Jake vs. Wild

Jake, our comedian and maker of funny faces turned 5 last week.  He and his brothers really love the show Man vs. Wild, featuring the amazing Bear Grylls.  They actually love American Pickers even more these days, but it's hard to have an American Pickers party with 5-year-olds.  So, we had a pretty sweet survival-themed party for him.  It didn't exactly go according to plan, but, hey.  You win some, you lose some.  Jake was soooo excited about everything.  Little did he know all the surprises we had in store for him.

 Here are his invitations.  I am hoping I won't end up in jail for using this image:

Even though I loved Jake's birthday party (mostly) and I'm glad we did it, I think the joy he found from his birthday breakfast that morning was enough to sustain him for another year.  I got him a pack of those little boxed sugar cereals... you know the ones.  He was so excited!

I made an awesome cake.  A snake made with red velvet cake for a gruesome effect.  When Finn saw the cake batter he got seriously freaked out.  "EWWWWWW!" he said, "Dat a buddy nose?"  (Is that a bloody nose?)  Ha ha ha!  Nasty, but very accurate description, there, Finn.

So you just cut the bundt cakes into smaller segments and link them all together to make a snake.  Voila. Magic!

I only wish I had better food coloring, but whatever.  Here he is:

SO.  The party!  We had a very, very special guest come all the way from Bellingham to surprise Jake for his big day!  Jason's brother, Jon, agreed to play the part of Bear Grylls at Jake's party.  We kept the secret from all the kids, and they were all totally amazed when he appeared.  We took all the kids from the party up to the canal after a short talk about survival.  Their goal was to build a shelter.

As they looked around for supplies, suddenly one of the kids spotted Jon and said, "I think there's a hobo under that bridge!"  Jon burst out and grabbed Jacob at that moment.  My boys, Ruby and Jade were screaming, "Uncle Jonny!  Uncle Jonny!"  Joy filled the air.  And then tragedy struck.  Jon slipped and took a nasty fall, dropping Jake on his head.  (onto a rock, mind you, dear reader.)  The tears flowed, and for a moment, the party was ruined.  Jon kept checking Jake's head for blood- he hit that hard.  I have it all on video; it's not pretty.

Anyway, soon Jake was consoled, and on we went with the construction of a very fine shelter for any other hobos who may live under that bridge.  Unfortunately, Jon was so rattled by the experience, he was unable to carry out his duties of British accent-speaking Bear Grylls.  But it was still fun.  Half the kids had no idea who the heck Bear Grylls is anyway, so whatever.

Yay!  No blood!

Here is the very incredible shelter:

Because the kids were so famished from their labors, we were able to find a tasty snack for them... WORMS!  These things were so realistically disgusting, but they were actually gummy worms from Oriental Trading.

I have to say that the worms really freaked some of the kids out, but not Finn.  He was game for anything.  A true disciple of Man vs. Wild.

The next challenge was to find food.  We had bags of food hidden around our back yard.  (Hot dogs and chips.)  The kids had to build a fire and cook their dinner.

Jake!  What an awesome little dude.  This guy has more life in his little pinky than most of us do in our entire bodies.

Look at this cheezer.  This face comes after the command, "Jake, just give me a real, normal smile for this picture."

Cutting into the red velvet wonder.  The kids went nuts.

There was one section of the party which I did not capture on film.  That is because it scared some of the small children at the party, and reduced them to tears.  SO.  No pictures of the snake pit/ spider cave.  Bummer.

Happy 5th birthday, Jake!