My son Owen is in LOVE with Disney’s Jake and the Neverland Pirates cartoon. So when he turned two in December, I decided to throw him a little pirate-themed party. I have such a good time planning parties for my kids knowing how excited they will be to see their favorite characters and themes come to life on their special day.

I built a pirate ship for the cake topper – it was made out of that foam paper and even had paper sails. Then all I had to do for the actual cake was frost it in aqua for the “ocean”. Another “fake it till you make it” cake

The invitations were swords with Jake the Pirates’s favorite saying “Yo, Ho!” – which Owen loves to shout. I love any excuse I can find to use my circle punch – best investment ever!

Some of the other fun pirate things were apple slice “boats” on blue Jell-O, Pirate dipped marshmallows and Origami boats with gold coins for favors. For the marshmallows – I just used an edible pen to draw on the eye patch. If you want to know how to fold the paper boats, just google “Origami boats”.

How about this swing-full of little pirates?! I think we are going to need a bigger swing soon to fit this crew!

We also had a second party for him with Daddy’s side of the family when we were all together for Thanksgiving and I decided to let the kids frost the cupcakes. At least they tasted good, right?


Happy 2nd Birthday to Owen!

My son is in love with cranes. And dump trucks. And diggers. And scoops. But, especially cranes.
So for his fourth birthday, we went that theme. He received a GIANT toy remote control crane for Christmas, so I thought it would be the perfect “prop”.

If you’re considering throwing a construction themed party, I have one piece of advice for you. BUY DUCT TAPE. I feel like I wrapped the whole house in duct tape before the weekend was over! But I really liked it and feel like I will be using duct tape in more future projects in my life.

For a easy game, I wrapped miscellaneous boxes in newspaper and fashioned a wrecking ball out of duct tape to hang from the ceiling. We let the kids build towers out the boxes, then swing wrecking ball at them to see how many they could knock down. The kids – age 2-6 – all really liked it!

A week ago, I took a Social dessert table class that was taught by the very talented Sandra Denneler. (See some details on that classHERE.) One of the projects she shared was a heart-shaped molded brownie box with candy inside. (See the tutorial on that HERE.) I loved her idea and decided to adapt it to my party theme by making wrecking balls. These turned out super cool! I really should have remembered her tip about over baking the brownings, because mine did not hold up, unfortunately. If you do this project – OVERCOOK YOUR BROWNIES!!!

Some other fun things we did were color-your-own coffee mugs (the kind with the paper insert from the dollar bin), tool belt/apron favors for the kids to take home and color, and a “build-your-own-burger” lunch.

Graham thought the crane holding up his birthday number was pretty cool. He was pumped to get to raise the number off. We actually sang happy birthday to him then, instead of when he blew his candles out! Happy Birthday to my little man!

Lilah turned five in May (yes, May. I know, I’m behind.) and we let her have a few friends over to celebrate, in lieu of the typical family party. She loved it and the kids had such a great time. I kept it simple and used a cupcake theme. I borrowed one of those giant cupcake cake pans – and it rocked! A very easy, quick 3-D cake.
For favors, I bought pink Lofthouse cookies and candy necklaces. Easy peasy.
The kids had a water balloon fight, fed the geese in our back yard, played slip-n-slide and mostly just ran around like crazy people! Outdoor parties are the best, right?!