One down.

Okay, Ben's party is over.  Whew.  It went well, I just planned out a simple treasure hunt for them--first they had to crawl through a hoop to get to a clue hanging from the porch ceiling.  that clue sent them to a relay in which they had to hippity hop or scooter up to get a card with a letter on it, switch vehicles, and scoot or hop back and hand off the ride to the next two kids.  At the end, Julianna helped them put the letters together to spell TABLE and another card said "under."  Under the table, I'd taped balloons with clues inside.  They popped them and then had to figure out what the clues meant.  "Brown" "box" "inside" "hall" "mirror" "wooden". "bench."  All leading to the inside of the bench on the "hall butler."  I'd read them off.  A kid would go "I know I know!!"  "what?"  "The bathroom!"  uh, no.  "I know I know!...under the table!"  Steve tossed an umbrella onto the bench and said, "Next clue: 'umbrella!'"  Crickets chirping.  "Next clue: 'I'm pointing at it.'"  a-HA!  So they each had little wooden chests filled with shiny rocks.  Cake, presents, pinata, beat it.

They gather for the Hop-n-Scoot Challenge:


"No, get out from under the table...Yes, bring the balloon.  The balloon.  Yes, that.  Now bring it in here and pop it.  It's okay, I'll give you a new one.  The clue is inside, you have to pop it.  I'll blow up another one, come ON."



Lego Star Wars!  WOW!


Everyone grimaces as the candy falls from the mandarin-orange-box-turned-pinata:


Although it looks like he was having a Very Biker Bar birthday, those vests are from a pirate dress-up set from the Dollar store.  A buck for a vest, an eyepatch, an earring, and a dagger.  So the vest was made from hefty bag and ripped with ease?  So the elastic popped off the eyepatch the first time you put it on?  So the earring pinches so badly it leaves a mark?  At least they were armed.

Cake once more courtesy of Playmobil.  Ben is all about the icing.  he doesn't care for "the bread."  So I made this one with two recipes of frosting.  One was the filling and crumb coat and the second was slathered all over that.  The waves are solid frosting, my friend.  Who wants diabetes for his birthday?