Saturday May 2nd
I guess it has now become a tradition in our family that one someone turns 7, then they get a "Follow the Clues" birthday party. We started it with Maggie when she was 7, to try and convince her that family parties are as fun as friend parties. I think we got a little out of control on that one and it became an even bigger deal than the friend parties. But, they've each loved it and so we continue doing it. We try to gear the activities to things each kid likes to do.
Bella opening her 1st clue.
The first clue was a coded message that she had to figure out using the key on the first page. I made the message a bit too long and it took her awhile to figure it out. She loves doing things like this though.
Paige was nice and helped her out some. The message sent us to a place called "Color me Mine" here in Hillsboro where you can paint ceramic statues and cups and piggy banks and stuff. Since Bella loves coloring and painting I thought she would love this place. It's a bit on the spendy side, so we probably will never do it again. Especially for all 7 of us!
Bella painted a flower money bank, and Noah and Garrett painted a Spiderman money bank.
Maggie painted a little turtle for her friend Emma's birthday and Lydia painted a cute fox.
Paige painted a princess and I painted a large mug.
The finished products.
After we finished, we had her open the next clue. It says #3, but we had to switch clues since painting took longer than expected and we were hungry.
After putting the puzzle together, we discovered that we were going to John's Incredible Pizza--kinda like a Chuck E. Cheese, but a little nicer.
Right away we got some lunch
There was a tv on with Disney Jr. shows on and this is how my kids ate lunch...staring at the tv. Ha!
Playing some games...
Garrett, Paige, Maggie and Lydia rode this spinning ride...yuck...not for me. Somehow they talked Maggie into riding it with them--she doesn't like spinning rides either and she said she almost puked when she got off. She did not like it. They had that thing spinning really fast!
I rode with the smaller kids on this boat ride.
Playing air hockey
Shootin' hoops
After we were all done, we pooled all the tickets together and let Bella pick out the prize since she was the birthday girl. She picked out this stuffed penguin.
We got dessert and then she started on her next clue.
On this one, she had to unscramble the word and put it in the boxes. Then, she took the letters that were in the circles and had to unscramble that word which was our next destination. I think this one was a little hard for her, so we all helped her figure it out.
I love this picture of her gnawing on her ice cream cone while she tried to figure out the words. The final word that she unscrambled was Toys r Us. So we drove to Toys r Us so that she could pick out one toy.
And of course, she chose a Frozen Lego set.
Before we left to go home, we had her do her last puzzle clue. This one was a Cross word puzzle. One of the clues was "where we are going next". It was supposed to be that the letters in the other words would be enough of a clue that she could figure out the word "home". But it turns out that it wasn't much of a help and I just had to tell her where we were going. Oh well.
Paige being a helper, again.
When we got home, we had her open the rest of her presents. She got this cute dress,
Love her face as she figures out what she got...
She got a Target brand "American Girl Doll". She's been wanting one for awhile.
She also got a couple of outfits to go with it. She was pretty happy!!
It was a fun day!!
Here is her annual birthday questionnaire:
1. What is your favorite color? Yellow
2. What is your favorite toy? My legos
3. What is your favorite fruit? Peaches
4. What is your favorite TV show? Sofia the First
5. What is your favorite movie? Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No good very bad day
6. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? The school's cheese sticks
7. What is your favorite game? Clue
8. What is your favorite animal? dog
9. What is your favorite snack? Popcorn booty
10. What is your favorite song? Let it Go
11. Who is your best friend? Emma, Brooklyn, Lauryn
12. What is your favorite book? Amelia Bedilia
13. What is your favorite cereal? Froot Loops
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? hula hoop
15. What is your favorite drink? chocolate milk
16. What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
17. What do you like to sleep with at night? my frog
18. What's your favorite thing for dinner? Alfredo
19. What do you want to be when you grow up? Kindergarten teacher
20. What food do I NOT like? broccoli
21. What is something that I do well? draw
22. What is something that I need to practice? jump rope
23. My favorite place to go: IHOP
24. My favorite family activity: planting flowers
25. My favorite thing about home: my toys and my bed
26. My favorite chore is: nothing!!!!
27. My least favorite chore is: clean the toilets
28. A place I want to visit: Hawaii
29. My favorite part of each day: is to play
30. Something new I'd like to learn this year is: nothing!!!
Ha! She is quite the character!
