Aaarrhhh... Pirate Party!!!

On Saturday we celebrated Jaidyn's 7th birthday by having 11 of his friends, and some family over for a pirate party!!

I spent AGES researching pirate parties on the net, narrowing down what I wanted and what was do-able for my time and budget (some of the Americans seem to go WAY overboard and these parties would no doubt cost hundreds of dollars!)... I wanted it to be fully pirate themed, so it was fun picking games, foods, decoration ideas etc.... You've already seen the invite (see a few posts back if you missed it). So I set myself some expectations by having that really cool already... had to live up to them!!

It was lots of work, but soooo much fun!! I didn't realise how full-on kids parties are too.. we've hosted more 'adult' parties before, where I can duck upstairs to prepare food etc, but I didn't really take into account I'd really need to be with the kids all the time, so I'm soooo thankful to my Mum and sisters for doing the food upstairs for me!!

When the kids arrived, they had name badges to put their pirate names on (most kids missed this point though and just wrote their names!)... and we set up some icing and lollies for them to decorate some pirate bikkies while waiting for everyone to arrive. There were also temp tattoos to apply... most of the boys were more interested in wsord-fighting though!! (and we only have one or two lots of tears, thankfully short-lived).

Once everyone was here, we started into the Treasure Hunt! Greg was Captain Gut-ripper Greg (nice name huh!) and he was in full costume (as was I too) and most of the time we were able to pull off the pirate-slang too! The kids loved the treasure hunt I think!! We broke it up at parts to play a couple of games. I want to record the actual clues here too, so sorry if you're not really interested in the finer details!

We started by reading the 'pirates code' to them (rules for the booty hunt):

1. Only th' Captain be t' read th' clues. He will read 'em once all sea dogs be havin' assembled.
2. Any gentleman o' fortunes caught runnin' will keel haul th' plank.
3. All ye scurvy dogs must nay be movin' till Gutripper Greg tells ya.
4. Any lowly pirates caught tryin' to pillage th' booty will be marooned on th' next island – bring th' treasure back t' th' ship before ye split it.
5. Any disputes an' ye be leavin' ya treasure t' davey jones!

Then Greg produced the first clue from his pocket:

Ahoy all ye pirates!
Ye booty has been stolen!
All th’ remains is this one clue:

A message in a bottle be th'
only way t' send mail.
Ye Seafarin' heartys these days
be havin' 't much easier now wi' these…

Which sent the kids to the letterbox... then....

Aarrgh, ye lily-livered land lubbers!
Can ye smell them doubloons?

Ye might find th' booty in a hut near th' cliffs…

The next clue was hidden in our playhouse next to our rock wall... took a bit for them to find this one! Some of them were looking right at but couldn't see it, lol! then:

By th’ Powers!
We be und’r attack!

Avast, man yer cannons!

Here we played 'Sink the Ship' where there were two teams in 'ships' Greg made of boxes... they had 2 'cannonballs' each (scrunched up newspaper balls) and the point of the game was to get as many of the balls behind the other teams ship in an allocated time. They LOVED this one, so we played it through twice. Then they got a chocolate coin for their booty collection, and this clue:

Ye be gettin' closer t' ya pieces o' eight!
After that swashbuckle
we need t' restock our cannonballs.
Ye clue be hidden amongst them.

There were black balloons blown up and hidden in our pop-up tent.... the kids had to tie one to their ankle and on GO they all popped each-others or their own balloon and one of them had the next clue in it (unfortunately the clue was actually in one of the spare ones, go figure!!):

The next clue was a coded message, and:

Shiver me timbers! Th' decoder be what ye need.
Ye may find 't near th' tree…

They found the decoder near a tree and then had to go about cracking the code... many of the boys ran off here coz I think they got a bit bored - it took about 5 mins to get the code out, which said: The treasure is buried beneath the cooker.

They had to think for a sec.. "The oven?" "No guys, its all outside. What might you cook on outside?" "A BBQ?" Yes, so Jaidyn led the way up the back stairs to the BBQ, where they found the booty hiden under the cover! I managed to follow them up there but the only pic I got was hands!! (quite humourous really, they'd obviously forgotten the rules, lol!)
With the booty was this message:

Wave ye jolly roger!
Th' booty be yaaaaaarrrrrrrrs!
Now alls t' do be celebrate wi' some grub,
an' a drink or three!

Then it was time to eat! The kids were only semi-interested in the food, but moreso in playing sword-fighting and on our swings again!! The pirate food consisted of:

* 'Scavenger Dogs' - mini hotdogs with sails!

* 'Cannonballs dipped in blood' - meatballs and tomato sauce of course!

* 'Shark's Blood' to drink - red cordial ice-cubes dropped into lemonade and swirled around so it looks like blood (didn't really though but cool though!)

* 'Rum' or 'Grog' - coke! A couple of the girls asked a couple of times - 'can we please have some more rum?' lol...

* Fruit skewers - so pirates don't get scurvy!

Plus some lolly snakes and chips, and bickies and dip for the adults...... the hot stuff was snuffed up pretty fast!!

After some grub and abit more playing, I brought down the cake. I was SO relieved that my cake actually worked and didn't fall apart - it was perfect... the key is freezing the cake overnight, then again after 'gluing' the bits together..... I did a pirate ship, and had a bit left-over so made a little deserted island too, which was supposed to have another little lego pirate on it, but not sure what happened to him (maybe he was eaten by a shark, or had to walk the plank instead?).

The kids ate cake and played a bit more, then we opened the presents and gave them their 'booty' to take home... Oh my word, Jai now has soooo many new toys!! We are really struggling to find places for them to go - I think his room will need a clean-out and to put away some of the older toys maybe!! His room is only pretty small!

The kids all had a BALL, and we were soooo exhausted afterwards!! Of course we had to snap a couple of family pics while we were all dressed up though...

It was so much fun! But I don't think I'll be doing anything so in depth for a little while!! Phew!! Here's some more pics from the day - hopefully you can see them ok!