A pirate birthday

 Three weeks after S's party, it was K's turn! He asked for a pirate theme this year (last year was Cars). Since I had already decided on the nautical theme for S's party, I figured I could reuse a few things, and I did! It also was extremely helpful that pirates are REALLY in right now. I had no trouble finding things for the party. Even the dollar store had a great collection of pirate themed stuff!

This banner is from the Dollar Store.

I started with a treasure hunt, of course! I found paper treasure chests at the Dollar Store. I filled them with chocolate gold coins, ring pops, pirate pops I found at Toys R Us and a few other toys and candies. My mom found a few things at a garage sale (Jolly Roger bouncy balls and handkerchieves, etc) that we added. The Dollar Store also had an oversized pirate coloring book that came in handy. One of the pages was a treasure map, so K and I colored it and I gave it to him, rolled up and tied with ribbon, at the beginning of the party so the kids could "use" it to hunt. I also told them that the treasure hunt was their way to earn their status as pirates.

The boys with their treasure!

 This is what they earned: swords and eye patches (both from Target's pirate party favor collection) and paper hats (from the Dollar Store). K looks pretty pirate-y, right?

Can't have fun without a sword fight!

I reused the tin buckets from the nautical party for a decoration. I filled it with the blue paper strips and put a pirate ship toy that K has in it.

 I forgot to take a picture of the fence near the road, but I hung the red and white striped banner from S's party on the fence, along with a pirate flag banner from Target to show where the party was happening.

 We were able to have this party outside in our backyard. Our landlord has a picnic table and umbrella out there that the four apartments share and it is great! I got a pirate table cloth, cups, plates and napkins from Target. I just bought two of each and then mixed them with red and black plates, cups and napkins from the Dollar Store so I didn't have to spend as much.

K's cake request was very specific: a pirate ship and a pirate's face on the top, half chocolate, half yellow cake inside. I called around to price out the cake and it was $50 or higher! So I made the cake myself (and stayed up until 2am the night before the party because I was so busy and procrastinated so long!) and enlisted my artist husband to frost it. He came up with a great idea and had no trouble executing it, as you can see! We were all very pleased with it!

We played pin the eye patch on the pirate. I colored the picture (from that Dollar Store coloring book) and hung it on K's easel. Double stick tape on the back of the kids' eye patches made them stick to the paper for the "pinning". They enjoyed it so much they each went twice!

Happy birthday to my wonderful 5-year-old! He had a lot of fun at the party, and I think everyone else did, too. I was glad to give this to him, but I'm also really glad there are no more birthday parties for a long time!