The End of Summer (part 1)

It doesn’t feel like the end of summer. In fact, today it feels like an oven outside. The kids plan to grab their swimsuits and flap around in the pool for a bit this afternoon, so I suppose summer isn’t officially over (and it won’t be in South Texas for quite some time), but the carefree days of being lazy and lounging in the shade of the trees and playing Legos for hours on end are over for awhile as we continue to move along in our new school year.

I thought it would be lovely to share some summer highlights here (so that when the boredom of routine creeps in at some point, we can look back and dream of summer days yet to come), however due to the ridiculous number of photos I took this summer, I’ll be kind and divide this post into parts. ; ) You’re welcome.

Birthdays: We kicked off our end of the school year with Katie’s 3rd birthday, 11 days later we celebrated Joey’s 9th birthday Star Wars style, and 11 days after that we celebrated a sweet little 5th birthday for Andrew.

Katie’s birthday included a visit from Granny and Pappy (with a quick trip to the mall with Granny for some new shoes and cute summer clothes) plus a whole lot of pink, some doll play and new make-up (the boys were just as enamored with the pretend make-up kit as Katie was…don’t let them deny it).

Joey’s birthday was celebrated with a Star Wars party. We used quite a few of the ideas from here and tweaked a few and ended up with an awesome party. The party was set-up as a Jedi Training Course where each padwan had a checklist of tasks to complete in order to earn his Jedi vest.

First they had to escape from the Death Star, which was an obstacle course that included navigating through storm trooper laser fire (red string strung up around the playset), wading through the trash pit (the pool filled with recycled trash), shooting down the tie fighter (using rubber bands to shoot at a poster of the tie fighter), bowling down storm troopers (literally bowling), and bombing the death star (tossing a ball into a bucket).

After that, they had to Build a Droid using cut-out pieces and glue sticks.

Then they were off to complete Light Saber Training (pool noodles decorated with duct tape).

Next was the Design a Starfighter station where each padwan had to use Perler beads to build their own starfighter.

After building a starfighter, the padwans headed off to Fight in the Jedi Bubble Wars.

Finally, each padwan was expected to head over to the Intergalactic Photo Booth where after having his/her photo taken, they received their official Jedi vest. Clearly the photo booth was quite a bit of fun…even for the adults! Having each received their Jedi vest, the Jedis engaged in a light saber duel (although I’m not sure if duel actually means only two people fighting but Joey insisted that this was the correct way to describe the chaos that took place…Uncle Dustin would probably describe it more as a mob attack). The Jedis joined together for one last mission (of which I have no pictures!) where they had to follow a trivia question scavenger hunt in search of the Kylo Ren candle. Once they found it, they were able to refuel with cupcakes and Vader-Ade (lemonade). Exhausted from their training and missions, they settled in to watch Joey open his gifts. Andrew’s birthday included lots of Legos, safari equipment and cupcakes along with an afternoon of playing with Walker and Gavin followed by a hot dog dinner (his favorite!) and movie night (he chose a new movie he received for his birthday, The Peanuts Movie).