Rudy wanted to have a camping party for his sixth birthday. After some negotiation on location, we agreed to party at "Camp Whippoorwill," so he could invite all his friends without having to actually drag everyone to a campground. (The selling point was the s'more cake!)
While we waited for all the kids to arrive, we had a longer-than-expected game of Rudy-invented "tent tag." If you were tagged, you had to freeze in place like a tent, with your hands on the ground and your butt in the air, until you were unfrozen. I expected the game to last about 10 minutes, but they played for closer to 40 minutes!
When they got hot and started to argue about the finer points of tent tag, we took a break for some watermelon.
The snack quickly turned into an impromptu watermelon seed spitting contest. I'm amazed at the distant these guys achieved!
Lila, taking it all in...
Another game that evolved based on a suggestion from Miss Shar was the sleeping bag relay. We filled the bottoms of the bags with Rudy's animals; the kids had to dive in and retrieve and animal before running over and tagging the next teammate. The first round they could pick any animal, but we made it more challenging the second round by making them find a specific critter.
Next, it was a quick bug hunt. I'd hidden about 60 plastic bugs in the circle for the kids to collect and keep. Thankfully, no one came back with any real bugs!
The final game was the Camp Whippoorwill scavenger hunt. The kids were quite dedicated to finding every item on the list!
Present opening in the tent...
The much-anticipated s'more cake! Homemade graham cracker top and bottom, chocolate frosted brownie for the Hershey bar, and vanilla-frosted chocolate cake for the marshmallow.
Ready for cake...
What's the best way to follow and super-sweet birthday cake? With birthday s'mores, of course!
Rudy and Mary Emma...
Rudy and Ben...
My happy camper:
