birthdays- part 2

this past weekend was the birthday party. a few weeks ago i asked the boys what kind of party they wanted. (i always secretly want them to choose the same theme, even though until they get older, i'm sure this won't happen.) so i brought them to the computer and we start looking at party sites and luke immediately tells me he wants a pirate party. a what? how does he even know what a pirate is? and of course, seth sees the picture of mickey mouse clubhouse and since we had just watched it, that's what he wants. so i decide to look to see if there is some sort of pirate mickey stuff. well no. (however, i have a sneaking suspicion that if micah would take me on that disney cruise i want to go on, i could find something!) anyway, i keep asking over the next few days and offer a few suggestions as well (carnival, dinosaurs, etc.). and i even got them to agree to a few. and the last time i asked, luke screamed "Pirate Party!!" to which seth, in his usual self said "i want a pirate party too!!" so i just went with it, never offering anymore choices! so i went that weekend and starting buying up all kinds of party decoration and goody stuff. (and wouldn't you know, i don't have a single picture of them??? monica, email me some.) and then the hard part...trying to figure out what kind of cake or cupcakes we would have. i went my usual route and looked at what the local stores had to offer. everything they had was "Pirates of the Carribbean" and he's not in to that kind of pirate. (of course, he has never seen it, so i'm just guessing.) anyway, i scoured the internet looking for pirate party games, food, and cakes. i knew we were gonna have a treasure hunt, but i wasn't sure if i would just have pictures or if it was going to involve some kind of riddles...(and since no one can actually read, i went for a picture style-dora like map). and because so many of you are so crafty and creative, i elected NOT to share a picture of it b/c it was truly ghetto!! i guess i should take pride that the kids understood what the pictures were of. that means i can at least draw at a 5 year old level!! i took a brown paper bag, tore the edges and then burned them. then drew our back yard. basically the map was an obstacle course to get to the treasure, which i put inside a tupperware box so no one could see exactly where all the goodies were. so they did the treasure hunt to get to the pinata. inside the treasure

(which came from party city) was candy, necklaces, rings and gold coins. they filled their miniature treasure boxes (goodie boxes) with that, along with the other loot i put in it (eye patches, gold coins, pirate stickers, sea themed pin ball game and a plastic sea creature.)

the cake...well, i finally found what i thought i could do online. and then i remembered my friend lindsey made one a few months ago. she was brave and did what the recipe called for and actually stood that thing up. knowing that i have no cake decorating skill, i kept mine lying down. i had to improvise a little with the decoration on the actual cake. i got my star tip and piped around the bottom to make it look a little better and then came my learning experience. i had 3 kids with me and didn't have time to actually read anything grabbed the wrong icing and didn't notice it was cookie icing, which is much "runnier" (cause that's a word). i put the decoration on and the skull and cross bones and was generally happy with it. (can y'all tell it's a pirate hat?)

then when i came back to look at it a couple of hours later, i'll have you know that face had nearly slid completely off of the cake. so i scraped off the original decoration and ate it and re-iced the middle. then i grabbed up all 3 kids and went back to walmart for the correct icing. i came back and it was soooo much better. (if you look, you can see the skull and cross bones are better in this pic. trial and error i guess.)

the cake was chocolate with chocolate fudge icing and the cupcakes were yellow cake with chocolate fudge icing and i piped "Ls" and "Ss" on top.

all in all, it was a good day. we had no sun, so it wasn't hot (which it generally isn't at our party...love me some fall babies) and plenty of breeze and just a few friends (turns out all of our family minus micah's brother and SIL couldn't come.)

luke went all out in pirate gear for his pirate party. (he would have worn the pants, but they are kind of big, so i settled for the top and accessories. and i intentionally cut that picture off at the ankle b/c my child though black socks with his crocks was the only way to go. (in his defense, he had that on with the pirate pants and i just didn't make him change.)

i wonder if when he outgrows this pirate stage if i'll need to get his eyes checked from all the eye patch wearing...