Happy Birthday to my sweet little Bladen. I can't believe you are already 3 years old. Time sure flies when you're having fun & you've added SO MUCH FUN to my life.
For Bladen's very first "friend birthday party" he wanted a
PIRATE PARTY - Aaaargh Matey!
That was fine by me because I LOVE PIRATES & anything pirate related. I started buying for this party way back in September. I was SO excited that it was finally here.
My friend Nancy is also a pirate enthusiast & she was a total sweetheart & bought all the decor & all the goody bags for the guests. Don't you just love the idea of a treasure chest as your goody bag? SO FUN.
Nancy also sent me some chocolate melts & a mold to make my own
pirate suckers.
I've never made these before, but I was surprised at how much fun they were to make. They were quite time consuming, but really I had a blast & can't wait to make more for other parties & holidays. I made some pirate skulls, pirate ships, & treasure chests for each of the party guests.
Now we'll move on to the cake. . . ah yes, the cake. This cake was a complete nightmare for me. ha ha ha. But how in the world will I ever learn anything without some trial & error right? This cake took an entire day (hours & hours), but I was pleased with the end result. I made a pirate ship by baking 3 boxes of cake mix. (2 eight inch round cakes & 2 9x13 rectangle cakes) I stacked, cut, & carved all of the cakes together until it formed a pirate ship shape. Unfortunately, here's where the trial & error comes in. The back of my pirate ship (the tallest part) collapsed TWO TIMES before I thought about stabilizing it with wooden dowels. See? I learned something. Once the dowels were there, it didn't collapse & held sturdy like a real ship. HOORAY.
Trek was a great help this time around. He made some ladders out of licorice & helped with my cannons as well. He made the crows nest at the top of the ship out of a cracker, pretzels, & frosting. It was a team effort & it turned out really cool.
We left the body of the ship with pretzel sides & chocolate cannons over night along with the crows nest (nesting upside down) so all the frosting could harden. The plan was to assemble the entire SHIP a few minutes before the party so it wouldn't fall over before the guests arrived. I was REALLY paranoid. The sails were huge & I just knew the whole thing was going to fall over. I was even prepared to throw a bunch of twizzlers on my cake so I could say a Kraken was sinking it if it crashed down on me. The things we do for our kids right? I was just praying this thing would stay upright.
Well, morning came & it was my Bladen boy's 3rd birthday.
Happy Birthday Buddy Boy.
I got all of the fun decorations set up & got ready for the big party. I LOVED the pirate theme. It was ADORABLE.
Bladen was SO excited for his special day. He's been talking about it for weeks now & it was finally here.
I bet you can't guess what he did first. . . yup. He put on a pirate costume.
Aaaargh!
Bladen & I are best buds. For his birthday he was
"Pirate Captain Hook Hat Sword"
& I was his 1st Mate.
About 20 minutes before the other boys started arriving, Trek & I finished assembling the cake. And much to my surprise, it turned out FANTASTIC. Hooray for trying new things no matter how hard they are.
Bladen was SO excited.
The cake looked good, the house was decorated cute, & the kids were all dressed up like my deckhands. We were off to a great start. I love my family.
Trek added the ladders to the cake for the finishing touch. It was finally complete. We were so excited to have such a fun project to complete together.
We had 6 little boys come to the party. I bought little pirate costumes last September when I saw them on clearance for $0.20 each. (yes, I got them for less than a quarter a piece.) The boys were SO excited to get their own pirate costume. Then we made captain hats out of foam & pirate foam stickers (thanks to the magic of oriental trading).
There were blue pirate costumes. . .
and black & red ones. All of them were ADORABLE.
After everyone was dressed & had hats. . . we came up with some fun pirate names for each of them. Then we played a super cute game I found called
"Pop Up Pirate."
Basically, it's a pirate guy you push down into a barrel. There are slits all over the barrel & the kids take turns putting swords into the slots. One slot makes the pirate pop out of the barrel. The boys were laughing hysterically every time the pirate popped out.
Next we all made our own treasure maps. I love these little sticker scenes you can buy at Oriental Trading. They are easy for these little hands, but will keep the kids entertained for hours. Bladen LOVED this activity.
Cadence & Lorien were both a little old for a lot of these activities, but let me tell you, they were the BEST HELPERS EVER. I'm SO lucky to have them as my daughters. They were WONDERFUL with the kids. They are going to be awesome babysitters someday.
After making treasure maps, we headed into the kitchen for some
cake & ice cream.
Trek always loves CUTTING the cake. He thinks he's SO funny. ha ha ha.
After we were filled with lots & lots of sugary goodness, we took all the boys outside for some piñata fun. I always laugh at how we do piñatas. We never have a real plan & it always turns out quite funny. This time we used an old crutch & a green extension cord to hold the thing up. The kids used a plastic toy golf club to hit the piñata. Needless to say, the golf club didn't do ANYTHING to that poor piñata.
We ended up having to use the pull strings to get the candy out. Bladen found the magic string & all the candy went FLYING out.
Bladen's friend Ezequiel couldn't stay for very long, but I just loved how he gave Bladen a hug before he left. I love the friends we have made here in Monterey.
Look at all those pirates!
I couldn't believe how patient all my little pirates were. All the candy was just sitting there on the ground waiting to be picked up & all the kids just stood there waiting for the signal that it was okay to go grab it. I've never been around such well behaved children in my life.
When we got back inside, Bladen just KNEW it HAD to be time to open presents. He had been waiting for it all day long & couldn't take it anymore. He was SO EXCITED.
Leo got him 2 monster trucks. He hasn't owned any monster trucks so far & these were his favorite gift of the party. He wanted them out NOW & never let go of them for the rest of the day.
Joshua gave him the cutest little Cars Playdoh Playset. Bladen loves playdoh so he'll have lots of fun with this.
Maximus got him a Jack Sparrow dress up set. He was in heaven the moment he saw the sword inside.
Bennet gave him the cutest little fire truck transformer toy. I love transformers & now that I've shown him how it works, Bladen wants to take this everywhere with him.
Maxwell gave Bladen a Mater car. Bladen was LOVING all these awesome toys.
Ezequiel gave him a tank lego set. We are definitely a lego family so we'll have lots of fun with this.
After opening presents we had about 15 minutes before all the parents were going to come to pick the boys up so we took them all to the park in their pirate costumes so they could play PIRATE any way they wanted to.
It turned out to be one of the funnest parties I've ever done. I didn't feel stressed at all with this one. . . I just enjoyed every second of it. Boys parties are SO FUN.
Happy Birthday Bladen. Mommy loves you SO MUCH.
