Pirate Party Bruce Style

While I was prepping for Linc's first birthday party, I was searching blogs and Pinterest for ideas, so let me share with you guys what we decided on. This was our menu:

Ruffles chips
Lil' smokies (Pirate grub)
Queso (Melted gold)
Spinach Artichoke dip (Seaweed dip)
Crab dip (Out-to-Sea dip)
Fish balls
Shrimp
Cocktail sauce
Hushpuppies
Fruit mix
Three different kinds of flat breads to serve with the spinach and crab dips
Spiked rum punch
Soda
Cake
Vanilla ice cream

I had one table decorated for cake and presents, and another with all the food/appetizers. I labeled some of the food, as you can see above. I bought two decoration packs from Party City, one with things to hang from the ceiling and one with a table centerpiece and confetti for the table. For the table, I also filled one of my decorative boxes with beads and gold coins as a treasure chest. I added some rum bottles as well. I drew treasure maps on brown paper bags for the kids' treasure hunt. The bags were just to put their treasure in. We hid candy and beads outside for the kids to find.

Outside, Jeff decorated our playland to look more like a ship with a flag, life preserver (thx, Sara!), and netting. In our sandbox outside, Jeff made me a "Buried Treasure" sign.  I bought a cake from the grocery store, but since they didn't have a Jake and the Neverland Pirates theme, I just had them decorate it with a beach/map theme and I bought a pack of Jake toys from Toys R Us and put those on myself. The cool thing was that I had a coupon for a free "baby smash" cake to go along with the big birthday cake. The small one was just for Linc.

So, you can't do a pirate party without rum punch, right? Our punch was a big hit with all the guests. I found a really fun summer-ish rum punch recipe. Here's how to make it:

1 big can of pineapple juice

1 pint of orange sherbet

1 pint vanilla ice cream

1 2-liter of ginger ale

(At least) one cup of rum

I used a hand blender to blend the ice cream together first. I poured probably half the 2 liter of ginger ale in the serving bowl, along with the rum, then added the ice cream and at least half the pineapple juice. I recommend having more ice cream on hand, because we had to refill the punch twice! So we used the entire 2 liter of ginger ale and whole can of juice. (You'll need more rum if you have to refill.)



Linc LOVED his first cake ever. One taste of the icing and he was hooked. He grabbed a fistful of the cake. He was so covered in it that I had to run him upstairs for a quick rinse-down in the middle of the party! Sara took these pictures above and below. Linc reached over and wiped cake on Jeff's face and it was hilarous. Such a fun, memorable moment for us.

This was a great party and so fun to have Sara and Nemo and all our friends join us! The kids had goody bags to take home with little pirate coloring books, crayons, candy, and cookie packs. The big kids were also given eye patches to take home as well.

Well, mateys, this mama needs a nap. :)