Monday, May 2, 2016

Jake & the Neverland Pirates and the Golden Birthday

You know how things never truly go as planned?  You envision an event going one way, and then it takes a totally different direction?  Well, I had plans for my daughter's 4th birthday.  I had plans.  She was going to have a garden party.  We'd read the Hungry Caterpillar and do some gardening and the kids would leave with a sunflower ready to bloom for the summer.  I had picked up Eric Carle themed gift bags, cute little flower wands (and this was YEARS ago) and everything that went with it.  And I was ready for her 2nd birthday party until....

She really wanted a Sesame Street party.  

Then, I saved all of the stuff for her 3rd birthday until...

She really wanted an Umi Zoomi party.  

So I saved all of the stuff for her 4th birthday.  And you guessed it.  She didn't want a garden party.  She was all about Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  So I went with it.  My brilliant husband incorporated all of the garden stuff into this party by bringing in Tinkerbell (seriously BRILLIANT!) so the garden stuff is gone AND Maren got her dream golden birthday party.   Win-Win!  Here are some pictures from her party this weekend.  

I made a cake and cake pops with the cake scraps.  The cake pops were going to be cannon balls, but I didn't have enough black melting candy.  But I had a ton of red.  So, again, I went with it!


The cake is actually decorated quite simply.  It's the Jake & the Neverland Pirate toys that really make it.  I used brown sugar for the sand and found some candy shells at a candy shop.   The cake itself is white cake and chocolate cake.  I torted both layers and filled them blue buttercream.  Maren's favorite color is blue and this was her request.  I layered the cake with white, then chocolate, white then chocolate so it was also striped on the inside to go with our color theme.  


Tick Tock crock is sneaking up on Hook!!


Did you know that I had to go to three different stores before I could find Pixie Stix?  I mean, what kind of a party would this be if not for the Pixie Stix?  Totally worth it.


Gummy Worms = Fish Bait
Gummy Fish = Shark Bait


Maren got a treasure chest for her birthday and it came in handy for the treasure hunt!  (All of the goody bags were inside).

 

The kids had a BLAST sword fighting outside.  I thought I was going to pass out from laughing so hard.





Uncle Jimmy took quite a few beatings!  



The kids also got to go fishing!  They loved this too!  My husband put a magnet at the end of string and the kids got to fish out metal nuts.  I think they more loved the cheer of the crowd when they "got something!!"  It was cute!


They also played a Hook Toss.  They had to try to hook some diving rings onto Hooks.  Again, cheers made it so fun!


Then it was time to walk the plank!  We had to bring this one indoors because the weather turned rainy.  But that didn't stop the kids.  They went from a really wide board, down to a little skinny one.  They all had so much fun with this!  Again, cheers from the crowd made it even more fun!!



Here's the food.  My husband made the food labels and I think they added so much to the buffet!

Pirate ship watermelon boat.  Lots of fun fruit in there too!


Carrots with Seaweed (spinach) Dip and Cannon Ball olives.


Skully's crackers and cheese.


Fish and chips (Goldfish crackers and potato chips).
  

Gold [chicken] Nuggets and Dead Man's Fingers (mini hot dogs).


Pirate Punch!



Sea Water

Now, on to the treasure hunt!

Arrrrr!


I found this ginormous Jake from Amazon.com.  He was so much bigger than I thought he was going to be!  With the exception of a baby-Evie, the kids all loved him!  And for some reason really wanted to punch him???  LOL!




For some quiet time, the kids decorated their own pirate hats.  I think CJ did a great job here!


Happy Birthday to my little Maren!  We are so proud of our little girl!!