Indiana Jones Birthday Party

Saturday we celebrated Wiley's birthday with an Indiana Jones party. He is really into Indiana Jones (I just want to say for the record that he does not watch the movies - though we have let him watch a few scenes before). He just likes the hat, whip, and swinging like Indiana Jones. Every time we ask him why he likes Indiana, he says, "Because he protects people." (Happy parents about this answer!)

Disclaimer: I'm giving all the party details for my own record, and for some of my out of state friends who wanted to hear all about the party. Plus, I got most all my ideas from reading about others' parties online so thought I'd post our details in case any other moms out there are trying to find Indian Jones party ideas).
For the party, we decorated our front room up with a tent, a large tiki statue wall cling, plants, and stuffed jungle animals. We had a great turnout for the party - 11 kids total!

When the kids arrived, they had to hunt through the front room to find little treasure boxes I'd hidden. When they found their treasure box, they brought them into the Living Room where they painted them and decorated them with stick on jewels.

When they finished, we called everyone together and said we'd just gotten a phone call that something had happened and we had to turn on the news. We turned on a videotape that my niece made where she pretended to be a reporter. She said that Indiana Jones had been hunting for treasure when he got trapped by a booby trap. He was in need of hero crusaders to go and rescue him. This began our hunt to save Indiana!!!

The hunt began with the kids playing a game of pin the hat on Indiana Jones (Because, of course, he needed his hat before we could go rescue him!) Shane did a great job drawing a picture of Indiana. When they finished the game, they got their first clue.

The clue sent them through the Forbidden Forest. Here they had to climb through a large spider web made out of rope and through the jungle vines (hanging streamers) and find their second clue hidden in a plant.

The second clue sent them to the Cave of Mystery but they first had to disable the booby trap leading to the cave. To disable the trap, they ran through a tunnel made by the parents (like parents make after a soccer game), while I chased them with a giant boulder (big exercise ball). When they got to the end, they had to throw a bean bag through the hole in our corn hole board.

After they all disabled the booby trap, they had to use a pretend torch and crawl through a pop up tunnel into the Cave of Mystery (another tent). Once inside, there was another board with a hole in it. They had to put their hand inside the hole and say the magic words, "Goblet, goblet, go goblet!". Then my brother who was hiding behind the board put a little goblet in their hand.

After all the kids got their goblet, the next clue sent them to the Sands of Sapphire to dig for gold. I found crayola sand at Wal-Mart that is blue. I spray painted rocks gold and burried them in the sand. The kids had to dig through and find 3 gold nuggets each to put into their goblets. Once they all got their gold, they received their final clue.

The final clue led them to Treasure Cove (our garage) where Indiana Jones (Shane) was caught under a net. The kids had to pour their gold into a bucket that was tied to the net by a long rope. When they all poured their gold in, the bucket lowered and pulled the net up off Indiana. Indiana then got up and thanked all the kids for being hero crusaders and rescuing him. He then led them the final few steps to find the treasure.

For the treasure, we'd made an Ark of the covenant out of a styrofoam cooler and gold spray paint. We set it in the laundry room and turned off all the lights. We put electric candles inside the cooler so when they opened it it would glow. They all carried the ark out into the Living Room where the parents were waiting to cheer for the hero crusaders!

The treasure was full of candy and small toys. Indiana used a golden goblet to scoop treasure and pour it into each kids' bag. After the treasure was passed out, it was time for cake and ice cream.

I was thrilled about how the cake turned out. Again, found lots of great cake ideas online. My sister and I worked together to make the cake. It was a 3 layer cake of Indiana on top of a mountain with a waterfall coming out of the top. There were vines and leaves coming down the mountain. I found these awesome milk chocolate candies at Wal-Mart that looked just like little rocks so we sprinkled them around the water. We made a large whip out of fondant and wrapped it around the bottom layer of the cake. Then we made a little Indiana hat and put it out front and stuck the candles in that. We decided at the last minute to just write Wiley's name on paper and stick it on the cake at the bottom of the water. Shane wrote the name for us. I had no idea how awesome it would turn out. He colored the letters to look just like Indiana's name on the DVD cover!

After the cake and ice cream came the presents. Then the kids all got to take home their bags of "treasure" and chests they had decorated.

It was a really fun party and Wiley had a blast! Can't wait till next year's!!!