The Stormtrooper and Jawa in the photo promised they were smiling too! Star Wars Reads Day at the 95th street library was packed with costumed characters, droids, crafts, light sabers and more.

Green screen Millenium Falcon.

Virtual reality google views of space.

Ivan’s friend Charlie is certainly smiley around the dark side.

The droid builders made a Gronk Bot.

R2D2 too!

Charlie crafting a plush porg.

Ivan chose the frowning porg and Charlie chose the smiling porg. Here’s Ivan’s porg at home.

The porg goes with these porg heavy pajamas.

Porg t-shirt iron-ons were also available at Star Wars Reads day.

Ivan turning 8 with cupcake and his favorite drink, root beer.

Blowing out his candle.

In the morning Ivan was hoping his presents would be on the kitchen table but instead they were over at our Warren House so there was a quick run to go fetch them.

Present opening

Ivan with his new plush dog Stay-Eve. Stay-Eve joins his dog Eve-stay (named Steve in pig Latin) as one of Ivan’s favorite cuddle friends.

Tam and Mark introduced him to battlebots and this toy lets him battle his own bots in the arena. His flip-bot is pretty unstoppable.

Ivan is gifted with a chess set that has been in the Blau family and now lives in his room.

Ivan’s last night as a seven year old and Harvey has just turned 77. This calls for a cupcake with a 7 candle and one with 7 candles.

Family birthday celebration in our new kitchen with backdrop of moving boxes.

Ivan posing in the secret passageway that I used to walk down to go to work from our first apt. in Downers Grove.

Amanda came across the prints of Ivan’s baseball photos while doing some organizing, and we realized we had never posted the digital pic to his blog.

He had a great time in baseball this year.

Ivan and his friend Charlie are excavating plastic dinosaurs from a block of ice. This was a dinosaur themed party for Book & Cookie Club members who got to take over the library from when it closed at 9pm until 11pm.