Our dear friend once again made all of the cupcakes. They were all delicious chocolate with cherry filling and a grey icing. Light saber toppers, of course. We are so grateful for her help. Thank you thank you!!!
Our Jedi began by customizing their light sabers and posing to show off their Jedi moves.
These looked better cropped and filtered in Instagram, but somehow they didn't save for me. Alas. The wind picked up and then our backdrop completely gave up on us, so lots of kids skipped this part.
They were a little distracted by pool time. Naturally.
Unfortunately it started thundering and eventually sprinkled rain, which didn't seem to bother anyone. But it meant that we had to close down the pool regrettably early. Conveniently there was a Death Star ripe for destruction. We got everyone's attention by playing the Imperial March over the patio speakers.
Once it was busted and all the toys collected, our Jedi each received a medal for their service to the Republic. I didn't get any pictures of this because I was passing them out, with my Princess Leia pigtails. This event was also cued by the appropriate music from the Star Wars: A New Hope soundtrack. Monkey declined to participate in this event, and has explained his reasoning as both '"there were too many kids and I didn't want to wait in line" and "Ben Kenobi doesn't get a medal because he doesn't destroy the Death Star. And I was being Ben Kenobi."
Many many thanks to Grandpa for hosting all 43 of us! (Eek!) The final count was: 17 kids, 5 infants, and 21 adults (including Monkey and the Zoo Keepers). We would have loved to invite even more, but this was definitely testing our limits. It was kind of hard to get everyone's attention in that crowd, and Monkey was a little late to some things, like blowing out his candles! (For which we played the Darth Maul/Qui Gon Jinn track before singing Happy Birthday.) Also the large part of my plan revolved around letting the kids swim, and when that didn't work out they amused themselves on Grandpa's backyard train and tree swing... with perhaps predictable crashes given the population density. No one was seriously injured and everyone seemed to have a good time. Somehow we ended up with a lot of unclaimed light sabers and over a dozen leftover cupcakes, which is actually a pretty sweet deal.
Happy, happy birthday, Monkey! We love you!
