Happy Birthday Indiana!!

For those of you who don't know, our son's name has now changed to Indiana Jones and must be addressed as such. Needless to say, we have a huge Indiana Jones fan right now and to top it off, he just turned 6!!! I can't believe we have a 6 year old already. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we had him.

We decided that this year would be a good time to let him have a real birthday party with friends and if you hadn't guessed already, the theme of the party was Indiana Jones. Parker was ecstatic to be having the party and it seemed to consume our lives for the few weeks before. Finally the day of the great event came and luckily he had school the morning of the party so at least there was something to keep his mind occupied for a little while. However, they had a little celebration in his kindergarten class and when I picked him up he was determined he was now 6 even thought his actual birthday wasn't until the next day. His teacher gave him a birthday hat and pencil and he seemed shocked that everyone kept telling him "Happy Birthday". It was really cute to see how excited he was.

While he was at school Madi and I decorated his birthday cake and by the time he got home I think Madi was more excited to tell him about than he was to see. However once he did see it he told me he just wanted to stand there and stare at it all day. Unfortunately the cake didn't hold his attention for quite that long and we finally had to set the timer for 3 and a half hours just so he would stop asking how soon his party would be.

Finally the time for the party arrived and the festivities began. To start out with, I had made some Indiana Jones bags for each child and once they arrived, they were all able to color their bags while we waited for everyone to get there.

Madi and Parker's decorated bags.

Next we went on a treasure hunt and the first step of the treasure hunt was to eat Monkey Brains. The kids all laughed and thought this was a treat and then I pulled out the brains. I had them raise their hands if they wanted to try a taste and about 4 of them did, until I actually put them on a plate and gave it to them, then they changed their minds.

I know these are rather large Monkey Brains, but you should have seen the size of the Monkey.

Next we went on a walk through our backyard and trees looking for another clue. This clue showed us that we would be chased by a rolling boulder. So they all took turns running down the hill as the boulder chased them. Joshua, Stockton, Caroline, Jason, Madi and Alex

Parker, Ewan, Madi and Annie running from the boulder.

Caroline

Caleb, Alex, Garrett and Jason

Once they escaped the rolling boulder, their next challenge was to jump over the snake pit. Parker and Madi are demonstrating below.

Luckily the snake pit was cleared by all the kids and the final stop in the treasure hunt was to dig through a pile of sawdust to find the crystal skull and other fun prizes.

Finally it was time to eat pizza and open presents and then we had dirt cups for dessert. The kids seemed to have a lot of fun and it was fun to see how excited all of them were to give their gifts. They all seemed to think that the gift they brought was the most awesome. Very cute and thank you to everyone, Parker has a great bunch of friends.

Caroline, Jason, Caleb, Ewan, Stockton, Parker, Madi, Annie, Garrett, Alex and Joshua

Saturday was Parker's actual burthday and becuase of the weather seemed to be a little uneventful. Lynn took him to breakfast and then Lynn worked on the driveway and I took the kids grocery shopping. We were going to go golfing because that is what Parker wanted to do, but the weather didn't seem to cooperate long enough so we decided to go golfing another day and then Burke and Amie came over that night with their kids to have dinner.

We gave Parker a couple sets of Indiana Jones Legos, some books and he got a Rocket Bubble Gum machine from Madi. He woke up crying at 5:30 AM on the day of his birthday and I went running into his room to see what was wrong. He said "I can't sleep, I try to sleep and then I just keep waking up because I want to play with my Legos and I can't stop thinking about them." Christmas is going to be a lot of fun this year. Sunday was finally the last day of his whole birthday celebration. Karen and Kim and Kevin and Candace all came over and we had dinner, cake and ice cream over at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Here he is with all of the gifts he received for his birthday, including the hat he got from kindergarten. His birthday was a lot of fun and I can't believe how much he has enjoyed building with the Legos. One day he spent about 3 hours straight building and he only quit because we said we were going on a walk.