Epic Dinosaur Dig Birthday Party

Calling all Paleontologists!  This is a party for you! 

Welcome to the Jurassic Period!  This party was a heaven for dinosaur lovers.  

The decorations were simple for this party.  I have a deck of cards that features really nice drawings of dinosaurs and I used that to make a bunting along the fire place mantel. 

The rest was succulents and fake greenery except...

For the 5' dinosaur that lived beneath the vine covered trees in the dining-room!

The trees were set up for his brother's Lord Of The Rings party that was just 3 weeks ago.  I asked him if he wanted me to take them down, and he said "Nah, but could you make them a jungle?"  So that was my goal, to make a jungle, but I still surprised him.  The birthday boy woke up that morning to a huge dinosaur in his house, and he was pretty thrilled!

When the guests first arrived they came in and got their badges to join us on an epic dinosaur exploration day!
  
They collected their badges and were directed to the volcano station where they had to create a setting for our volcanic explosion.  Lava paint, black rocks, small volcanic rocks, and a few little dinosaur friends to decorate with.

They had a blast decorating the volcano lahar area (the space where the volcanic debris flows).  Then, of course, we got to make it explode.

I think it was a very satisfying moment for all of our little party-going paleontologists.

Next up was dinosaur flyers.  I didn't get any good pictures, but the kids ran around having fun with these from Amazon.

After that we all gathered in the back yard for a fossil dig.

The kids enjoyed digging through the sand to find the fossils and crystals that were hidden.  Each kid had a small bag to put their treasures in.

Here is one of the boys bags when they were done.  Notice there is pumice, shark teeth, fossils, and crystals.  It was fun to see what they found!

Lunch came next.

Food was set in not-so-obvious themes involving rocks, volcanoes, 'sticks' (Pretzels), dino eggs (white Easter), and dino claws.  No cute little food cards this time, the kids just thought it was delicious.  ;)

We sang Happy Birthday and everyone got a cupcake with a friend attached.  

Gift bags were made of the activities they did at the party and then we added a small succulent and two hatching dinosaur eggs.  You put the eggs in water, and they hatch!  They also got to keep their finds from the dinosaur dig.  Some of the kids got some amazing fossils!

I think it was the perfect party for my little dinosaur lover.  He had an amazing time and so did his buddies!