Brooklyn Turns 3!

My Baby is 3! She is bright, funny, running, jumping, swimming, running, potty trained, drawing, painting, learning, singing, telling stories, making us all laugh and smile every day and just truly wonderful!
We celebrated in style this year - leaving Mommy completely exhausted! Haha. Wish you could all have been here with us!

We started her birthday with Puff Pancakes, Blueberries and Strawberries and Whip Cream, and Brooklyn got to open 3 presents (2 from DDaddy and Nana!)

Then I pulled her and her friend Hazel in the Bike Carrier to the park where they played,

hen we met Daddy to go Fishing at the local fish hatchery and went for Pizza after!

Today we had her party though. 12 of her closest friends here came and it was an all out DORA the EXPLORER Theme party! Here is how it went: (if you don't know Dora and her characters, you may not understand half the things I say here!)
We started with Tico's Taco Bar (served Tacos for dinner)
Then we started the Treasure Hunt and here is how it went! (Clues are in RED)
I had all the kids bring their own backpacks (Of course I forgot Brooklyn's but she preferred a bucket anyway(;
"Grab your backpacks! Let's go! But Look out for swiper - don't say hello! Say" Swiper No Swiping" or he'll swipe your candy! Now let's go and find the treasures!"

There were 12 kids, so we split them into 3 groups. I also got Trey to be swiper the fox and had him wear gloves and a eye mask like swiper. He follwed the kids and pretended to try to 'swipe their prizes" (More on that later (: ) We sent the first group off first, then gave the older group this:
"Do this puzzle to find the clue, so you can start the treasure Hunt too!"


Clue #1: Up Green Mountain you must Climb, then slide down fast on the windy Vine!

This is the Green Mountain and the windy vine is the windy slide
At the bottom of the slide, the Berry's gave them Red Vines and said:
Eat a Red Vine and Pack the other, you've got to run to get another Through Echo Bush you must go, Listen Close for the Clue and tiptoe!

Eva stood in the bush and echoed everything the kids said, then at the end of the bush, she said
Did you hear me echoing you? Keep listening closely for the clue. The next place that you must go, is where the water rushes and flows!

At the river (AKA Rippling River) , Mark had water guns full of water! You found me, Yippee, Hip Hip Horay! I'm Rippling River, Now let's play! Here's some water for you to squirt, Let's find Swiper! Where does he Lirk!
The kids chased Trey/swiper around and squirted him. After he told them to Find Play Park.

This was a big one - Our friends Chad and Shelly were the grumpy old trolls and sang the grumpy old troll song from Dora:
I'm the Grumpy Old Troll, who lives under the Bridge (X2) If you want to come over, all you have do do is this: Solve my Riddle! No one goes over my bridge, no one, no one, no one! Unless you can solve my riddle I have a riddle and you can't be wrong, But first you must sing the Birthday Song! finally How many Monkey Bars are there? Can you swing across?
There was a clue about swinging across the monkey bars, but the card was lost and I can't remember it! They wall crossed the bridge and went across the monkey bars to get a prize (bubbles and Dora Treasure hunt books)
After which they said
Now it's time to grab a ball! Listen to hear the goalie call!
You must throw the balls hard past that man,
With a big yellow racket in his hand!

you can't see it, but there is a little soccer goal to the left and I brought Brooklyn's tennis racket and a bag of tennis balls. All the kids grabbed the balls and tried to throw them past our friend Demarian who was the goalie!
After that, he said "Bubbles are flying way up high! Follow them to find a prize..

I blew bubbles to lead them up the hill so they could see the huge balloon flower in the sky.
Again the clue is lost, but it went something like this:
I hope you're aren't tired and have the power to look up high and run to the flower, The dancing flowers are waiting for you Now run to them so they can have fun too!
Again I lost the hint for this, and I'm sad we didnt' get photos of this, but I covered dozens of Tutsie roll suckers with tissue paper to make them into flowers and Vic and Eva put them in the grass. The huge balloon flower let them to the "Dancing Flowers" where there was (supposed to be) music playing and the kids could dance and pick the 'flowers' It was really cute!

Trey/Swiper the fox was basically the hit of the treasure hunt - though some kids really thought he was going to swipe them/their treasures! Haha
After the kids picked the flowers and danced, swiper chased them all around and the final clue was:
We're almost done our treasure hunt! Now go find a pinata that we can punt!

We then did a Pinata, had cake and opened presents!

All in all it was a big hit!