Happy 4th birthday me matie

This year Daxon decided to celebrate his 4th birthday with a pirate party. We originally decided that this year we were going to have something low key, as the last three birthdays were big parties (last year we rented a popcorn machine and a cotton candy machine). But as the day approached, it became clear that was not going to be the case. So began the planning of a pirate party.

Food is always a big thing around our house, you cant have a special event or party without food!! (personally, I think food is what makes a party) So to make it fun I came up with pirate names for all the food.

The veggie tray I called land lovers and made a palm tree for the middle, using a carrot and a green pepper. (I broke the handles off the plastic swords and used them to hold the pepper on the carrot and then used the other half of the pepper as a stand). I cut cheese cubes and called them pirates gold. What's a pirate party with out pirate swords?? So we cut fruit into pieces and stuck them on plastic swords, Daxon was such a big help with putting the fruit on the swords, I think he made most of them! We also served hot dogs and buns, but since I know Daxon prefers his hotdog without a bun, I cut some of the hotdogs both ways, half ways up and put them in the oven for about 10 mins, they curl up and look like squids! This was definitely a hit with the kids, we called them silly squid. We also have a pasta salad which we called treasure salad.

For the party favors, I first made a skull stencil using a picture that I found online and then put it on the front of a brown paper bag, using black spray paint I then painted over the stencil. I printed off tags that said "Thanks for being me matie", using a lighter I then burnt the edges and tied them to the bags with a black ribbon. The bags where filled with a 25 piece Jack and the neverland pirate puzzle, a glow stick sword, pirate stickers and pirate candy
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For entertainment we had a treasure chest pinata, which I made using the steps from this site (I just couldn't justify spending $20.00 on something the kids were going to smash). I was so excited the way it turned out and it actually stood up to a lot of beating. We also had a tattoo station which we named "Jolly Rodger Tattoo" and extra glow swords from the treat bags which the kids had fun playing with.

I don't think we could have asked for a better day and a better little boy (or should I say young man) to celebrate!!