girl Scouts in the neighborhood, I was guaranteed a huge sale.  You see, my folks did not believe it was "fair" to take my order form to work with them to sell my cookies for me on my behalf.  So I had to hoof it around the neighborhood selling door-to-door the old fashioned way.  Kinda like trick or treating, but not in October, and I didn't get any candy.

One time, when I lugged my little red wagon filled with the Good Doctor's cookie order over to his house, he answered the door, and the look of glee that crossed his face brought such joy to my heart.  At that moment, I understood with crystal clarity why Santa Claus works so incredibly hard all year round to make all those toys -- to see that look on another person's face.  The Good Doctor wrote me a check, and I spent the better part of forever unloading the millions of boxes he had ordered.  I thanked him and headed home, red wagon in tow.  About three steps out, I opened the check to make sure he had filled it out correctly, and my jaw dropped to the floor.  The Good Doctor had written a check for $100!!  I had never seen so much money in my entire life.  I sobbed uncontrollably.  I had never felt so happy in my entire life.  I vowed right then and there that should I ever grow up and own a house, I would buy $100 worth of Girl Scout Cookies from the first Girl Scout who ever came to my door selling cookies.  And I have lived up to that promise.

I am pleased to say I have passed my love for Girl Scout Cookies down to my children.  When my son was 14 months old, I sat him down and asked his three year old sister to watch him for a moment.  When I returned no more than a minute later, my daughter, a half eaten Tagalong in her hands, with the innocence of an angel asked, "What's so funny, Mommy?"

Well, you see, my son (my baby.  My 14 month old baby.  Who had maybe eight teeth at this point in his brand new life) had found his way over to the Thin Mints.  He had a sleeve of the cookies in his hands, and, like an ear of corn on the cob, he had raised the sleeve to his mouth, gnawed through the plastic, and sampled the goodies inside.

To this day, I flash back to this image each and every time I eat Thin Mints.

And as I sit here alone on a rainy Saturday afternoon, PMSing, surrounded by 23 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, my hubby gone on a business trip for the next five days, I truly believe I should not be judged for having eaten an entire box of Tagalongs all by myself.  

After all, my baby gnawed his way through plastic to eat Thin Mints.

Just sayin'.

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The Jackness Monster

So my son has had this nasty cold for the last few days and, as he was highly contagious, I kept him home with me.  Yay me!!  Sometimes it can get rather quiet here at home when they're all at school and at work, and I'm left here with nothing but the blank computer screen staring me in the face, wondering why oh why oh why I haven't sketched out the outline for manuscript number three.  (In case you were wondering, the first is now collecting dust bunnies in the bottom drawer of my desk, and the second is anxiously awaiting competition results.  Cross your fingers!)

The *real* reason I haven't sketched out the outline for my next manuscript is because I'm a bit kerfunkled.  I've decided to slow things down in this next manuscript and only kill off one person.  Seems fair.  I killed off so many in the last one that I can't remember exactly how many ended up dead by the end.  But that's more of a memory problem than a killing off people problem.  Easy for me to say, I'm not one of the people I killed off at the end.  Whew!  So whilst manuscript number 3 is percolating, I'm procrastinating by doing such things like binge watching Netflix tv shows and eating chocolate by the pound.  Just don't tell my kids.

But alas, for the last few days I had company, and I had to actually do something.  Otherwise he'd sit around and play Minecraft all day.  And he might just actually think I don't do things all day.  Which, let's be honest, he probably doesn't think about because which little kids actually sit around and wonder what their parents do all.day.long whilst they're at school?

So we decided to tackle his Valentine's Day Box crafty project.  Each student in his class has been asked to decorate a box in which the other students will place their Valentine's Day cards to one another.  It's all very "fair" and "even" and "nice," compared to when I was a kid.  Back then, in my day, a million, billion years ago, we'd spend the entire day at school decorating our boxes.  Then the teacher would turn off the lights, and we'd all stand up, pick up our lovingly made Valentine's Day cards (mine were always home made, usually by folding a piece of red construction paper in half and cutting an arc, so that the heart would be evenly shaped), and we'd walk slowly up and down the aisles between the desks, and secretly try to put our Valentine's into other children's boxes and envelopes without anyone else seeing whose envelope or box we were putting our Valentine's Day card into.

Only those really good friends who were worthy of our Valentine's received them.  I'm sure the teachers envisioned equal quantities of Valentine's Day cards in every box and envelope, with love shared around, and all of us holding hands and smiling with pinked cheeks, ducking our heads to the ground, looking a bit like the cupid cherubs from Disney's "Fantasia."  What happened in reality was that all the pretty girls got scads and loads and tons of Valentines, their boxes and envelopes filled to the brim, stuffed to the gills.  The popular boys also received Valentine's.  They responded in one of three ways: (a) they either strutted around like puffed up, proud peacocks, bragging about how many they received.  Or, (2) they faked an embarrassed look, but then strutted around like a puffed up, proud peacocks.  Or (c), or they tried to hide, because they were mortified that someone had demonstrated some sort of affection toward them.  So all the pretty little girls and all the popular boys had a wonderful and delightful Valentine's Day.

The rest of us, well, it wasn't so great.  We did, in fact, receive a few Valentine's.  Sometimes three.  Maybe four.  But it was quite clear who was popular and well loved, and who wasn't.  The haves and the have nots.  Too bad I didn't have Glinda (aka GaLinda) to help me be Popular!  I wanted to be Pop-You-Lar!  She could have sung me the song, like she sang to Elphaba, and I, too, could have a "personality dialysis."  Alas, such was not the life for me.

Things eventually changed over the course of my elementary school years, and eventually we were all "required" to provide a Valentine for each and every one of our classmates, and not just to the pretty and popular kids.  We bought a small box of Valentine's Day cards at the drug store with nifty and neato little catch phrases.  We signed each card, and then we folded them on the perforated cardboard lines, tore them apart, and then voila, 30 identical Valentine's Day cards.  Now was that so hard?  No one spent more than $1.59 at the local drug store.  No one bought chocolates, or added candy, or attached fun-sized candy bars with their loving sentiments.

But I digress.

So my son and I set to task making his Valentine's Day box.  In my head, I had visions of sweet heart-covered shoeboxes, construction paper hearts folded in half and lovingly cut out to make even-shaped hearts, pink and white construction paper, the works.  Alas, he had a different vision in mind.  I think his idea may have been Pinterest inspired.  However he got the idea, I think it turned out wonderfully well.

So here is the Jackness Monster.  The sign on the left says, "The Jackness Monster."  The sign on the right says, "Please Feed the Monster."  (That is, in case you were curious.)

The Jackness Monster

As he was cutting out the mouth hole, he informed me that he thought it would be big enough for full sized candy bars.  As my jaw fell to the floor, he said, quite matter of fact-ly, "Some of the kids got carried away last year, Mom.  It was crazy!"  And then he grinned mischievously and went back to work, trying not to saw off his thumb.

Then here is a picture of the Valentine's gifts he's giving to his friends.  He poured over all the Pinterest ideas for at least seven minutes (a lifetime for him!) and chose this one.  The mouse is made out of two Hershey's kisses, two googlie eyes, a pink piece of paper cut into ears, and a pink ribbon tail.  The "swiss cheese" has heart shaped holes, and he wanted me write, "It's 'mice' to know you."  Cute.  Even if I do say so myself.  He asked me if I would please be so kind as to put them together for him.  As I was, at the time, recovering from surgery, it seemed easy enough of a task for me to accomplish whilst being completely blitzed out of my mind on pain meds.  Er, um, I mean, I was gently coddled into comfort by the medicinal effects of prescribed pain medication.  Probably not a great idea to be using a hot glue gun while heavily medicated, but hey, I suffered no burns, and the mice all turned out okay.

It's "mice" to know you.

So that's it for today's blog.  Must go buy milk and bread and brace for the stormageddon.  (Not to be confused by Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All, the little baby from Doctor Who.)  They're closing down the schools early in anticipation of the Big Storm, and now I'm going to miss the Toad the Wet Sprocket intimate concert for which we won tickets!  Boo!

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