Making Memories of Us: Pirate P-ARRR-ty!

There was absolutely no way I was going to be dissuaded from throwing a first birthday party for Bunkey-Man. My husband tried. I persevered. And, as with most things, I got my way. I don't care that he won't remember it. The fact of the matter is that his babyhood year is worth celebrating it, and even though he won't have the memories in his head, he'll have them in his scrapbook, and that is all that matters to me!

I did, however, promise my husband that we'd keep things on a small scale, that I wouldn't stress too much, and that he would know at least half the fathers invited, so that he'd have someone to talk to during the party! Simple enough.

After several in-passing comments from Hubs, I decided on a pirate theme, which was made all too easy thanks to Target! They had everything I needed and more! While my mama was here visiting in February, she convinced me to buy the paper good then so we didn't have to worry about sell-outs during popular summer party months and to help spread the costs... I also decided on a very simple menu that is friendly to all ages. I pared out guest list down to six families (seven, including ours) all with babies 12 months or younger. I didn't want to have to plan activities to keep seventeen different age groups happy, and I wanted to keep the focus on Bunkey.

The military housing development where we live has several community centers they allow residents to rent for free so I was able to secure the building closest to our house for 24 hours at absolutely no cost!! This allowed me to set up a safe place while Bunkey napped at home with Hubs the morning of the party, I didn't have to child-proof anything, and clean-up was a breeze! Yes, the space was a bit large for five kids (only three of which are mobile!) since two families couldn't attend, but it worked out perfectly!

So, now that we have that boring background out of the way, here we go with the fun stuff!

Since the space I was using was a clean slate, it was easy to set up! I covered tables with red and yellow tablecloths and used the party goody bags as centerpieces. The pirate loot was, of course, in keeping with the theme! Each guest received a pirate hat and eye patch, a jar of bubbles, chocolate "buried treasure" coin, Goldfish crackers, and a bath toy pirate ship! I used a banner and pirate tablecloth to decorate the food and beverage areas, and used black, cream, and galvanized tin serving pieces. Drinks were diet and regular soda, lemonade, and beer. I even found kid-sized red solo cups with lids and straws so the littles could have cups "just like" their parents! For the party, I made yellow cupcakes with sugar-free chocolate icing and decorated with a pirate cupcake kit I bought at Williams-Sonoma! I learned a trick: bake the cupcakes in plain white liners and then just place in the printed liner so the colors don't bleed in the oven! I also had a cake made so Bunkey could "blow out" a candle, but then we saved that cake for his actual birthday and only served the cupcakes to our party guests. The pirate papergoods were from Target, and I found old-fashioned burger baskets (ya know, the red plastic ones) that I lined with parchment paper for the plastic silverware. For lunch, I served hamburgers (with three different choices for buns), corndogs, macaroni & cheese, guacamole salad, jalapeno poppers, and chips & salsa. Since Bunkey's big gift from us was a radio flyer wagon, I had Hubs assemble the wagon and we used it to display all the gifts! Easy peasy!

Since the little Buckaneers in attendance were too little for Pirate Games, we took advantage of the playground adjacent to the community center. This worked out especially well since, as we were grilling the burgers on the indoor griddle, the fire alarm went off and we were waiting for nearly an hour for maintenance to arrive and turn it off. That said, when maintenance did arrive, the guy had no clue what to do and when he resorted to screwdrivers and MacGyver skills (of which he had none) to jimmy the alarm into submission, I was thisclose to calling the fire department to send a truck (oh would the boys have loved that!). Thankfully, when I showed one of our guests the main control panel for all the alarms, he wiggled the panel cover to see if it would open, and when he did so, I saw a key on top! Lo and behold, that key unlocked the panel and revealed a "silence alarm" button! And with that, the birthday drama was over and the ringing in my ears could begin to subside!

Meanwhile, back at our party, we served up the food, let the little guys run around, and then sang Happy Birthday to our little man, opened presents, and called it a day! Bunkey slept until nearly 7:00 that evening, woke for a bit of dinner, and then was out for the count right after a bath!