Everett’s Pirate Birthday Party!

Saturday we celebrated our baby boy turning one by throwing a big Pirate birthday bash! It started out with these awesome invitations that we got from Dazzle Expressions on Etsy. Are they not ADORABLE!? Then I spent some time on Pinterest searching for ideas, and at Oriental Trading Company looking for inexpensive favors and decor. Target also ended up having some cool pirate gear, including foam swords for only a dollar! And I found these cool FREE printable pirate hats at Hewlett-Packard’s website.

So the favors were pirate hats, eye patches, and  pirate tattoos (from Oriental Trading) as well as the foam swords for those who wanted them…I actually should have gotten a few more of these! Esella and Everett LOVED these as did the boys at the party…and they were safe to go in the BOUNCE HOUSE!

Wondering about the bounce house? My husband’s sister and brother-in-law bought this one after they had borrowed a friend’s a couple times…they are SO WORTH IT! Especially if you have multiple children…you can use them for all the birthday parties. We used it at both kids parties this year and it was a HUGE hit! You can get them on Amazon here:
Little Tikes Shady Jump n Slide Bouncer

As far as decorations, I bought some plastic swords at Target, some small treasure chests at Oriental Trading (they held the hats, tattoos and eye patches), and we got a bunch of this 30′ Stone Wall Backdrop and used it to turn our garage into a “pirate’s liar” as well as used these giant and affordable plastic pirate cut outs from Oriental Trading. We hung them all over the house and the garage.

I also bought this adorable  pirate banner at Target (I got two and tied them together). I then attached a picture of Everett from every month of his life to each triangle! I did something similar for E’s first birthday too 🙂

And totally last minute, I bought Everett and Esella these super inexpensive pirate costumes! I ended up scoring both for under $20 total! How cute are they??

(You can find Everett’s Here and Esella’s Here)

As far as food…I was having a hard time thinking of a lot of Pirate themed food that would be yummy and feed 50 people…so we just went simple. And then I paired all the food with famous pirates! Here is what we had:

H’orderves:

(We also had arrrrrrrtichoke and jalapeno dip, but I forgot the label for it!)

Main Courses:

And because I am crazy…all the food was labeled! I made the pictures you see above in Photoshop and put them on Avery Address Labels- printed them out, and then placed the stickers on card stock folded in half to create little signs.

After dinner, it was CAKE TIME! I went ahead and just ordered a sheet cake from Safeway, because their cakes are affordable and yummy! of course it was a pirate cake!

But…when I was looking around Pinterest for party ideas I saw this adorable Pirate Ship cake, and I thought it would make an AWESOME smash cake! So…I made one! This was my FIRST attempt EVER at making a cake that, um, wasn’t just going to sit in the 9×13 pan! HA!

Now….what did Everett think of the cake?

Yup, he wasn’t impressed! Just like his big sister, there was no smashing of the smash cake! Oh well!

After cake, most people headed home but some friends and family stayed to watch Esella Everett open presents.

And here are just a few random pictures from the night…

Overall it was a fun party! A HUGE thank you to my parents and my husbands parents for all the help, as well as to my friend Somer and her Fiance Po for helping with set up and take down and to our family friend Donna who was AMAZING and helped wash/dry EVERYTHING so when everyone left, we basically just had to put things away! We couldn’t have had the party run so smoothly without all these people! OH and also to my friend Nicole who offered to help as soon as she got here after the two hour drive. I gave her the very complex job of lighting all the candles around the house 😉 Honestly, I don’t know what I would do without our family and close friends! Thanks to all who came to celebrate!