Shiver me Timbers, A Pirate Party for Braden!

For Braden's birthday I decided to have some of his friends over for a little party.  Being the second child, he hasn't had nearly as many playdates or special parties as I have had for Sadie.  For birthdays we always do something as a family or with one or two friends, but I knew Braden was excited for his birthday and wanted to make it a special day for him.  So he had 10 friends his age come over for a pirate party in our backyard!

I had 6 activities for the kids to do and after they completed each of the activities, they recieved a prize that helped them become a little more of a pirate. 

First they "pined" the treasure to the map to get their "pirate defense" bubbles

X marks the spot! 

Then they had to shoot their bazooka (nerf gun) at the crocodiles lerking nerby to get their pirate bandanas

Next they gathered on top of the "pirate ship" to cast a fishing line down and catch their next prize: Eye patches!

The next prize, a telescope, was earned after four tries at the bean bag toss through the skeleton's mouth (created by Shelby)

(My little lefty caught in action)

To complete their pirate training they had to walk the plank to earned their swords (glow in the dark!)

Being full-fledged pirates they were only missing one thing... TREASURE!

Of course, it did require a little searching, since it was burried....

 

Before the grubs were served, they had a little time to play.  I also tried to get a picture of all of them in costume, but it was kind of hard to keep them all together, some went down the slide, some down the climbing wall on the other side, etc. but that is ok because that means they were having fun!  Here is one attempt to gather for a picture...

Pizza, Braden's request, was served then cake and ice cream cones.  The cake was from Save Mart, I noticed they were having a sale and one of the cakes pictured was a priate cake.. I know everyone else makes their own super cute cakes and I am a culinary major so I should have made my own... but how could I pass this deal up...

It would have been even cuter if the sails and other accessories that went with it that the lady at the bakery showed me had ended up with the cake, but somehow they were not in the box when I went to take it out.  So I tied some of the fabric I used for the bandanas on as as a last min. improvise.

It was all worth it to get this:

Braden had the biggest smile on his face when everyone was singing him Happy Birthday, it was so cute.

Braden wasn't the only one having a good time...

Here is Mackenzie doing what she does best!

Sadie was having a little bit of a hard time letting Braden have the lime-light but she did enjoy helping Braden open some presents.  He was a good sport and didn't complain.

Thanks to everyone that helped to make this day a fun day for Braden!