Birthday Parties!

This week is Children's Parties over at Kelly's Korner! I love throwing parties for my little ones - although I think their birthdays fall during the craziest times of the year. We do family parties until they are 3 and for their 4th birthday we start doing friend parties.

I think I went the craziest over Graham's 6th birthday! We had just gotten back from Disneyland and the boys were entralled with the whole "pirate" theme...

Sign on our gate. I try to have the parties in our garage or backyard. Too many kids inside my house drives me insane.

The invitations. I printed them out on parchment paper from HL and burned the edges with a lighter. I rolled them up and Graham got to hand them out.

The Motley Crew. As soon as they arrived I gave them all pirate names. Gunwalls o Greg, Blackheart Kate, etc. Then we dressed them in pirate gear, patches, earrings, hats, etc. The flag is a $2.00 sheet from Wal-Mart that I painted about 10 minutes before the party.


We sent the kids on a treasure hunt in our neighborhood. Dan dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow and led them on the adventure.
I wrote a set of clues like:
Scurvy Josh lives real close by
But not so close enough to fly
Ring the bell and ye be told
You're on yer way to Pirate's Gold!

and

You've done well Pirate lads and lasses
Now's the time to take yer chances
The treasure is oh so close
But your not ready yet to boast
Gunwalls o Greg has a turtle fair
And a treasure chest is waiting there!

The treaure be found! I doctored up the pinata with gems and sparklie pipe cleaner. I mean, who wants to find a boring plain paper chest? The pirates making "booty" while I cut the cake and ice cream. You can't see that well but the table had burlap, with a skull and "treasure" strewn over it. We had two huge nets hanging from the ceiling with starfish and shells in them.
Me and Captain Graham I made the cake - it's 4 sheet cakes put together. The sand is crushed cinnamon graham cracker

Lauren got a total girl party with her grandmas and grandpas and lots of cousins. I did everything in pink and purple with roses and butterflies. She loved her tutu and headband that my mom bought her. I bought her a white onesie and put the words "Miss February" on it in crystals. (Again, HL has the iron on kind, so easy!) and I quick sewed a few hot pink flowers on it.

Digging into her cake. Most grocery stores around here give you a free one!

LuLu with her Nanny. You can see the roses I hung from the chandelier in the back and we had cake, little sandwiches, and a few other hors de oeuvres.

CostCo cake. With her birthday on the 12th, Valentine's Day on the 14th, my dad's birthday on the 21st and Greg's on the 24th - I've decided to start buying cakes!
I did make Graham's and Greg's first birthday cakes...they both looked like this. Kind of sad, huh!?Greg did get the Spiderman party he hoped for this year - lots of spiders, fun games and (smart mom now) a smaller group of kids!Homemade pin the spider on the web. And we played "hot potato" with pretend Cryptonite. Cupcake cake and too cute boys. I love throwing them parties and I hope they let me do it for them for a long time!

Thanks for stopping by!