The Skylanders threw down at our house yesterday by way of a big, awesome party for Jude. While we have had events in the past for him and they have been parties, I count this as Jude’s first real party. He had a theme, he had a party, but more than anything, he had friends. This is Jude’s first year where he participated regularly with the same group of kids. He was very selective with his guest list and kept his party small, but I’m telling you, it was with good reason. Jude has managed to find the nicest, sweetest group of boys to surround himself with. The kind of boys who know how to play with light sabers and no one really gets hurt. The kind of boys who run and yell and get obnoxious, but never say mean or teasing things that could hurt someone’s feelings. The kind of boys who gave their parents affectionate goodbyes as their parents left. Those kinds of boys. You know, the ones I would gladly have over for play dates in the future because I like them and I want to get to know them better. As a mom, it was great to know that my son really seems to choose friends based on their character; as a party thrower, it was great to know I wasn’t going to have my house turned to rubble and no one would cry by the end of he party.
To be fair, there were girls there as well and they were all sweethearts too. They just spent most of their time in Guinevere’s room twirling around to the Frozen soundtrack, putting on dresses and applying make-up so we didn’t see them as much.

The party was pretty easy. We planned it a little long so we could allow for some free play in the mix. As soon as all the kids arrived they were sucked into the joy of another kid’s toys. We dumped the Star Wars on the ground and there were many battles had in our rumpus room. Eventually the imaginative play with figures was not enough and they needed to get more kinetic. Before I knew it, we had a cadre characters from Star Wars all brandishing light sabers making their way through our house and yard. It was pretty epic.

This was a silly, but fun, game. We flung sticky hands at Skylanders ‘elements’. For every one you collected you got a gold coin, plus, a sticky hand to fling all around your house. We also had a water element game that was like survivor. The kids had to fill up squirters from the hot tub and run back across the patio and squirt the water into a bucket. The first to fill the bucket won. It doesn’t sound particularly creative, but I’m telling you, the kids were so excited to play that game! We will do that one again. The funniest thing to me was that Jude insisted that every kid at the party get a ‘lipstick’ (Chapstick), and the only way to get it was by popping it out of the balloon. So we did that too. We had little kids running around the patio sitting on balloons to pop them. Ha ha!

After Jude opened his presents, and right before the parents arrived, we played pass the present. It’s a lot like a piñata except that instead of stuffing the swag into a hunk of cardboard, then avoiding the bat (harder than it looks, trust me) you wrap a little gift with layers and layers and layers of wrapping paper. In between each layer, you tuck a little prize. The game is played with music and when the music stops, that person gets to unwrap a layer. I love this game because every kid wants to open a present and this game allows for them to be saturated by the time it’s over.

All in all it was a great party. I love that boy of mine and I’m proud of the kid he’s turning into.
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This is Sophie and Gigi. They met at the library when they were both newly two year olds. It’s amazing to see these two beautiful little women. It’s unbelievable to see how much they have grown up!
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For reference: Sophie and Gigi the night before kindergarten in 2009

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