For my sons 4th birthday this year we thew him a bless this mess" party. We figured what 4 yr old doesn't like to get dirty?  We made the invitations ourselves. We had a picture of our son completely filthy and covered in mud (actually it was brownie mix then muddy some more then come and celebrate Chase is turning 4! At the bottom I made sure to tell them to wear their play clothes because the WOULD get dirty.Then using a stamp pad I put "dirty" hand prints all over the paper. (I used a hand print stamp with brown ink). The party was outside so we didn't really need decorations but we did use brown plates cups napkins and plastic ware to look like mud. Before starting our activities we handed out smocks/large t-shirts for all the kids to wear so they didn't ruin their clothes. I painted "bless this mess" on them in brown paint using a dry brush technique so it looked as if they were written with a muddy finger. For activities/games we did everything we could to get the kids dirty. We had 4 stations set up with messy activities. First we had a sand and water table filled on one side with jell-o and on the other with popcorn.  I had sand toys and cups for them to play with in the table. The next station was finger painting with pudding. We had large paper with several bowls of all flavors of pudding set around.  This way they had several colors to paint with.  Next we had a mud pie making contest. We had a big bucket full of mud for the kids to use and a large piece of plywood laid over bails of hay for the table.  The kids wer told they could use anything in the yard to decorate their pies. They really liked this and were far more creative than I ever thought they would have been. The judging was REALLY hard and I ended up scrounging around my house for addtional prizes because I couldn't pick just one winner.  The last station was a treasure hunt. We had a baby pool filled with dirt with "treasures" hidden inside. We used water guns and goggles for the treasures.  The kids had to be in the pool digging in order to find a treasure.  After they were as dirty as we thought they could possibly be we lined them up and gave the dirtiest kids a prize.  After all this the kids were able to clean up with the hose before we served cake. I made a "dirt cake" I kind of made up for the cake. I had seen them before but couldn't find exactly waht I was looking for in a recipe anywhere so I made it up mixing different ideas from different recipes.  I first made a devils food bundt cake.  Then I filled the hole with crushed oreo cookies. I then mixed chocolate cool whip with crushed oreos for the icing. I just globbed it on to make it look real dirty.  ANd I piled it up to look like a big pile of dirt.  I then sprinkled it with just the crushed oreos for a more dirt like appearance.  It was a HUGE hit!! I didn't have a single piece left over.  EVERYONE loved it!! For the party favors I filled sand pails with the messiest small toys and candy I could find: slime playdough bubbles lick-a-maid suckers laughy taffy etc. I was actually asked by several parents if I would rent out my house and have this same party for their kids as well both boy and girl alike. It was a great time for everyone.  I think the parents had just as much fun getting dirty as the kids did.  "