Pirate Party time!!

We have done it! We have survived another kid birthday party! Woot! Woot!
The theme for Christopher's 5th birthday party was pirates. Not because he is into pirates, but because he saw the pirate swords at Target and wanted them and I figured it would be easier than trying to do an Angry Birds party, which is what he is in to. So pirates it was!

I was a bit stressed since I was out of town last weekend, and crazy busy all week with other things. We were scrambling today to get the activities together. We did it!


The first activity was the bean bag toss. The boys took turns tossing the bean bags in to the pirate chest.


The next activity was the jello hunt. This was an activity I did for Vinnie's lego party this year, where the boys used chop sticks to pick lego pieces out of the jello. This time I used blue jello and we told the boys that a treasure chest fell into the sea, spilling it's contents. They used their chopsticks to pull out treasure (toy rings) and fish (swedish fish). It was a bit tough for the younger boys to manipulate the chopsticks, but they did it.


Next up was the obstacle course. Pete has done this for both Vinnie and Joey's birthday parties and it is always a big hit. It wasn't pirate related, so Pete suggested we have the boys rape and pillage at the end of the obstacle course. Funny guy.


We came back in the house for pin the pirate on the map. Eh. Not too exciting.


We then took a break for pizza.

The next game was a surprise hit. It was a back up game that we were only going to use if we needed to kill more time (which we did). It was essentially musical chairs, but we used treasure maps. The kids refused to walk in a circle, and instead went crazy running all over the place and plowing into each other. Boys! Much to our surprise we did not have to stitch anyone up at the end! They played this over and over (and over). I find I can never predict what the huge hit of the party is going to be.


Cake time! Of course I made a pirate cake.

Make a wish!




The final event was the treasure hunt. Every pirate party has to have a treasure hunt, right? We had no idea how to do a treasure hunt for 5 year olds who can't even read. Pictures? Rhymes? An hour before the party we were still trying to figure out what to do. I decided to keep the clues real simple, with either Pete or Vinnie reading the clues. Examples were "this is where Christopher's brothers play basketball" and "this is where the mailman puts the mail". At each location was a paper bag with the next clue and some pieces of candy for their bag. The final clue led them to the big treasure chest which had their take home goody bags in it. It went smoothly and the kids had a blast!
The goody bags had pirate stickers and tattoos, an eye patch, chocolate coins, a candy necklace and a few other little trinkets. I find it hard not to get carried away on the goody bags!

Aye matey!!