Adventures with the Daveys: Happy Birthday Arrrrr-thur!

We celebrated Arthur's birthday this month and I am still reeling from the idea of him being six years old! He certainly seems like a six year old, and it doesn't seem like just yesterday that he was born or anything like that. But I can remember a time when the thought of having a six year old child seemed like such a long way off and all of a sudden it's here and more than anything else it just makes me feel so old!

Well with age comes wisdom they say...we'll see!

Arthur had a pirate themed birthday party, so of course we had to have a pirate cake to go along with that. I found a design for a pirate ship cake and decided to give it a try.

I have really loved making the kids birthday cakes each year and haven't had any major disasters as yet, thankfully!

The night before the party- trying to get the cake started!

Grandma and Grandad brought Arthur a replica of a ship that we have been on in London called the Cutty Sark. Very cool!

It wasn't until after the party that I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of the food or decorations, but luckily Chris snapped a couple of shots just before the party started while I was still running around like a headless chicken! We had the party at our church so that there would be plenty of space to run around. It was a good thing we did because we ended up with about 25 kids there!

We had pirate themed finger food, which was really just regular food with pirate names like- Tropical Island Fruit (half a pineapple became a fruit pirate ship), Salty Sea Dogs (hot dogs in buns), Polly's Crackers, Cannon Balls (whole black olives), Pirate Swords (pretzels sticks with half of a purple grape slid onto one end), a bay of Pirate's Booty chips and Anti-Scurvy Lemonade to drink.

And of course, some very fierce cupcakes!

As everyone arrived the kids worked on making their own secret treasure maps, or designing a pirate flag.

Once everyone had arrived we started playing party games. There were a lot more kids there than I had planned for, but luckily the games all adapted well for a bigger group. We played Pirate Ports, where the kids had to run around and choose a famous pirate to stand by which were just pictures of pirates numbered 1-6 taped to the back of chairs placed throughout the room. I would then roll a die and whatever number it landed meant anyone standing by that number pirate was out. Then everyone left would run to stand by a different chair and we kept playing until only one kid was left standing.

We then had a 'Swab the deck' relay. Girls against boys- one kid from each team had to push a paper plate with a broom from one end of the hall to the other and then pass the broom and plate to the next person on their team.

Stella had a little help!

Ok, it was hard to get a good shot of this game because everyone was running so fast, but I introduced the game by asking if the kids had ever played dodge ball. I then told them that pirates play dodge ball with cannonballs and pulled out two kickballs that I had spray painted black so they looked just like cannonballs. Some of the kids looked nervous, but there were a lot of ooohs and ahhhhs when they saw the balls. I played it up like they were really cannonballs and then handed one to Chris and one to Arthur and told the kids to start running. If they got hit by a cannonball they were out, or dead as a matter of fact and had to sit to the side. It was a lot of fun, especially once they realized the balls bounced and weren't real cannonballs!

We didn't get any pictures of the next couple of games, but we did another relay with the cannonballs, where the ball had to be passed down the team's line in a certain way and back again faster than the other team.

This was a fun game that we called "Shake your Pirate Booty", which was based on the minute to win it game also known as Junk in the Trunk. Basically an empty tissue box gets tied around their waist, with the box at the back and then 8 ping pong balls get placed inside. They then have one minute to shake the balls out without using their hands. What ensues is a lot of jumping, booty shaking, crazy dancing to be the first one to empty your box. I explained what pirate booty was and that they were going to loose their booty by shaking their booty as hard as possible!

We played 'Cabin Fever' from the Muppet Treasure Island movie soundtrack as dance music.

It was hilarious to watch all the different techniques for getting the balls out!

Stella shook herself right out of her pirate costume in the process!

Our last game was a circle game where one person starts with a wrapped present. We had two circles of about 10 kids each. I read a story that I had come up with about a pirate boy that goes on an adventure to find buried treasure. Throughout the story there were a lot of 'left's and 'right's mixed in. Like "they left port, and right away...." etc. Every time they heard left or right they had to pass the present one person in that direction, then at the end whoever was holding the present got to keep it!

To finish off we had a treasure chest pinata!

The kids went wild for this and everyone got to have a good bash at it before it collapsed!

Here is the finished product! The pirate ship cake came together well and I was really pleased with how it turned out! I took some other close up shots of it, but I don't think they uploaded properly. Well , you get the idea!