One down, one to go!

In my earlier birthday posts, I have made it clear that birthday parties around here are a lot of work. I promised myself and my husband that "this year, I'm cutting back". I had five guests tell me that this was the biggest party we've ever thrown. Huh...what happened in the cutting back process? Well, here is the official "Indiana Jones" party.

It all starts with the cake, right? I went a little old school, and decided to go back to Raiders of the Lost Arc where Indy's running from the boulder. I finished baking the cake at 11:30 the night before and by 11:33 it was eaten by the Nemesis! I'M NOT JOKING! What you see is the second cake I baked. I hadn't frosted it yet, but I was furious! I hate him.
Here's Indy...comin' at ya! I had my son pick some leaves from trees outside. I hope no one dies of any poisoning.
Here I am lighting the birthday cake. Can't you tell? We're all sooooo excited in this picture! Good lord, it looks like we're about to cut the cake at a funeral.
Games. I hate them. Apparently, so do the victims..errr...volunteers.We "mummified" four adults with toilet paper. The kids loved it. They had a certain amount of time (in small teams) to wrap their adult with as much paper as possible. Isn't my father-in-law a good sport?

How cute do those little girls look? They were giggling the whole time--I just loved it!

Somehow, the birthday boy and his teammates had a system down, and they were the winning team. Others complained the judging was rigged. I think not.

Next up? The disgusting archeological dig. Remember the monkey brains from...uh...the second movie? Nothing like a little cold spaghetti to gross 'em out. We also had eyeball soup (grapes in water) and snake guts (jell-o). We buried little plastic bugs and snakes ("it had to be snakes") for them to dig for.

And finally, my husband lined up the kids, gave them some "potion" A.k.a. Mt. Dew--might as well be potion, and told them that if they don't find the anectdote, the boys will turn into girls and the girls will turn into boys! You should have heard the screams! They had to jump into our blow up pool filled with ballons and pop them to get the vile (wax bottles filled with juice).

Kids were going crazy (notice my daughter's high kick), adults were cracking up, and the Nemesis was freaking out over all the noise. Kids couldn't chug down the juice fast enough. It was hilarious!We ended the day with tiki torces around our fire pit, a huge fire, and lots of roasted marshmallows. I ended the day with lots of Tylenol, a frozen margarita, and a very solid night's sleep. In the end, this picture makes it worth it. My husband had the camera and both of my beautiful kids are looking at me. What a priceless look on their faces, eh?
Well, I hope you got some inspiration! Or, at least, a heads up that birthday parties are a lot of work! Or that you should always crate your annoying dog when you're baking a cake.