We Gonna Party Like it's Your Birthday: Green Pirate Birthday Party!!!

Ahoy there mateys!  I don't even really know where to start.  Apparently mom's new rule with birthday parties is go big, or go home.  She said she was just really excited to have a birthday party where, for the first time, I actually had an interest (other than a general interest in cupcakes and presents).  And mom and dad generally use our birthdays as an excuse to have a party and do some day drinking.  But, I had the "best birthday party ever."  Seriously.  Mom decked the house out and for days afterwards I insisted on keeping the living room looking like a pirate ship blew up everywhere.  And when it was finally gone, I came out in the morning and said "where's the party?"  I had so many nice friends and family come and celebrate and, for the most part, I was well behaved (for a pirate).  I think Cam was a little freaked out by all the people in our house, particularly since so many were dressed like pirates (no one topped Uncle Steve, though.  see below).

Highlights for me included the decorations (Cam and I loved the parrots especially), the Pirate's Booty (right up there with pretzels and peanuts in my book), my custom green pirate costume (including green captain's hat, green eye patch, and green dagger and sword), my impromptu pirate birthday cake (the custom green pirate cake pops did arrive, but an hour an a half after the party was over), and my new Playmobil pirate ship from mom and dad (which I love so much I have even been sharing it with Cami just so I can play with it.  mom and dad are thrilled about that.  they are not thrilled that i have repeatedly been getting up in the middle of the night to play with it by myself).

Some might call it overkill.  I just call it an insanely good time.  Here are all the deets (at least most of them and likely way too many at that) and pics, if you care to read on!

My custom green pirate invitations from Bridal Bijou's Etsy Shop.  She also made my birthday banner that hung over the grub table.

Mom bought almost everything for our costumes from Etsy (here, here, here, here, and here) and we will be pirates for Halloween, too.  Unfortunately mom didn't get very good pics of us in our costumes.  And, yes, I am totally picking my nose in the only picture she does have of me in full regalia.  Dude, I'm a pirate.  What do you expect?  At least Cam, Cousin Jack, and I had a large selection of weapons.

X Marks the Spot!  Mom made the signage to match the invitations and hand burned the welcome sign to make it more legit.

Most of these were taken the night before (in an effort to stay more sane the morning of, all of the decorations were done the day before and the "buffet" set ready and waiting for grub).  The sweet pirate ship table decoration was another Etsy find -- it was really for a dessert table, but worked just as well on our big table and wasn't too difficult to assemble.  Mom should have read the directions in advance, but she had most of the materials on hand (she used black beans in the holders which she thinks looked really cute and far better than the plaster of paris suggested by the seller).

Mom hit up Oriental Trading Company pretty hard -- she got the parrot decorations, pirate hats, patches, mustaches, clip-on hoop earrings, mini treasure chests, and most of the treasure chest goodies from there.  She patterned the treasure chest goodies and tag after a design she found on Pinterest.  She bought the skull and crossbones frame from Target and made a little sign directing all the guests to the pirate garb.

Amazon.com was also a big contributor for decorations, including the fishing nets, pirate banners, skull and cross bones flag, mardi gras beads, pirate coins, and some more treasure chest goodies (pirate jewelry, pirate tattoos, pirate chocolate coins, etc.).  Mom also found some sweet pirate signage to hang around the house -- my favorites included the "Poop Deck" over the bathroom and "Walk the Plank" on the way out the door.  Mom threatened to leave the "Beatings Will Continue 'Til Morale Improves" sign up.

And thank goodness all of the Halloween decorations at Michaels were on sale -- the skull and cross bones ribbon, skulls, and the party buckets are all from there.  And mom found a gigantic roll of sisal twine on sale at our hardware store and draped that all over the house.

Most of the grub was from The Italian Store (the ONLY decent place to get a hoagie in D.C., and it's actually not even in D.C.).  Mom did make what she called "Paradise Pasta Salad," using this Real Simple recipe and palm tree pasta she found here.  She also made the "Scurvy Savers" -- green jello pirate ships inside of orange peels -- based on two ideas (this and this) she found on Pinterest.  Grammie B brought some tropical fruit, too.  

For drinks, the kids had a tub full of "Pirate Punch" -- juice boxes and milk.  For the grownup pirates, mom found a large selection of "piratey" beer, including Piraat, Rogue Dead Guy Ale, Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale, and a few from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales.  She also had what she called "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum" punch, which literally contained a bottle of rum.  She found the recipe, no surprise, on Pinterest and served it in a punch bowl with a skull shaped ice float (Michaels again).  Check out Uncle Steve/Blackbeard.  You know, you gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday.

The birthday dessert was a bit of a debacle.  Mom had been emailing for a long time with Moms Killer Cakes about a custom green mix of pirate and skull and cross bones cake pops (like these) and had placed a large order for them.  They were supposed to arrive the day before the party, but they didn't.  Fortunately mom had also ordered a pirate themed cake pop stand that came with several pirate toys.  And daddy and Uncle Steve were able to miraculously find a smallish chocolate cake with green and white icing (that seriously looked like waves) at Harris Teeter late the night before the party.  Paired together, and with the addition of some chocolate pirate coins, it vaguely looked intentional.  The cake pops did show up, shortly after the party ended, and were awesome and tasty.  And Moms Killer Cakes did the right thing by giving mom a full refund.  

The tardy to the party pops.

Phew.  What a pARRty.

Pop Life: Popcorn Painting

This craft just looks dreamy in pictures (other people's pictures).  In our real life, it didn't play out so hot.  To begin with, despite the fact that one of Kane's favorite snacks is popcorn (besides soft pretzels and peanuts), he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it on this craft day.  Who knows.  Maybe they had a tiff.  Maybe in an attempt to beat out soft pretzels and peanuts, popcorn voluntarily did the laundry, but left all the socks rolled together so we ended up with soggy, dirty socks.  All I know is that popcorn suddenly became the functional equivalent of mixed veggies.  And all those spring candy colored milky paints that you just want to bathe in?  They basically made our poor, already downtrodden popcorn shrivel right up the second we got any substantial amount on them.  So not only did it not look very cool, it wasn't even tasty anymore.  Not even Vegas would eat it.  Oh well.  Pop life, everybody can't be on top.

Absorbent ... and Porous is He: Paper Towel Painting

We have been hitting the arts and crafts hard lately.  With Kane in school in the morning and his late naps, there isn't much time to get out and about in the afternoon.  Plus, in case you haven't noticed, we apparently now live in Seattle.  Actually, it doesn't even rain this much in Seattle.  Mom knows, she used to live there. So we have been confined to the house a lot lately.  And mom has found lots of pinteresting little crafts for us to do, including this one she found on a new (to us) great blog that has tons of art projects for kids.  In fact, you can check out mom's Pinterest "Crafty Bastards" file here.  This turned out to be another favorite art project for me -- Kane likes to make holes in most things that he paints and he doused his paper towels with enough paint to rip them pretty easily.  I liked to paint the paper towel and the paper mom had taped under it.  Mom worked on a more tie-dyish version -- she is jonesin to get us tie dying again.  Ahhhh, summer.  Where did you go!?!

Fake Plastic Trees: Oil Pastels on Wax Paper

Mom finally let us at the oil pastels the other day -- not hers, of course, but the ones she has been saving for us until she felt like we weren't just going to eat and throw them.  Well, really until she realized that we were likely always going to do that.  So there was no point in waiting.  She thought Cami would really like drawing with these since they go on so smoothly -- especially on wax paper.  But I threw everyone for a loop and spent a pretty long time drawing with them.  The wax paper ripped easily at the edges so it took me a while to draw without tearing my drawing into pieces in the process.  I asked mom to add a pirate ship, including a crows nest, and pirates to one of my drawings.  But I really surprised mommy when I told her that I was "drawing a tree" next.  Usually I just tell her I'm "not sure" or "nothin" when she asks what I'm drawing.  She mumbled giddily about me beginning to draw pre-symbolistically.  I just told her that unless she was drawing symbolistically, she needed to make that crows nest a bit more accurate.