Eowyn's 6th Birthday

 PIRATE PARRRRTY!

Wow, I've really been doing a horrible job with keeping up to date with my blog...

Eowyn's 6th birthday was in August (2012) and she decided to have a PIRATE pAAARRRRty!  Well, she modified it to be a Pirate/Mermaid party because she didn't want any of her little girl friends to think it was too much of a boy themed party...

We sent out invitations asking our guests to dress up as pirates or mermaids and were happy to see that the adults got dressed up to :)

Grandpa 

Grammie

I also ordered some pirate water pistols, eye patches, pirate pouches, and bandannas ...and found time to sew some striped belts (complete with gold tassels).  Pirate Shayne (in the blue shirt and bandana) had a few things that the pirates had to do in order to be considered real pirates... AND to earn treasure (little pirate coins and plastic gems to put in their little pirate pouches).

 One of the first tasks that our little pirates had to complete was to get their pirate gear on.  

When Pirate Shayne said that we were the sorriest pirates he had ever seen... well... we showed him that we weren't afraid of him and squirted him with our pirate pistols!

Next, the girls had to prove that they had sea legs by competing in a peg-leg race!

Somehow, the birthday girl... errr... pirate lost her special pink pirate bandanna and found some fairy wings ;)  

I think the peg-leg race was my favorite task that the girls completed.  There were a few falls, but they were immediately followed up by uncontrollable laughter.

After receiving some treasure for completing the peg-leg race, the girls had to go on a treasure hunt at Turtle Island (Eowyn's little turtle sandbox).  There were coins, gems, and sea shells hidden in the sand.  Each girl had to find one of each item and show it to Pirate Shayne.

Finally, the lady pirates had to prove that they could break into any treasure chest they might find out at sea in order to find treasure.  So, there was a treasure chest pinata!

Since the ladies proved to be excellent pirates, Pirate Shayne gave Pirate Eowyn (aka the birthday girl) a special key to a special chest... 

The chest was filled with golden water balloons!  Which were promptly thrown at Pirate Shayne!  Arrrrgggghhh!  Mutiny!!!!

They even made him walk the plank into the kiddie pool!!!

For snacks, I made little pirate flag signs for "Peg Legs" (carrot and celery sticks), "Pirates Gold" (cheese cubes), "Canon Balls" (black olives... Yes, people ate them!), "Pirate Punch," and a pretty awesome (if I do say so myself) fruit salad in a watermelon that was carved into a pirate ship and had little orange wedge boats ;)  I think the fruit salad was labeled as "Pirate Treasure"... or some such foolishness.

Now, every year... every single year, I try to make some elaborate cake for Eowyn's birthday.  I've never taken any cake making/decorating classes and end up winging it... And I get super-frustrated and frosting ends up all over the house as I flail my spatula around in a fit of rage...  This year was no different, but since I was so impressed with my watermelon pirate ship, I was okay with how horrible the cake came out.  

I think that the best thing about this party was how much fun everyone had.  It was a very dreary day, but the rain held off until after the outside activities.  Normally, I'm running around so much that I don't have much of a chance to interact very much, but this year was totally different.  Many of the adult guests pitched in to help bring the rest of the food out, frosting the last of the cupcakes & finish blowing up balloons while Pirate Shayne, Pirate Grammie, Pirate Grandpa, and Pirate Mommy had an absolute blast with our lady pirates!

Thank you to everyone who helped make Eowyn's Pirate Party so much fun!!!

~Corissa