Birthday Fun!

Wow! What a weekend! What a Party and boy are we tired and our house may never get put back together again but it was fun and the kids loved it and had a blast!

4 years old is the time they are REALLY into this kind of stuff! The preparation part went really well for the first time. We didn't have a ton to do the night before. Just decorated, moved around the tables, finished frosting the cupcakes and my disastrous cake, and took the majority of the toys that were downstairs upstairs. We put up the gate to the stairs because our upstairs looked like the playroom had thrown up and we didn't think anyone needed to see that. There was no fighting or divorce threats made. At one point Aaron said I know you get annoyed when I talk so I'm trying not to say anything . . . so after 8 years of marriage he has learned that when we are close to a deadline just work, no talking.

The party started with decorating treasure chests (wipe boxes that we painted brown with plastic paint) with jewels. These boxes doubled as their take home favors which I filled with some pirate booty.

They were really cute after the kids decorated them.

We played pin the X on the treasure map (the pirate take on pin the tail on the donkey).


Ethan was a great help at spinning everyone.

Noah was our big winner (I'm giving credit to him publicly because I didn't have prizes). We went out in the spitting snow/rain and freezing cold to smash a pinata. We let everyone have a hit but my nephew, Cael, is practically a professional baseball player at 5 went last and let him have a wooden bat instead of a plastic one and it didn't take him long to break it.


My poor pirate ship cake looked really good about midnight when we went to bed on Friday. Here's the shipwreck we woke up to:

The kids weren't that upset when I explained what happened and we just used cupcakes for their song and candles.

Opening presents was a chaotic mess but they had fun! They got lots of nice things to wear and play with.

After it was all over, Aaron and I agreed it went well and it was a fun party. However, we have decided that for their 5th birthday we will be waiting until their "half" birthday in May and having it in our backyard. We're thinking cooking on the grill, nice weather, bounce house, outdoor games, land ots of room to move around. Our house is way too small to have 54 people in it (actually we only 38 people that were able to attend). There's no room to play games, open presents, get good photos, move around comfortably, and even though it was in the 40's outside it felt like 100 degrees in our house with both door wide open. So we have a year and half to plan the next BIG party . . . and even though I really like doing it, I need the break!