My Husband and son, Brickman, are pretty big Star Wars nerds, so we started a tradition of celebrating May the 4th. For those of you not into Star Wars, May the 4th be with you is a play on words for May the Force be with you…a big tag line in the Star Wars flicks. 
With the recent DVD release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Brickman was even more excited for May the 4th this year. He is a very caring and empathetic boy, so he understood when I said I didn’t know if I would be able to do anything special this year to celebrate since it was a school night. In years past, I made the cut out Yoda and Darth Vader cookies with royal icing decorations in the picture. These took me a whole Saturday to make 
from scratch, and I knew I just couldn’t pull that off today with Baby running around. Brickman is so sweet and helpful, so I really wanted to show him how much I appreciate him. Husband happened to have the day off to study up for the May service wide advancement test he is taking tomorrow, so I decided to try to do at least a little something Star Wars themed. With the extra set of eyes to help look after Baby, I was able to plan and make some special treats to surprise him.
After Baby and I got home from the grocery store, I put on a pot of water to boil to make a pan of Jigglers. I just poured the hot Jell-O into a greased baking sheet ( I think the one I used was 14×11) and put it in the downstairs fridge to cool. Later, I cut them out with a R2-D2 cookie cutter to make a fun Star Wars themed treat with not much effort.
I also bought a personal sized watermelon that was on sale for $1.88 at the grocery store, so I had my husband carve it into the Death Star. He did it all from memory, so I was impressed at how well it came out. He used a measuring cup to scoop out the super laser part of the Death Star and just a pairing knife for all the other cuts. his trick was to use painters tape wrapped around the melon to ensure straight cuts. 
I made some Yoda Soda by scooping some lime sherbet into a glass and topping it off with lemon-lime sparking water. A lot of recipes call for adding in sugar, but my kids don’t get soda often, so they didn’t know it wasn’t very sweet. I used a Yoda shaped cookie cutter to trace out a Yoda head and attached it to a straw to complete the special drink. It probably would have been faster to just find a printable on the internet though.
The most labor intensive treat I was going to make was Wookie cookies. 
I saw this recipe and made the dough using only 1/4 cup of dark chocolate cocoa powder instead of 1/2 cup of regular cocoa powder. My cookies were a little wet when I rolled them out, and I couldn’t find my gingerbread man cookie cutter. After a quick text to my Coastie friends to see if i could borrow one, all we came up with was a kicking ninja. So, on to plan B…I came up with my own design that worked better with the wet dough. I rolled the chocolate dough into balls, then used the tines of the forks to flatten out the cookie into a shaggy looking round that resembled a Wookie head. After baking, I added chocolate chips as the eyes and nose while the cookies were still warm so that they would melt and attach to the cookie. Finally, I made a 1/2 batch of this royal icing to make a mouth on the Wookie face.
I finished the cookies just in time to take them along to the bus stop so that Brickman was surprised and able to share the May the 4th fun with his friends. He was very excited when he got home and saw all the other treats I had made. 
The treats quickly disappeared between my 3 kiddos and at least 3 of the neighbor kids as they watched the new Star Wars movie. Hopefully, I didn’t ruin everyone’s dinner to much…I know my kids still ate there dinner without mush complaint.
It makes me happy to be able to use my skills in the kitchen to make special traditions with my kids. sometimes I wonder if all the time spent is worth it, but then seeing the kids’ faces light up at the end result is all the affirmation I need to know it was indeed worth it.
-Mussgo Momma