Happy St. Patrick's Day

Hooray for St. Patrick's Day.  This is Taya's favorite holiday because of the treasure hunt I always put together for them.  Lately I've been doing a lot of "crack the code" things with the kids so they love it if I can include some codes into their treasure hunt.

They woke up to find everything in our living/dining area GREEN!  Our Lucky Charms had a red rainbow piece attached & there was a bag with a red mark with 6:00 am written on it.

Canyon put the red rainbow piece up on the back door so we could start building our rainbow.

At 6:00 am we opened the bag & inside it said

"Eat breakfast & do your morning chores!"

So the kids got right to work, then opened the code envelope.

They had to unscramble the clues that would lead them into the pantry behind our milkshake machine.

Hooray!  They found the orange piece!

Next to this rainbow piece were some fun green clothes to wear to school.

"Time to put on some green & show your St. Patrick's Day spirit!  Go get dressed & ready for school!"

The clue leading to the next rainbow piece was written in bar code.  Taya is my code wizard who always has different types of codes saved in her phone.  I thought I had found one she didn't know, but alas, she had a whole barcode alphabet already saved & ready to use.

They found the yellow rainbow piece in the cabinet that we keep our greeting cards in.  Inside the bag located there was a message that said:

And the clue to the next location was a crossword puzzle I made.  Each word in the puzzle was something that is usually found near this location.  (My computer desk.)

Taya grabbed the green rainbow piece & added it to the rainbow.  This one wouldn't allow them to open the bag until 4:00 (after school.)

At 4:00 sharp, they ripped into the bag to learn we'd be making shamrock shakes for our afternoon snacks.

The clue for the next location was in a story cypher.  The kids enjoyed this one.  Can you figure out how to find the next location just by reading the story?

They had no problems solving it whatsoever & found the blue piece quickly.

Don't Eat Pete is the dumbest game I've ever seen, but the kids insist that St. Patrick's Day it MUST be played, so here it is.  They are always SO excited.

After many rounds of "Don't Eat Pete" we opened the next clue. . . egyptian.

Hooray, they found the final rainbow piece in the toybox.  The bag inside wouldn't allow them to open it up until 6:30 which was after dinner so it was time for a big feast.

I love GREEN & RAINBOW FOOD!

Stay Cool is one of the kids' new games & they love it.  It's stressful, but they have a blast.  Everybody got to play at least one round, then it was time to reveal the last cipher that lead to the treasure.

I ended up making this one too hard.  It's a qwerty cipher meaning you have to use a keyboard to figure it out.  Q=A W=B E=C & so on.  But once they got that hint, they were well on their way to the treasure.

It was a fun night.  I'm glad the kids still enjoy things like this.  Being a mom is a blast.