Let the Celebrations Begin

It occurred to Noah at lunch on February 28 that the following day was MARCH. He jumped out of his seat, ran to the calendar, changed the page to March and started singing 'Happy Birthday to me...' And he has taken every opportunity since then to remind us that SOMEONE we know will be turning 5 very soon. Well, his month-long celebration kicked off last night when he had his friend Eric over for a Star Wars sleep over. When Noah decided he wanted another Star Wars party he was pretty certain we needed to do it all the exact same as we did last year.

Surprisingly, he was pretty receptive to the idea of something different.

I think we are pretty lucky that he loves sleep overs with Eric so much. He requested pigs-in-a-blanket which I could totally do. I included Jedi Juice and tried some homemade 'Light sabers'.

(Again, I am lucky that 5 yr olds - and younger - are pretty easy to please.) With a couple of different parties this year, I wanted to do something different in the way of cakes.

This time around was a cupcake tower complete with StarWars characters for each boy.

And can I just mention that I am ever amazed with the amount of mess a tiny little cupcake can make?

The boys did bouncing, bouncing, and more bouncing.

There was the inevitable LEGO-athon.

And, of course, presents.

Then it was time for THE event of the evening. We had told him all along that you had to be 5 to watch 'Star Wars'. Even though he never really put two and two together, we decided it was time. So daddy spent the last week having to watch the movie (Episode IV) to censor a 45 minute portion for the party. (Poor daddy, right?) He decided to start at the beginning. He had made a list of parts he wanted to edit out but had some VCR difficulties and had to just fast forward or cough really big at parts instead.*tag* (That means it is daddy's turn to take the reins.)
I don't know who was looking forward to the event more but I was pretty excited about it. As it happens I was essentially the same age as Noah when my Grandmother took me to the theater to see this movie. Noah didn't appear quite as excited as I might have expected but that might be in part due to the fact that Noah started asking about watching a Star Wars movie at dinner time. So the unveiling was pretty low key but it was finally underway. I read the opening intro to the Noah and Eric but I don't think they were all that interested in the plot. At this point I just sat back and watched to see how they reacted to the movie. It's hard to explain what happened. I'm not sure that Eric said anything the entire time, though I don't know that he actually watched all of it. (I think maybe he might have been underwhelmed by the 1970s special effects. Notice his expression in the video. It didn't change the whole time we watched the movie.) Noah on the other hand could not keep quiet.

At each major scene change he would ask what was happening. ""Is this when the Jawa's show up?" "Where are the Sand People?" A bit of background. While we had not yet let Noah watch any Star Wars up to this point we had listened to the soundtrack. A LOT! And while we listened to the sound track I was asked about every ten seconds, "What's happening now?". So I suppose I must have answered those questions with too much detail. Anyhow it was pretty cool to see him watch it. I think his favorite part had to have been when all of the droids were on display. He loves robots. Forty-five minutes of the original movie doesn't really get you that far necessarily. I ended the viewing just before they arrived at the Cantina. Too bad really, I know that the Cantina will probably be one of his favorite parts. Check back for Noah's review of the second installment of Star Wars - A New Hope. Surely the space battles will get him going, right?

One party down, two more to go...