Shane's Pirate Birthday Party

Last Saturday we celebrated Shane's 6th birthday with a fantastic pirate-themed party.  Here's my little birthday pirate a couple of days before the party.  :)

I had spent a couple of weeks prior planning the party so there was a little build-up of excitement with the boys by the time the actual day of the party arrived.

I've lots of pictures, but I'll try to only show the highlights of the party.  :)

When the children arrived, they got to choose from an assortment of items to dress up like pirates . . . paper pirate hats, bandanas, mustaches, tattoos, and patches.

Dave suggested that we use pool noodles for swords so I used a bread knife and cut pool noodles in half for the children to have pirate sword fights.

It got a little fierce in the garage with all the sword fighting.

I didn't get a good picture of the pirate ship that Dave made out of cardboard boxes, but you get some idea of it in these pictures with the kids sword fighting in and around it.  They loved the ship.

I also painted a pirate picture for the children to "Pin the Patch" on the pirate.

The kids really enjoyed pinning the patch . . . even though I don't have any pictures to prove it.

I also had a plank set up for the pirates to practice walking on . . .

But no pictures of any pirates walking the plank!  Even though they all did it!   This picture is the closest I have of the children walking the plank, but you can't see the plank!  Ha!

Oh wait!  Here's one . . . sort of!  See the child on the far left . . .

We also had the Captain Hook ring toss for the children to try.

I didn't have any ring to toss so I used glow stick necklaces hooked together.

And my sister, Michelle, really helped out with the children and the games.

Between the games and the pirate ship, the children stayed busy playing in the garage.

And then it was time for the Treasure Hunt!  I'm going to post details about the Treasure Hunt in a later post, but here's some pictures of the hunt.

The children raced from clue to clue in the backyard using the treasure map to help guide them to the treasure.

The Treasure Chest was easy to spot once the children saw the giant red "X" marking the treasure spot.

The chest was really a cardboard box painted and filled with sand to hide the treasure.

The children dug and dug looking for the treasure of necklaces, rings, and gold coins.

The children loved the gold coins.

Here's the birthday boy checking out his gold coin . . .

And then it was time to open presents . . .

Thanks to Nana, PawPaw, Aunt Michelle, and his Alabama cousins, Shane is ready to protect the USA as Captain America!

He got lots of other great gifts from his friends.  He said it was the best birthday ever!

 I made a pirate ship cake that morning using Jake and the Neverland pirate character toys.

Shane loved it!  The candles on the sides of the cake were representative of cannons shooting from the ship.  The kids loved it when I lit the candles.

Blowing out the candles that are on two sides of a cake can be tricky!

And after a couple of the children left the party to go home  . . . I remembered I had bought pirate and princess crafts for the children to do!  Oops!  Well, at least Mary Beth got to do one.

And then because being a pirate is not as appealing as being a super hero sometimes  . . . 

Doesn't the world feel a little safer now.  :)  Shane was ready as Captain America!

The party was a success.  How do I know?  It started at 2 o'clock and the last guests left at 7:30!  A couple of the mothers, my sister, and I enjoyed visiting while the children played pirates and super heros for hours outside!  We were enjoying ourselves so much that we completely lost track of the time!

Shane said I was the best mother ever.  

I'm sure that was true on that particular day with . . .

                           the Ferrell boys and me!


I'm linking up to these awesome parties!  Come and join the fun!