Yo! Ho! Let's Go!

Our little Jake and the Neverland Pirates lover has been talking about having a Jake themed Birthday Party for months now, so we decided to do it up for her Fifth Birthday Party. I was a little disappointed in her theme choice, I wasn't sure how to make a pirate party girlie, BUT it was what the dollface wanted, so Jake is what she got.

I kept things simple, it was a home backyard bash, with a big waterslide, pre-package snacks (we avoided meal-time for the first time in 5 years) and we did the traditional cake and presents bit. The simple, turned into the chaotic when thunder struck and 20+ wet 5 year olds came running inside, needing to be changed, and needing to be entertained. I guess my Jake themed color-me print outs didn't do the trick, and the pirate scene sticker activity didn't suit their fancy because they were running all over our house within minutes of dropping their wet towels at their parents feet. I heard elephants on the second floor and just prayed that we had locked our bedroom door, the last thing I needed was one of Olivia's friends coming down the stairs sporting one of my over the shoulder boulder holders that was waiting in a laundy basket to be put away - disaster averted, we were safe, they were all back downstairs shortly after the stampede started.

I felt like a bit of a dead-beat on the decoration front, I wasn't sure how to do the whole pirate theme, and truth be told, last week was a wee bit busy (Consignment Sale & 15 Year Class Reunion Invites), but I did manage to display the pre-packaged snacks in cute little pirate themed boxes I found in the dollar section at Target. And let me express my love of prepackage snacks, they are amazing, they are easy, kids love them and the clean up is seamless, the unconsumed buggers just go back in our snack bucket and we call it a day.

We went with Olivia's favorite snacks: Fruit-by-the-Foot (huge hit), Fig Newtons, Fruit Snacks, Squeeze Applesauce, Goldfish and the theme appropriate Pirate's Booty. I did whip out the spray paint for one of the decorations and that was the treasure chest of snacks - an old box that I stored baseball cards in for years. And of course, you slap some vinyl on it and you have a cute little snack box.

The cake didn't disappoint - Cakes by Graham is top notch - and Olivia loved her Izzy cake.

Olivia loved having all her "school-friends" here, it was the first time she had invited her classmates to a Birthday Party and she was beyond excited about it. I did learn while talking to a lot of the parents that several of her friends won't be attending Jacobs Road with her in the Fall, I was sad to hear that news and can imagine it will be upsetting to Olivia too - I think we both assumed her friends would just go onto school with her in the Fall, but with the overcrowing, several waviers have been declined, thankfully we live in the Jacobs district and didn't have to worry about the whole waiver process.

And the icing on the cake for me was the moment Olivia came up to me and said "I will never forget this Birthday Party Mommy" - makes it all worth it. Happy Fifth Birthday Olivia!!