Jack's Birthday

Jack turned 5 on Friday. We went out to dinner as a family and he got to choose the restaurant. He had a hard time choosing.... at first he wanted Cafe Rio, then Pei Wei, then Paradise Bakery; the handful of places where we usually take the kids when we eat out... but he finally settled on Waldo's, our favorite BBQ place, where we hadn't been for a while. I had forgotten how fantastic it is! It certainly wouldn't be good to eat like that all the time, but man it's good.

The next day was Jack's birthday party with his friends. He had decided on an Indiana Jones theme, and it turned out great! I got these awesome hats (that turned out to be way nicer than I thought) from Oriental Trading, and made the satchels out of some cheap brown flannel I got for $2 (total!) at Wal-Mart, bought some tan shirts at Goodwill, and made these really cool whips (which I didn't give out until the end so that they wouldn't hurt each other... I just sent them home with them to do their destruction there... sorry parents!) by braiding strips of brown faux suede I found for $8. The kids looked awesome! And they loved their outfits, of course.
Then they had to complete a series of challenges, including reaching into a "pit of snakes" (pan of noodles) to fish out gold (plastic) coins; navigating a tunnell filled with lizards, frogs, and various bugs and other creatures (which they got to keep); swinging on a rope over a pit of plastic snakes (they kept going back to swing over and over again during the party because it was so much fun); dodging poison darts (Q-tips blown through drinking straws); playing "hot potato" with a snake (plastic, of course) because Indy hates snakes. Along the way, they filled their satchels will creatures and gold coins for completing each challenge. They found a treasure chest in the end, which held their whips, lots of candy, more gold coins, and some fake jewels and shiny rocks. They were in heaven!

The cake was just plain chocolate, decorated with some of his Indiana Jones lego characters, which I took off before lighting the candles... just in case.
It was a really fun party! Everyone had a great time, and all the parents told me the next day that they had to pry the gear off their kids before going to bed that night.
Jack was very pleased.