lightsaber battling,
some photos,
some family and primary friends,
more photos,
grandparents,
the world's best homemade pizza (more on this below),
The combined Star Wars birthday party had been talked about for a few months in our house and after several push-backs it finally came to pass. The surprise Storm Trooper stole the show and after watching him take hit after hit from the kids I completely forgot to bring out the Darth Vader head pinata that I spent more time on than I should have, got in a fight with my husband over how to hang the thing, then watched the same husband spend more time than he should have on the suspension. Dang it.
The guests topped their own personal thin crust pizzas, fired them up via stone on my father-in-law's magic grill, then finished them off with a good scorch under the broiler. This process makes the best pizzas possible without having your own 900 degree, 16th century wood-fire oven shipped over from ol' Napoli.
The high volume of pizzas we ended up cranking out wouldn't have been possible if I didn't have an exceptional father-in-law that said, "What exact time do you want the grill hot," and then energetically positioned himself with his homemade (yep, made himself) wooden pizza peel cooking every single pizza while running back and forth from the kitchen to the back deck. Nor would we have eaten on time if I didn't have a mother-in-law who is extraordinarily helpful and talented in the kitchen, and said, "How about I stay in the kitchen and roll every last lump of dough out for every single guest until my arms are burning on fire and miss half the party?" She left out that last part but that is what happened and that might have been what she was thinking. It's a good thing that a girl with crazy, untested, and sometimes unrealistic ideas married into a family that can make crazy, untested, and sometimes unrealistic ideas happen.
Happy birthday to my two little Jedi Knights who now know more about Star Wars than their mother.
