Nate's pirate party

I made the invitations the monday before the party and we went and passed them out to all his friends that night. I made them up on the computer using a free pirate font I fond. I printed them on tan card stock and then burned the edges using a lighter.

The next few days I spent crafting! I love crafting! My husband makes fun of me and says I am dumb for doing all this for a 4 year old who doesn't really appreciate it. He just doesn't understand I do it because I enjoy it just like he enjoys playing golf. I know that Nate could careless if he has no decorations or 100 decorations. I love doing it because I find it fun and relaxing! I made water bottle labels, cupcake toppers, and pirate ship sails using scrapbook paper and cutting things out using the cricut.  I loved the way they all turned out and was worth the few hours I put into it!

The set up

I made a treasure chest cake. I was a little nervous about this cake. I decided to try and make the cake in a bread pan since to me a loaf of bread kind of looks like the shape of a treasure test. I wasn't even sure if it was possible to bake a cake in a bread pan. I made the cake mix according to the directions on the box and then just poured the batter into the pan. I had no clue how long to cook it for so I just started with the lowest amount of time the box said and went up from there. When I first checked on it when the buzzer went off, the outside looked almost done, but the inside was still completely liquified! At this point I thought it wasn't going to work at all, but I continued to bake it longer thinking even if it is burnt as long as it is a solid shape it will work and everyone can just eat the cupcakes I made. It ended up taking another 20 minutes or so for the inside to get done and I thought the outside was going to be completely over done. To my surprise it turned out so yummy!! That night I frosted the cake after it had cooled and stuck it in the fridge over night to let it harden up a bit so it would be easier to work with in the morning. It worked out awesome! When I got it out it was easy to make a slit about 3/4 the way through and about a 1/2in down from the top. Once I cut the slit I started stuffing it with the gold coins, red jolly ranchers (rubies) and jewelry pushing them back and then stacking them up to make the treasure chest open up. All the things inside helped it stay propped up and I didn't need anything else to support the opening. I then frosted it by making horizontal lines across the cake using chocolate frosting and then took a butter knife over each line to flatten it down and give it a wood type look. Then I got yellow sugar  crystals and made two lines on the top of the chest to give it some character. Around the cake I smoothed peanut butter onto the surface and then covered it with graham cracker crumbs to make it look like sand. The peanut butter helped the crumbs to stick so they wouldn't fall of when it was moved around. I finished it off by adding a few gold coins to the sand and adding the number 4 candle. I was really pleased with how this turned out because in no way am I a cake decorator!

As guests started coming we had them go play for a minute in Nate's room until the pizza got there and everyone showed up. Once the pizza got there we had everyone come eat! The party was suppose to be outside, but it was raining so we had to move it inside our small house!

After eating we cleared out the table and started playing games! The first game was parrot shoot! There were 3 parrots and they had to shoot them into the basketball hoop. We had 2 lines marked on the floor. One for 3 and under and the other for 4 and up. After shooting they got a pirate eye patch. The kids loved this game more than I thought they would! We ended up playing it 4 times! After the first time the kids stuck their eye patch on and did it! We then played ring the pirate bottle. I had the water bottles set up and had 3 rings they had to toss it onto the bottle. After they played this game they each got a pirate spy glass.

After we played those games for awhile we went on a treasure hunt!! I read them the clues and they had to run find the next one. The treasure hunt led them to the treasure! ( a treasure chest piñata)

They all got a turned trying to break the treasure chest open! Good thing it was a hard one to open so everyone could have a turn. We let Nate whack it at the end for awhile and he finally got it to bust open!

And everyone ran to get their treasure!

Then it was cake time!

Then Nate opened presents! All the kids were around him in a semi-circle but right when he started opening the first present they all started scooting forward. It was so funny! He got some awesome presents and he loved all of them!!

After presents they all got pirate hats and whistles as a thank you for their gift! They all sure loved their whistles! With 13 of them going off it was quite noisy! After about 2 minutes we had them all stick theirs in their party bag so they wouldn't loose them :) I tried to get a group picture of them and the bottom one was the best I could get. They were all to in love with the whistles. They are all saying Arr! in the picture :) All his friends were at the party and he loved having them all there! His friends that were there were Andrew, Jo Jo, Dallin R., Porter R., Porter B., Noah, Jayz, Aiden, Josie, Dallin P., Tyler and Kylee. We were so excited to have all our family there too! Even Angela, Bobby, Tyler, Kylee and Amanda came down from up north since Ty's homecoming talk was that weekend. Even though it was crowded we are so happy everyone was there!

Here are just some random pictures from the party of our family and friends. Thanks for everyone who helped with Bailey during the party so I could help the kids. Thanks to everyone who help take pictures and thank you to everyone who came! You made his party so fun and special!

A few shots of the birthday boy! Cant believe he is 4!! He had such a great time at his party and said this was the best party ever! Made all the work and chaos during the party worth it! There were a lot of kids and people in our small house at once so it was pretty hectic and skyler said he never wants to do another party again ha ha! He just may not be invited to the future ones ;) It was crazy, but it was worth 2 hours of craziness to make Nate happy and I would do it again in a heartbeat! Love you buddy!