Joel's 7th Birthday Party Pictures

His party was the loudest two hours and 41 minutes I've endured in a long time. But he enjoyed it, as did his young fellow StarWarriors.

I decorated the dining room as a galaxy. Hung two plastic tablecloths on one wall and put about 30 "stars" on that I used from scrunched-up foil strips I found at the dollar store. It was sort of a precious prep time, as I hung stars and thought about how God has hung every single one of the gazillon bazillon stars in the universe and named every one of them. I simply didn't care if any of mine had names, as long as they didn't fall.

We played "Shooting Stars." The kids, in turn, got 3 shots with Joel's new clone dart gun. If they shot a star, they got 2 Starbursts. If they didn't, they got a "constellation prize" : one Starburst. Everyone's a winner even on the Dark Side at Joel's party. Shooting guns and stomping on bubble wrap simultaneously was loud.

We (adults) also hid candies of all sorts around the universe (the house's first level) and sent the boys on a hunt. They loved it. Running around, they were loud.

Paul and the kids posed with Joel and his buddy, Jesse, while I took a picture. I wish now I had asked for someone else to take on of all of us, but I feel egotistical every time I ask. The one of me with Joel was taken on self-timer after the party. Yeh, sort of egotistical, too, when I think about it, but I do want him to remember that Mom was there.

The Cake: was only going to be one lightsaber, made by cutting a 9x13 into 3 strips and stacking/forming. Not fond of boxed cakes, I called Kelly for a recipe and she obliged, but I had left my 9x13 at Alpha by mistake and had only a laasagna pan to work with. I forgot to adjust the temperature on the oven, and the cake didn't turn out. Tasted good but flat and kinda stiff.

So I ran out and bought disposable loaf pans, cake mixes, powdered sugar, and other junk. While shopping, Joel asked, "Can I have dueling lightsabers, Mom? That'd be so cool!" Last I checked, dueling involves dual weapons--er, tw0....twice the work. But my heart melted at the sight of his dancing blue eyes, and I said yes. I learned that they had to be certain colors--good vs. evil color sabers; hence the blue and red. The singing was loud. The passing of the cake pieces was loud. The conversations were loud. One boy was the resident Screamer. I had to ask him to pipe down a few times.

The day before, Joel had drawn a picture of Darth Vader and a removable lightsaber . He taped it next to the front door and suggested we play "Pin the Saber on Vader." Great idea, except his saber was flimsy notebook paper and wouldn't have survived 7 players' sticking and unsticking it. So Paul made his version, depicting Obi Wan, and used posterboard. They played the game while the Star Wars theme music played loudly on the laptop.

Cute sidenote, a bit embarrassing: Most kids "pinned" the saber in innocuous places in the general vicinity of Obi's hands. However, as one boy started to pin his saber, Joel yells,
"No! Not there, you're sticking it in his----!"
Sarah and I quickly shushed him .

My parents came (with fair, fair warning). If you knew my parents, you would wonder why they would torture themselves like that. Growing up, our house was always quiet. Everyone takes turns speaking, the TV was moderately low when it was on, we didn't listen to music except in our own rooms, or when someone played piano. Big readers don't make big noises. But this was no
reading party. And it wore my parents out in the hour and 41 minutes
they came. (Thankfully they didn't come for the first hour!)


Overall it was great. The next day in school, the Screamer boy
saw me and said, "Mrs. Zubrowski, Joel's party was REALLY fun!"
Screamer's dad joked with me, "Yeh, Thanks for all the red dye
from those Swedish Fish." I said, "What's a matter? Kept you hyper
all night?"

Till the next lunar eclipse, I will keep things quieter around here--and give Kelly's recipe another try. The batter was delish.