Dylan Blue & Cole Torin: Dylan and Cole's 5th Birthday!!

Our boys are 5 years old!!! We had a wonderful birthday day where the boys celebrated in their classroom and we had a birthday dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. Then on Saturday we had the boys birthday party! And Nana came to help us celebrate too!!

It was a world travel adventure party. And the cake that Grandma created was a true highlight to a wonderful adventure.

There was a tropical jungle (Cole's request) and an 'X' marks the spot for a treasure map (Dylan's request). There was a treasure box hidden under the 'x' and in the cave on Cole's side. Not to mention a volcano, waterfall, various tropical animals, palm trees, an ocean and pirates on a boat with a treasure map!

The boys couldn't stop looking at it! So when their friends started to arrive all the kids were entranced by the cake and could barely pull themselves away to start the activities!

Unfortunately we don't have pictures of all our destinations and their activities because we were all so busy either leading the children in an activity or cleaning or setting up an activity. But we started off coloring in maps of the world and I told them about the adventure we were going to have. They were going to travel the world by receiving clues to their next destination, then there would be an activity they would need to complete to receive their next clue. At the end there would be a prize for each of them.

After coloring in the maps, I read a story about a german baker who made pretzels. They then guessed they would be doing something with pretzels...so we traveled to Germany (the kitchen) and made soft pretzels. Then their next clue led them to Brazil (dining room kitchen) where they were birdwatcher and had to discover/find 6 new tropical bird species...but first they had to make their own binoculars! So we decorated and made binoculars out of toilet paper rolls! And there were about 6 bird pictures hung around the room that they all had to find to get their next clue.

Then we traveled to Australia (front door) to help 8 joey's find their mama kangaroo. It was like a pin the tail on the donkey activity, but with a kangaroo. They had little pictures of joey's that I had cut out and blindfolded they had to put the joey in the pouch (bag taped to picture of kangaroo). They could help direct their friends because they had to get all 8 joey's in the pouch to get their next clue.

Then we traveled to England (dining room table again) to have tea and snacks. The table was set with a white tablecloth, all the children had real tea cups and saucers and drank warm apple cider and ate their pretzels that just came out of the oven!

While finishing their drinks and snacks I read them a cute tea party book about more and more pigs joining a tea party.

Then we traveled to Africa (the boys bedroom) to rescue 20 African Rainbow Lizards from a flash flood in the desert. But because it was night time in Africa they had to find the lizards in the dark!! Good thing I had a flashlight for all of them!! Once they found all 20 lizards they got their next clue that sent them to the final country of Vietnam. There we explored the worlds largest cave (guest room) where the kids had to crawl into the cave and find a puzzle piece (crawling under a table to a cave of boxes with fake spiders and spider webs they had to reach through to get a puzzle piece).

Then we took all the puzzle pieces back to the living room to find out the clue to where the prize was located.

Once the puzzle was put together they realized it was a picture of Cole and Dylan's house and found an 'x' that was on the front step of the house...

And once they opened the door they found a big golden basket filled with prizes (gold coins - plastic and chocolate-, jewels, and a compass...and they got to take home some lizards, the map, and the flashlight).