pirate party planning

i have come to the realization that every spring/early summer from now on will be spent planning parties. bubba's birthday is march 28th. planning for it is fun as there is nothing going on in late january-early february anyways so it's a welcome opportunity to use my creativity somewhat productively. {wow, was that a run on sentence or what!) i look forward to it. but then immediately following bubba's birthday is mine and pookies' birthday. that doesn't leave a whole lot of time to plan pooks party! i feel like during the month of april, i'm knee deep in party planning. some of you may be like "what planning? what the heck takes that long to do?" well since you asked...

okay, so technically you didn't ask but I'm going to tell you anyways.

ahem. i was raised and i firmly believe that birthdays are a big deal. you are celebrating a loved ones life! this is not a "pick up a cake while at wal-mart'' kinda holiday in my family. (err, well technically there are zero holidays that warrant a store bought cake in my family but that's another post). this is an occasion to come up with a birthday theme, and make a cake to go along with it. i'm almost 25 years old, and every one of my cakes was lovingly and painstakingly happily decorated by hand, by my mom. were there sometimes screw-ups? yes. did we sometimes get to eat a "practice" cake the day before? surely! to this day does my mom have 20+ wilton cake pans at her house? you betcha! but that it what it was about.

i for one, am continuing the tradition with my kids. i will not buy them a store bought cake. does this mean that my mom is automatically commandeered to help? yep, but I think she likes it ;)

so the first decision that i have to make is what theme? now with bubba that was easy because he is so vocal about what he likes. i asked what kinda cake he wanted for his birthday, he replied ''cars''. so a Cars cake it was. but pooks? well i asked him what kinda cake he wanted and he replied ''blue''. err...okay? well i took matters into my own hands and chose a pirate theme.

okay so now to find a pirate cake to make at home. after scouring google images for a few hours, i decided on this . it's cutesy pirate, not scary pirate. i thought about a treasure chest but pooks doesn't really get what that is. when my kids see an eye patch they think pirate. so this cake pan will be perfect.

okay so i chose a theme, i chose a cake pan. heck i even chose and purchased a few decorations. (btw i did NOT pay that much, i went to party america and it was way cheaper). so lastly i needed to make invitations.

that's right, you read that correctly. i said make the invitations. now if i'm not buying the cake, why would i buy pre-made invites? i can honestly say that the homemade cake thing, that's my mama's fault idea. but making the invites, that's all me. i love doing graphic design stuff and i get a huge kick out of making the invites. for bubba's 2nd bday i did construction trucks. for pooks 1st birthday i made a "barnyard dance" invite. that was a lot of fun, coming up with the rhymes. then this year bubba had cars (which was really easy), and here is a sneak peek of pooks pirate invite:
did you know that if you google ''how to talk like a pirate" there are websites that will teach you? matey's ye 'oughta check it out!