After finding Maia the Maiasaura, we began our rescue mission to take her home. First we had to pass through the Muddy Mud Pits. To do this, I made cardboard “stepping stones” out of rectangular flats of cardboard. I wrote the numbers 1 – 15 on them with a sharpie and placed them in a path leading across our yard. We instructed the kids to follow the path in order, being careful not to fall into the “mud” which was really just our dirt/grass lawn.
You can’t see it too well in the photo, but the kids are walking across the path.
Once they all reached the end of the path (we stressed sticking together throughout the activity), they next had to find their way to the Rocky Rock Mountains. In the movie, they climb the mountain and there is a rock slide, which is how I thought to use our slide, but I couldn’t come up with a very creative way to make it look more like a mountain.
I had thought about maybe making some cardboard stands to put on either side and painting them to look like a mountain, but that would have been too time-consuming for me to tackle! So we ended up getting a bag of grey balloons and tying them along the side of the slide as “rocks.” The kids didn’t seem to mind, and while I thought this was the least exciting of the obstacles, they loved it and I even heard someone say “Wow! This is fun!” so I guess we did ok with this one!
After sliding down the slide, they used their binoculars to find the volcano. When we got over to it (I had placed it in the corner of our garden) we told the kids that they each had to erupt the volcano in order to pass by.
The Owl and I had made our volcano from cardboard, tape, and paper bags, and it came out great. I will share details on how we made it in a separate post.
We had the kids line up alongside the garden and they took turns erupting the volcano. Each kid got a little bathroom-sized paper cup of baking soda and one of vinegar and got to dump them in one after the other. Right before we started, and after every 3-4 kids had a turn, I put in about 4 drops red food coloring and a couple squirts of handsoap, which helped the eruption to look red and bubbly. It worked great, and the kids really loved it!
Finally, we needed to get to Egg Island, which involved crossing the water. We luckily had a blue play tunnel that we set up leading from the garden to our stone patio, and each child got to “swim” through the tunnel to the island.
At the bottom of the island, the boys and I had made a nest from pinestraw and placed in it 14 paper mache Maiasaura Eggs. I’ll write a separate post on how we made them. The kids took Maia to her nest, and as a thank-you for their help, each kid was invited to choose an egg to take home. We told them that there were some special goodies hidden inside and they could open them when they got home. Inside the eggs were dinosaur stampers, dinosaur crayons, dinosaur gummies (found at Kroger), dinosaur silly bands (clearance at Hobby Lobby) and some Diego playing cards (found on the clearance aisle at Party City). Plus the kids got to take home their hats and binoculars, so it was a pretty good haul!! Since we saved on so much of the other aspects of the party, I didn’t mind spending some extra money on nicer goody bag items.
As I said, each kid got to select an egg, and while planning the party, I was trying to think of a way to keep each kid’s egg identified, since kids this age are specific about things like that. I had made tags to attach to bags that I was going to have each kid put their egg in after selecting them, but I couldn’t find an affordable option that was big enough. So I just printed the tags (put together in PowerPoint with some cute dino clip art) and figured I’d tape them to the eggs. The kids all filed back in the house after the hunt, and started taking off their hats, so I had the quick-thinking to put each kid’s egg into their hat, along with their binoculars and their name tag. This worked great as the hats were just the right size to hold the egg, and we just lined them up on the kitchen counter until the kids went home. It worked out great, because we didn’t waste a whole bunch of bags!
The kids had a few minutes inside to play, use the restroom and wash their hands, and then we filed them back outside to get food. We set a folding table up outside our patio and decorated it with this cute banner I made in PowerPoint, printed on cardstock, and strung together with the same yarn I used on the binoculars.
For food we went nice and simple- dinosaur-shaped nuggets (made by Perdue, not frozen so you'll find them near the meat or prepared food section), Fritos, grapes, and juice pouches. I can't advocate enough having all finger-food at a kid’s party- it makes it so easy! I helped the kids fill up their plates and then sent them over to the side yard where we had put out a couple big quilts for our picnic lunch/snack. Again, we were so lucky with the weather, because I’m not sure we even had enough chairs to seat 16 kids inside, let alone the grown-ups!
After the kids ate, we brought out the cake. The Owl had specific requests for his cake- he didn’t want it to have Diego’s face on it- he doesn’t like cutting into/eating things with faces (!) and the Diego character cake our local bakery makes was way too pricey. $50 for a (small) cake is too much, in my opinion. We looked around online for ideas, and he really liked the idea of a volcano cake, so that’s what we went with. I was going to make it from scratch, but since I don’t often have the best success with cake construction, I had the smart idea to purchase a plain cake from our bakery. I just ordered a ¼ sheet cake with plain white icing. I also ordered ½ lb of chocolate buttercream frosting on the side, which I used to frost the volcano. I’m so glad I did, because it was much smoother than regular store-bought frosting. The volcano part of the cake was just a vanilla cake mix baked in an oven-safe bowl (it used about ¾ the boxed cake mix). Once it had cooled, I turned it out onto a plate and frosted it, then put it in the fridge for about an hour. A couple hours before the party, I carefully moved it onto the cake. I used crumbled up vanilla wafers for the dirt and green frosting from a can for the grass. The can of frosting came with tips to use, and I think I used the leaf tip to make the squiggly grass, and the writing tip for the number 5 on the volcano. Then I put some of The Owl’s dinosaur and Diego figurines on the cake. Easy peasy!!
Once the cake was eaten, we had about 15-20 minutes until the party was over, so we let the kids run around the yard and play. Everyone had a great time, and The Owl was so happy to have all his friends at his house! I’m all for the relaxing element of parties outside the home, but there’s something that can’t be beaten about a nice, at-home party.
We opened presents after the kids had left. I’m a big fan of not doing that at the party, it just makes things simpler. All in all, a fantastic party, and the birthday boy was so happy!
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