Bandwagons, menu plan Monday, National Blog Posting Month

I hope ribs are on my dad’s menu plan this week

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Today is my dad’s birthday. If I were making this week’s menu in his honor, we’d be having ribs on Monday, ribs on Tuesday, scallops on Wednesday, ribs on Thursday and scallops and ribs on Friday. I couldn’t make the menu plan in his honor, though, because I can’t afford to eat ribs and scallops every day.

Pete tried to get me to save a piece of cake for his Papa until Christmas, but I think I’ll just eat it on his behalf instead.

Sorry, Dad, and happy birthday! We all love you tremendously.

Monday: Baked ravioli

Poppy eats it, and happily. It’s becoming a mainstay.

Tuesday: McAlister’s Deli

McAlister’s sent me a birthday coupon for $5 off, and it’s kids night! I’ll probably have the grilled cheese sandwich and a Chef’s salad.

Wednesday: Cracker Barrel chicken, macaroni & cheese and peas

Wednesday is Pete’s birthday, so he chose the menu. He plans to mix his peas into his mac & cheese.

Thursday: Taco salad

This one was Rockford’s choice.

Friday: Pizza

I might make it myself this week. (But I might not.)
Bandwagons, National Blog Posting Month

And now we are thirty-four

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Poppy climbed into my bed this morning to snuggle and tell me happy birthday, and then I ate cake for breakfast. In fact, the first and last things I ate today were cake. That’s a pretty good day.

It was a nice weekend overall, as a matter of fact. We had Pete’s “Star Wars” birthday party yesterday, and later in the evening my sister-in-law Phoebe and her fiance Christian came over to watch the kids while Rockford and I went to see “Argo.” It was a very tense, very enjoyable movie. Ben Affleck has been in my Boycott Room for a lot of years, but this one got him released. I’m going to try to get Rockford to write a review of it for the site; we’ll see.

Bandwagons, Family matters, National Blog Posting Month

How to throw a Star Wars birthday party and turn a bunch of kids into Jedi knights

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First things first: Today is my sister-in-law Chloe’s birthday. Happy birthday Chloe!

Secondly: Today is also Pete’s 5th birthday party. He wanted a Star Wars party, so that’s what he got. I had big plans to make a Death Star cake or something extravagant like that, but I ended up ordering a cake from the grocery store instead. And guess who doesn’t make Star Wars cakes? The grocery store. So I ordered a pretty plain cake and added some of Pete’s “Star Wars guys” to it.

My (slacker) plan for the day was to let the kids play in the backyard and then eat some cake. Pete somehow remembered that I’d mentioned doing a Jedi Training Academy party some six months ago, though, so instead of being total slackers this morning, Rockford and I made about 20 storm trooper balloons for our Imperial Guard. Here’s what the kids had to do to earn their honorary Jedi status:

The Jedi Training Academy obstacle course

  1. Five jumping jacks.
  2. Run through the Dagobah swamp.
  3. Leap out of the swamp.
  4. Do a somersault. (Not, as Poppy feared, in midair.)
  5. Climb the tower of the Imperial Palace.
  6. Secure a light saber.
  7. Leave the tower via escape pod.
Light Saber 101 with Rockford.

The young padawans’ light saber training

Rockford led the trainees through a series of very impressive moves with the light saber in our Jedi training grounds. I had no idea he had such skills.

Elude the Imperial Guard

This is where our storm trooper balloons came into the game. We strung them from the monkey bars on the playset — only two of them popped before the party guests arrived — and the kids had to “battle” through them with their light sabers in order to get to their final task.

Defeat Darth Vader

I printed out a couple of Vader heads and taped them to the tether ball. And then we set the little Jedis loose on it.

The kids had quite a lot of fun battling the Imperial Guard and putting a major hurt on Darth Vader before and after cake.