Jack's 8th Birthday - Party Prep and Day Celebration

We celebrated Jack's 8th birthday with a full-blown pirate theme this year.  I casually mentioned the concept to him earlier in the Spring and he was open and accepting to the idea.  I wanted to make it fun for a boy his age, and for the three friends that he invited ... without being too childish.  (As the kids are getting older, I am having to transition from what I used to do with crafts and games and make the parties a little more mature and sophisticated.  It's also a little trickier to do "boy" parties than "girl" parties, which I have done a lot of in the past).

In order to let Jack be as surprised as possible, Jimmy helped me with a lot of the early party prep leading up to the big event.  He helped me wrap silverware and then I tied a pirate charm onto some of them.  The galvanized silverware holder has been a well-used party accessory over the years.

I chose to make my own pinata for the party -- partly because the cost of one was so expensive and also because I planned to keep the design simple: a rectangular pirate flag that I could construct using a box and some tissue paper.  Jimmy helped add all of the candy and goodies ahead of time.  And of course, he was rewarded for his hard work with one of the pieces of candy.

The biggest (and best!) part of the party was a treasure hunt.  But first, I needed to have some sort of "treasure."  The treasure chest was Sam's from Christmas years ago and then I filled it with chocolate gold coins, chocolate gold bricks, chocolate nuggets, million dollar chocolate bills, ring pops (jewels) and special locks and keys.

I found these locks and keys on amazon and they were the perfect addition to the chest.  What little boy doesn't love the idea of a lock and key to keep his most prized possessions locked up?!  I tied the key on to make sure that they did not get lost in the chest ...

Such a cool idea for "money"  in the treasure chest.

Filled up and ready to be buried:

  

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On the day of his actual birthday, we gave Jack gifts from the family -- of course, they were all wrapped up with the pirate theme in mind.  I already had the gold tablecloth in my party supplies closet and then I just used red, black and white wrapping materials that I had on hand.

We made sure to sing 'happy birthday' with cinnamon rolls to start out the day ...

And then, because his birthday was on a Monday, he had to wait until after school to open his presents.  It really wasn't that long though because the kids are still doing "half days" due to the pandemic, so he opened his gifts from us after lunch.

We had pizza for dinner (the birthday boy's choice) and brownies for dessert.

You can see the pinata that I made for his friend party in the background.  It turned out pretty great and the hanger that I opted to use (taken from Sophia's closet) was padded and durable, making it pretty indestructible for when the boys went at it with a stick.

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