Our oldest kiddo just graduated from high school...but not just high school...13 years of home school. We are so proud of his hard work, but most of all, his heart! We wanted to mark the occasion with a party and ceremony.
For the ceremony, We just invited close family...I shared something, gave Nate-the-Graduate his diploma, he shared something, then his dad shared and challenged him. After that we prayed for him. It wasn't very long, but we wanted it to feel official and personalized.
I talked to someone about helping me develop a party theme, but they suggested how easy it is just to do a basic "grad" theme with school colors etc. I was thinking..."We haven't done school the 'normal' way yet, why start now?"
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| This is the part that looks almost normal. |
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| A few of his favorite books from younger years. |
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| Candies made to look like grad caps. (It's what is in the bowl in first photo.) |
I talked to Nate-the-Graduate about it, mentioning a Star Wars theme. He kinda liked that. (Did I ever mention he named his car the Millennium Falcon?) Then I had the idea of a One Smart Cookie party...(His grandma told him he was a smart cookie when he was two and he replied that he was a Snickerdoodle.) We compromised with a "One Smart Wookiee" party.
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| Banner for outside. |
Another facet to Nate-the-Graduate is he has Celiac Disease. He is very strict with keeping gluten out of the food he eats. Parties and potlucks are usually pretty hard for him. Since it was his day, we chose all gluten free foods. That way we didn't even have to worry about cross contamination. Most of the foods we purchased...like fresh vegis, cheese and meat.
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| Meat and cheese trays. --"Padme's Protein" |
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| "Boba Fruit" |
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| Vader Vegis |
My mom made meatballs using gluten free oats instead of bread crumbs and I baked a ton of gf cookies. I love to substitute regular flour with the recipe for
Silvanna's Mix GF Flour. I can use it basically cup for cup with my own cookie recipes.
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| Millennium Meatballs |
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| Wookiee Cookies (Peanut Butter, Snickerdoodles and Chocolate Chip) |
Notice the Death Star Watermelon. Snagged that idea off of
Pinterest :) I used masking tape to guide my edges as I carved the rind using the Pampered Chef zester. My daughter went back and filled in the vertical lines as I was going cross eyed! It was a huge hit at the party.
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| Greedo's Cheetos and Leia's Potato Chips |
Nate-the-Graduate used some of his LEGO sets to add Star Wars elements to the rooms.
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| Emperor's Imperial Shuttle scene |
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| ...more LEGOS |
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| Jar lamp filled with LEGO Mini Figures |
We made up a bunch of Pool Noodle Light Sabers too. (another Pinterest find) I figured the young kids would enjoy them...and they did! But so did the not so young kids and adults. We had nice enough weather, that the back yard was well used and battles were many!
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| Pool Noodle Light Sabers |
