A sixth birthday

Two weeks ago our eldest turned six (gasp! already?!).

First thing in the morning he went downstairs to unwrap his presents (:

His birthday cake (a double caramel and chocolate cake)…

He wanted to throw a “Dinosaur Party” and so we had seven little paleontologists over for a “Bone Hunt”. I had written a note from “Professor X” who asked for their help because he lost some fossils.

I had hidden 20 messages in “our” forest. They had to answer questions to prove that they were real paleontologists. “Was Diplodocus a herbivore or a carnivore?” If they answered the question correctly they were given a clue to find the next message.

Some messages contained “Action” cards. Below you can see our youngest fulfilling the first action: “Jump from a stub acting like Deinonychus!” So they all jumped with their hands formed to imitade claws and groaning like a Dinosaur.

Besides the next clue they were given a small map indicating where they could dig for a little box filled with sweets. Soon those action cards were their favourites (:

After more than 1,5 hours we stopped for a picnic. I had baked brownies in little twist-off jars and we brought along vanilla sauce as topping.

Sorry – I forgot to take photos of the picnic.

We won’t talk about the fact that the birthday boy insisted on finding ALL the messages himself and the little quarrel we had about that halfway through the hunt ): Afterwards he calmed down a bit and the rest of the hunt went on smoothly.

The final message indicated that the lost bones could be found in our sandbox. If you look at the next photo you can see some of those bones at the right hand side.

Of course, all the kids wanted to take those dinosaur bones home. But I had written a second letter of “Professor X”: He thanked the kids for finding his fossils and insisted that they should be sent back for further analyses. He had however provided a gift for everyone: large eggs filled with an artificial stone that enclosed a plastic fossil and some little tools.

We put those eggs into the little “thank you” bags – along with some sweets, dinosaur stickers and a little dinoaur coloring book.

For dinner we had Dinosaur Meat (breaded chicken) and fries.

The Bone Hunt took much longer than anticipated. All in all it took 2,5 hours and the kids were quite exhausted at the end of the day.

I am glad I had put so much energy into all the preparations because it was truely a great day and the Bone Hunt flew by in no time. I hope my eldest will remember his sixth birthday as a very special one.

Thanks for visiting!
Christine