How to Party Like A Pirate: At your fourth birthday party...

Bubbles wanted a pirate party.
Well really, he wanted a pirate party and then he changed it to a spiderman party and then superman with purple sparkly wings and then demanded live monkeys and giraffes and I just kept nodding and affirming and planning the pirate party. Because, OMG, I was not taking my stressy Virgo brain back to a starting point on this party and he had asked for a boat and castle. And the freaking pirates.
So, pirate party it was.

After the sick ones had been weeded out canceled, we had about seven friends his age coming, and their very welcome gaggle of siblings. And their parents, whose help was infinitely helpful in pulling the event off, food and all.
I wanted to plan a treasure hunt for the kids, but ended up creating the 'earn your way to being a pirate' treasure hunt rewards, and saved the actual treasure hunt for a pro.
Meet my friend the BoS's son, Gabe.

Dude. He made this awesome map:

And then he bravely took the pirate wannabes and turned them into full fledged pirates, with each new treasure map challenge.
Armed with bags, we started off to hunt for our first necessity: gooogly eye patches!


After we were properly armed with less eyesight than moments before, we headed over to dig for some buried treasure (glass marbles and jewels)....

And then over to the trampoline to search under it for bilge rats, bats, and giant spiders...


Then we were so exhausted from all that activity that we had to stop for some pirate sustenance: Peel your own apple on the cool spiral apple peelers and then roll it in chocolate sprinkles ants. The line for this activity was impressive!

Yum, ANTS!!!!

After a hearty snack, they headed up to the hills in search of the famously rumored gold, and lo! There WAS gold in those hills! And plenty of it! Go forth and pillage, ye pirates!

The loot was good!

After the looting, there was really only one thing left to do....fight each other with swords for it!
A duel!
These swords were the favorite part of the party - they kids dueled for hours. Literally, hours. And nobody got hurt!
I made them from pipe insulation (6 ft for .98 = 3 for $1!) and felt (handles) and electrical tape. Total cost for 18 swords? About $11.


The big and little kids loved them. In fact, this is what most of the rest of the party looked like:

I must stress, nobody was hurt!

The scalliwags were then convinced to take a break from the sword mayhem to ransack the treasure chest, which I made from this pattern, and I think ROCKED.


All pirates took home an extra bit of booty at the end: A thank you message with candy and beads in a bottle.



ARGGGHHH!!! I pulled THAT one off!!!