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Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Carys's Seventh Birthday :: Star Wars

Carys has enjoyed Star Wars since her dad first introduced her to it as a toddler, but she really started to love it when The Force Awakens came out and she was introduced to the Rey character (so suck it to all those die-hard traditionalists that hate those movies, because they're for sure creating a new generation of fans).  She decided a full two years ago that she was going to do Star Wars for her seventh birthday party (she also knows what she wants to do for her eighth!) and full credit to her - she didn't change her mind once.


Since I don't do the yearly letters anymore - MUCH TO MY OWN CHAGRIN - I'm trying to do a little blurb about the kids on their birthday post. Seven-year-old Carys is a tall kid with big hazel eyes, crazy hair (her hair frizzes like nothing else!), and long limbs. She's drop dead gorgeous, I think, with those big hazel eyes and scattering of freckles across her nose. I could look at her all day and not get sick of that perfect face. She can be the absolute sweetest, most generous kid and always (almost always) takes the imitative to share things with her sister.  She's incredibly nurturing - she's a great big sister (when she feels like it) and loves to take Emmeline under her wing, and loves to play with baby dolls. Carys has creativity like no kid I've ever met and is singing, dancing, drawing, writing, imagining, and using that creative energy practically 24/7. Just yesterday she told me she wanted to set up a "Star Wars Educational Camp" where she'd teach other kids all about Star Wars. She's constantly coming up with big ideas like that - business to set up, elaborate role plays, complicated games. She wants to be a YouTube star, but freezes up whenever anyone looks at her.  Ha! She can have BIG emotions and be overly dramatic at times and we're working on creating a mindset where she can realize that it's generally not the end of the world, whatever it is.  And somewhere along the way she lost her listening ears, so it takes about 15 repetitions and threats to get her to listen to my requests...but we're working on it. She still loves to cuddle and loves her mama dearly, to the point where she comes into our room and climbs into bed around 2am every night and just wraps herself around me. She absolutely loves animals and nature and her big goals in life are to "get rich so she can buy all of the green space and forests to protect them" and "to adopt all of the kids from BoysTown that don't have families." She adores learning about history and has been helping my mom clean out their attic, which is chock full of "olden day" memories, and she treasures each little trinket and story that goes with it. She generally adores school and loves to learn. While I always call her my little clone, she massively takes after her dad in one way - math is her favorite subject in school. At the end of kindergarten, she was adding 2- and 3-digit sums and working on fractions. She's very bright (in the 99th percentile on all of her standardized tests!) and reading well above grade level - she went into kindergarten knowing basic words like "cat" and left reading chapter books.


Anyway, obviously I think she's absolutely great. And I love that she has such big opinions on things like her birthday party themes.

Onto the pictures! That I need to post NOW, because while I started this post a year ago, I didn't finish. So I'm going to back date this...because as of the actual date today (July 8, 2019) I'm ready to post her 8th birthday. YIKES. 

So along with her big Star Wars party, we had a little family gathering where she requested donations for our local animal shelter. HER HEART, GUYS! She opened them just like she would regular gifts, and was exclaiming over each item with genuine excitement: "Oh, my gosh - the dogs will LOVE this! This is great for the cats! I can't wait for the animals to get this!"

One might look at these pictures and think to themselves that I should have brushed her hair. I appreciate one keeping those thoughts to themselves, because I assure you it was brushed at one point.



NOW. MAIN EVENT. 

Obviously, decor is my jam and one of my favorite parts of the party. Go big, says I.





These "tie fighters" were delish, BTW.

 



THIS CAKE YOU GUYS. I could dedicate an entire post to this cake. I made it entirely from scratch (marshmallow fondant) and it's basically my crowning achievement as a human and I want a pic of it in my obituary. I made the cupcakes, too (swirly galaxy frosting!)...and the human child we're celebrating...but THIS FREAKING CAKE.



My grandma crocheted all of those Star Wars characters. Aren't they amazing?!?!





I wasn't going to make this a big party. I SWEAR. She had a big Moana party last year, so this was going to be a small party. But then I got an amazing deal on Rey visiting (in exchange for services) and so IT BECAME A BIG PARTY.

So Rey led the girls through some Jedi training, and they each got to train individually with her, watch as she battled Darth Vader, and then battle Darth Vader themselves if they so desired.




















Then it was presents, pinata, and pool. (Honestly I don't know what I was thinking with opening the pool - we had PLENTY to fill the party time. It was completely unnecessary.)






And I have to share these decorations that Carys made. I particularly like the Death Star destroying earth (bottom middle).