Keeping Busy with Yoda

What a nice week it has been!  Prepare for a long post... there's a lot to tell!

Last weekend we visited Maine and my aunt, uncle and cousins.  You can read a description of the visit on my cousins blog here.  We had a great time!

These girls can always make me smile:

L had her 8-month birthday this week, and what a delightful little 8-month old she is.  She is itching to crawl: up on all fours and rocking back and forth.  We also tried Cheerios with her this week (as seen in the picture above) and they were a big hit.  She does a pretty good job chewing them with her one little tooth, and what she can't chew she dissolves with massive amounts of drool.  :-)  She now sits up at the table with us for most mealtimes and has a little Cheerios snack.  She's quite proud of herself.  (I have some video of the Cheerios eating that I'll post later.)

We've had some visiting time with Uncle Ben, who has been a wonderful companion to us all and a great help to me.

He was also a great help in planning our Yoda party.  The idea for this originated with N.  We received some Star Wars cupcake decorations as a Christmas gift from Aunt Beth, and one snowy January day N suggested we make the "Yoda" cupcakes and have a party.  She then added that she would wear her Yoda costume (shown in the older video in this post).  M and I, being the Star Wars geeks that we are, took this idea and ran with it.  We sent out invitations and began our preparations.  The party was yesterday and we all had a "blast."

[Pictures did not come out great due to bad lighting, sorry.  I should probably invest in a better camera soon.]

Some of the party attendees were:

Darth Vader and a Clone Trooper

Han Solo and an Imperial Officer

Princess Leia

Admiral Ackbar

...and of course, the guest of honor: Yoda!

(We also had a brief appearance by Darth Yoda.)

I was quite proud of the food:

"Hoth" Chocolate and "Tauntaun Droppings"

Yoda Soda

"Watto"-Melon Chance Cubes

Tie Fighter Ties

Death Sticks and Driod Dip

Yoda Pizza

Aren't we clever (dorky is more like it)?

Again, I must reiterate that my brother Uncle Ben was such a help in the preparing of this party.  If he hadn't been around to help with the girls I don't know how I would have accomplished all of the shopping and food and party prep.  He also loaned us his Star Wars micro machines so that M could design this cake replica of the battle on Hoth:

This is my favorite part of the cake: Luke emerging from the Wampa cave and encountering the translucent Obi Wan (the Wampa was actually added after this picture was taken)

Yeah, we went a little overboard.  Can you blame us?  We've all been cooped up for the entire month of January, while we got a total of around 5 feet of snow.  We needed a little something to look forward to, and some planning to occupy our minds.  This was the perfect thing.  I think it just may become an annual event.

So, that's our fun-filled week in a nutshell.  How was yours?