A Hero's Party

A Hero's Party

By: Alyssa James

Our little man, Jude, has officially turned 7! (He will forever be a four year old to me) lol. This year, Jude and dad have been working on a video game called Kingdom Hearts. It’s a great RPG game for the PlayStation game systems that incorporate Disney movies and characters! Maleficent, the evil queen, has stolen the princess’ hearts to take over all the realms and you must work alongside Goofy and Donald Duck to travel to these different worlds and save the princess’. Jude loves this game and was able to do a lot of it himself actually, which was pretty impressive for a six year old. (Daddy just had to help with the hard boss fights) They recently finished the first game and, to no surprise, wanted his birthday party to be themed to the game. This meant a bit of task for me though as there are no party supplies made for this game. Even finding toys or figurines to use as decorations is nearly impossible as they must all be bought online, most of which would ship from China, or costs more then a pretty penny for a 3" figurine. This meant everything was to be handmade. We accomplished the task though! From invitations to a life size replica of the keyblade itself. He was a happy camper which is all that matters in the end. If you do not know already, we are a large family. We have four, soon to be five, children who all have birthdays within weeks of each other. We decided two years ago, in order to save on expenses (as well as our own sanity of chaotic stress this creates) each child would get a big party every other year and the alternating year would just be a family gathering. So making sure they get the party they want and thoroughly enjoy is kind of a big deal. Ecclesiastes 11:9 reminds us "..be happy while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth." The game has very beautiful stained glass images of the princess' so an idea I

had was to create my own "stained glass" project using poster board, contact paper, and tissue paper. I drew popular images from the game onto the poster board and cut the image out. Next I applied contact paper, sticky side up, to the back of the poster board. Cutting the tissue paper into little squares, I then randomly filled up the image with the paper. When hung in the light, all the colors shine through creating a pretty image the children ooed and awed over. It was a simple project actually and one even the kids would find fun to do. For table decor, I drew and cut out the shape of Mickey Mouse's head, the crown worn in the game, as well as hearts to sprinkle like table confetti. Unfortunately though, mother nature decided to make it a really blustery day but only during the hours of the party of course. It was so windy everyone's filled up drinks were even being knocked over and our oldest daughter, Nikkie, had her whole hot dog fly over ketchup side up on her pretty new dress. She was so embarrassed she was afraid to play or talk to anyone. I then reminded her to be courageous explaining the verse Joshua 1:9 to her "be strong and courageous for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." She was a happy girl ready to play again afterwards. Jude was gifted two Kingdom Hearts T-Shirts for Christmas last year so for some added decor, I wrapped the shirts each around a piece of cardboard so the image only was showing and hung them on the playground pillars. Last but not least, daddy pulled through with the biggest and most awesome decoration for the party. A life sized replica of the keyblade used to fight with in the game. He made this happen by drawing the keyblade onto plywood in which he then cut out using his jigsaw. He also cut out a mini Mickey Mouse head and drilled a hole through both it and the handle of the keyblade and attached a thick chain to link them together. He painted the keyblade and wrapped electrical tape around the handle to make it a tad softer on little man's hands. Jude was so excited about his keyblade he couldn't wait to go outside and act like Sora! (the main character) After learning the rules of the blade first that is. In that moment, no one was cooler than dad for building that =] Jude had his two best friends from school show up which made him really excited and none of them wanted to stop playing and leave. We finally made it home for the night where he played with his new toys for about an hour before becoming too overcome with exhaustion and was in bed very shortly afterwards. Last Monday I had the privilege of chaperoning Jude's school field trip to the Phoenix Zoo. It was so

much fun! I had a group of three children and we had two hours of freedom to go look through the zoo however we pleased. The kids were all hungry as soon as we got there so we grabbed a map and sat to eat while looking it over. If you've never been, the Phoenix Zoo is pretty big and you definitely need more than two hours to go through it all. Knowing this, I had the kids all decide which animals were most important to them to see and luckily, the animals they wanted were all next to each other so I knew exactly which way to head first. The kids all had a great time but started to get worn out from the heat a half hour before meet up time. I took them to rest a minute in the shade for a water break and a last decision as to what we wanted to see. We got to see most of the animals but not all of them unfortunately, like I said, this zoo just requires more time then that. Especially when walking around with a group of 6year old's in the middle of a hot day. On the bus ride home, Jude wanted to pretend play kingdom hearts which pretty much consisted of my heart being stolen then him returning it over and over again. lol but we managed to take a few selfies while we were at it. Upon getting back to school, Jude's mom brought ice cream sandwiches for the whole class to enjoy in celebration of his birthday! What a perfect treat for them to have after a long hot day at the zoo. We are so blessed and grateful for all that we have and get to enjoy in this everyday life.