The Detective Birthday Party

It was about time we had a proper birthday party for the twins - they turned unbelivable seven years last month, and hallelujah - their birthday party always marks the last of the season - all my kids have their birthday during the winter months, and at some points, I just get tired of throwing kid´s parties.

But this one, yesterday, was surprisingly sweet and cute, thanks to all the incredibly lovely kids, and our proper preparation - Tim once again proved as a criminal mastermind.

A couple of days ago, Tim and I had a lot of fun dressing him up, with various accesoires, to create sort of a "Who did it" sheet. Now, it was the kids´ job to a) find out who stole the gold and diamonds, and b) where the gold and diamonds were hidden.

By the way, gold and diamonds:

In there, you also see a purse, and a potato. We had various hints coded and planted, the first one being written with a UV light pen and only readable under blacklight:

The blacklight-pens also belonged to the treat-kit each detective got - together with a magnifying glass and a small notebook.
The potato came in when we found, on our way, a piece of paper coming from an angry farmer (Tim´s colleague) who had his potatoes stolen! That must have been the same thief! The kids called him via mobile, and he could give him the first hint - the thief had curly hair! So, they could cross out all the bald guys in the sheet above.
The purse had a similar story - Oma Maier, a poor old lady (Eva) had her purse stolen, and she couldn´t really see him, but she´s sure he didn´t wear any glasses!
So, walking further and crossing out possible suspects, we came along difficult tasks like reading backwards, finding hints in a word puzzle or reading a hint in font size four, until we finally found the treasure and handcuffed our suspect.

So, all was very nice, and we had fun preparing and thinking up a plot and dressing up Tim late at night, and a bonus was that I know and love all our guests :) (And note the super cool authentic police tape to secure the crime scene - great amazon find for 1,80 Euros)

Music for the day:

I went to see those guys today. They played in a castle close to where we lived before, and a friend called me yesterday and spontaniously invited me - he had one spare card and didn´t want to go alone. Allthough he had me at "Lower String Ensemble" - I really like the dark humming of Celli - I was first reluctant to go - shouldn´t I use my spare time to clean the kitchen and play with my kids? And thinking that sort of immediatly convinced me to go :)
These guys played virtously and witty, and the sun fell through the large castle windows and reflected in the chandeliers, and we felt really intellectual and upper class. No, seriously, it was fun :)