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We celebrated Madison's birthday on the 7th with a Mystery Clue Birthday Party. Each guest received an invitation to their "character" letting them know that they were a suspect and summoning them to the Boddy mansion to get to the bottom of what happened on the night of January 3rd. They also received a newspaper article about the apparent crime committed at the mansion and a side article about this amazing swimmer named Madison Koceich. The character names were all colors (i.e. Madison Magenta, Hannah Honey-Mustard etc.) and they came dressed in their color.

Matt was "James" the butler and Detective Matt. When the guests arrived their mug shot was taken and we had a formal dinner and then got down to the business of finding out who committed the crime.

Each guest was given a clipboard with directions for finding clues (completing tasks in each of the rooms), a map of the mansion and a chart to check off people, weapons and rooms as they discovered they were not involved in the crime (this was a process of elimination game). We then put them into groups of 3 or 4 with a deputy working with each group and making sure they completed their tasks correctly before giving them clues...




* the crime scene tape had some of my dad's neighbors in a tizzy...LOL!




* the guests received character quirk cards during dinner. The card had a character trait that each girl was to take on (such as saying the word "like" a lot, or itching their nose a lot). At the dinner everyone had to guess what each character's quirk was


* fancey mashed potatoes


* James even got a tip


* Mystery cupcakes in the shape of a question mark


* getting ready to search for clues to solve the case


* the evidence


* to receive their clues in the hall the guests had to each bounce a ping pong ball off of the floor and into a bowl 3 times.


* in the lounge they had to complete a crossword puzzle with clues from the summons, newspaper article and other game related questions


* on the patio each team had to make 5 baskets


* in the formal dining room was a 24 piece puzzle to solve


* and in the sitting room a game of concentration


* in the theater the teams wrote a birthday song to Madison to the tune of the Itsy Bitsy spider. They then video taped it for our end of the party enjoyment


* in the kitchen they had to guess the food taped to their back by asking their team mates yes or no questions only


* poor Sam was sick, but he was a trouper


* the teams received a nice chocolate cash reward as they solved the case


* in the end we discovered it was Emma Emerald in the lounge with the candlestick

* Each guest took home a set of Clue cards personalized with our guests, weapons and rooms






* now to start planning for next year... ;) (just kidding...sort of!)