Kyle's Star Wars Birthday Party

If you know Kyle, you know he loves Star Wars and he is quite the expert. I took him along on one of Annabelle's play dates once and before I knew it, he had given another poor mom an earful of useless Star Wars information that she never wanted to know. I sometimes wonder if he thinks he really can grow up to be a Jedi. So, I didn't really have a choice, he had to have a Star Wars birthday party, despite my reluctance and ignorance about Star Wars.

My mom made awesome Jedi tunics for the kids (thanks, mom!) and each kid also got a foam lightsaber which I made by cutting pool noodles in half. We had a game where each kid used The Force to move an object. Then they used The Force to whack a Darth Vader Pinata with a lightsaber blindfolded. (I'm not sure, but I think that's kind of how somebody taught Luke Skywalker or something...Cody or Kyle will correct me if I'm wrong) I made the Death Star cake and I should probably admit that up until Kyle started asking for the $400 Lego Death Star for Christmas last year (yeah, right...needless to say he didn't get it), I had no clue what it was. Even in making this cake, I learned that there are 2 different Death Stars (Don't ask me which one the cake is...I don't know). And then when Kyle saw the cake he said he wanted it to be shooting and laser out of it. I had to google that, but that's why there's a green candle sticking out of the concave part.

Making this cake was almost the death of me!  The first attempt met it's fate in the trashcan when I tried to dye the icing grey and it turned out purple. You would think adding black food coloring to white icing would yield grey, but no. For my second attempt, I tried to use a gluten-free cake mix which didn't rise at all...bye bye cake again. For my third attempt, I used 2 GF cake mixes which did the trick. I decorated the ball to look like the Death Star or some simplified version of it. Then I placed it on the bottom round cake and went to pick up the boys from school. When I returned the bottom cake had collapsed and the Death Star had rolled off. Luckily, the Death Star was salvageable, but I needed a new bottom layer to set it on so I got an already made cake at the store. With structural support inside the bottom cake, I added the Death Star to the top just before the party started. It was starting to sink by the time the candles were being blown out but it made it. whew!