Ryan's Pirate Party

We celebrated Ryan's first birthday yesterday with friends and family. I had been planning it for a while and crossing my fingers for sun so that I could take some of the kids outside for games. But it rained all week. Even though it didn't rain the day of, the grass was still too wet. Oh well. We crammed about 20 people into our tiny living room. It was definitely cozy.

I had originally planned a bunch of labor-intensive, pirate-themed games. But as the party got closer and closer, my level of caring decreased dramatically. On top of that, because there was no outdoor play space, I had to make some changes to the games.

So my fancy pirate ship bouncy house turned into a cardboard box full of balloons. Which, by the way, the kids LOVED. It was 100% giggling chaos. The "big kids" even got into it.

 

 

The outdoor treasure hunt turning into a game where the kids suspended a "fishing pole" behind a carboard "sea" curtain. My sister was on the other side attaching prizes and toys to the fishing pole. Kids got the occassional stinky sock, pair of kid's underwear, and wad of toilet paper. This generated much laughter but only so long as the lucky kid who pulled the prank gift got a "re-do."

I pulled out our building blocks and had the kids build towers for the babies to knock down. Then we used to blocks to contruct a "plank" and the kids took turns "walking the plank."

I made three different homemade pizzas: bbq chicken, pesto hawaiian, and thick crusted pepperoni and olives. We also served a mountain of sweet and spicy meatballs (cranberry sauce, sweet chili sauce, sauerkraut, and brown sugar). There was also plenty of appetizers and snacks, my personal favorite. We had a massive chocolate cake from Costco (best cake ever!). We will be eating leftover cake for the next three weeks as it served 48 people-- the only size available.

My favorite part of the day was watching my sweet Ryan dig into his birthday cake. He hated it. every time he took a bite he made this face:

But he still managed to get it all over his face.

 

 

We ended with presents and more play time.

My sweet neice who is four days older than Ryan:

 

This one is my favorite. It looks like they are laughing about a secret.

Uncle Mike making the babies laugh:

 

All in all, it was a busy whirlwind of a day. Not everything happened as expected. But, we got to celebrate our sweet little Ry-Guy with family and friends. How could it not have been a good day?