Parker Foreman and the Seven Secret Treasures

Parker wanted an Indiana Jones party for his birthday so we did our best to thrill him and his friends. He loved it and I think his buddies did too. We only let him invite 5 friends which was super hard for him. He had a list about a mile long, but it just would have been too hard to do everything he wanted to do with that many kids. I made the invites which look complicated, but were actually very easy. Probably the easiest invitations I have ever made for one of my kid's parties AND I only had to make seven of them (Parker and Jack had to have one too.) The "field guides" were a little booklet that was 3in.x 4in. so they could put it in their pocket. I just took pictures of the artifacts then downloaded them and cut and pasted them on the computer and printed them out then stapled together the books. Remember that I am a scrapbooker so the only supply I actually purchased for making these was the textured paper for the cover, however, I could have easily used brown paper and then my cost would have been zero instead of $1.50. :-)








They were each given a burlap bag which my mom made and I stamped their names on them. (2 yard of burlap which was just under $4.00 total and tied with jute which is super cheap.) Then they had to head into the woods (Forbidden Forest) to find the 7 treasures and bring them back to the Foreman Museum. My dad and I hid the stuff in plain sight and then he and Travis took them on their hunt.




When they returned with the treasures, they sat down with their field guides to figure out the code that was written on each "artifact." (I bought all the artifacts on clearance at Hobby Lobby. Most of them were less than $2.00 but I think one of them was $4.00 and we bought it because it was just too perfect for our theme.) The last thing they found was a box which held the guide to the code (the good old number corresponding with a letter) which is even easy enough for a 4 year old to figure out. Each boy had to tell us what numbers were on his artifact and they pieced together the message which was "The treasure is hidden under the deck."





They quickly found it in a wooden crate that my dad made with scrap wood and carried it back up to open it. In it they found a golden skull (a cheap Halloween decoration that I covered in gold glitter and filled with gold foil paper and little Reeses peanut butter cups.) They were so excited, it might as well have been real gold.


Then it was time for cake and ice cream. Our fabulous cake-baking friend, Cindy Beck wowed us again with her creation. I bought the cake topper of e-bay and she did the rest. YUM!!!

Indiana Jones and his little brother.

I bought about 100 little plastic snakes (from the dollar store) and my mom spread them out all over our backyard. They had to go and find them. They had a hard time finding some of them which was really funny to watch and really fun for the boys. Then they brought them all back and we divided them somewhat evenly. (Jack wasn't about to put his snakes in with the others.)



When everything was over and done, our little Indiana Jones (and his little brother) had a fabulous time and I'm pretty sure all his little guests did too. Please remember that for Parker, the party itself is probably the biggest gift we could give him. He plans out a lot of the details and loves to act out the theme. This party took a lot of planning and creativity but not much money. I am cheap so I can always find a way to make it work on a budget.