Alexander's 6th Birthday

Today is Alexander's birthday. He had a little slice of a brownie with a candle in it when we got up. He loves having Happy Birthday sung to him. We stayed home most of the day. My parents came this afternoon and we ate his requested birthday meal of cheesy hotdogs, baked beans, and I threw in some green beans to make the dinner somewhat healthy. Then we had an ice cream birthday cake.

On Sunday, we had his pirate themed birthday party with his friends. These are friends he went to preschool with, but are still friends. I aged some paper with water and a tea bag and Glenn ripped around the edges so it looked old. Then we tied it up with twine. I had stickers and colored pencils for the kids to make their treasure maps. In the center of the table is the pinata.

I labeled all the food with funny names. The watermelon shark didn't need a name (yes, I made it and am proud of myself). Cheese-its were Polly's crackers. Grapes were fruity booty. pinwheel sandwhiches were pirate grub. Blocks of cheese were pirate gold. Chicken wings were parrot wings. Breakfast sausages were dead men's fingers. I know, kind of gruesome, but Alexander likes that sort of thing. We also had pirate punch.

 Alexander waited outside in his pirate costume flagging his friends down because, "I want to make sure they know the party is here."

I pretended that someone stole the kids party favors, except there was a bandana in each bag. They put them on. Then we found a note in Alexander's bag that said in pirate lingo, "Go to the big tree. There ye will find a map to the treasure ye be seekin'." Glenn had a hard time reading it, but it was cute. We went to the big tree and one of them found a map tied to the tree. It told us how many paces to take to each point on the map (Bob's idea so they wouldn't just run from one thing to the other). At one point in the hunt, we found a bag of pirate eye patches. So, they all got one (not all of them wanted to wear them).

 Along our treasure hunt, there was a plank. So, they all had to walk the plank. It was short, but they still loved it.

 Notice that Glenn is unique in where he put his bandana.

 Finally, they found a red X to mark the spot. Bob buried the treasure box pretty far underground and didn't leave a shovel. So, they were all digging with their hands.

 "Daddy, you buried it too deep!"

 We had a cake, but forgot to take a picture. I covered the cake in graham cracker crumbs and put two pirates and a treasure chest on top. Then I put blue jello and Swedish fish in clear cups. I was going to put the cups around the cake, but forgot until I was already cutting the cake. The cake was a tie-dye cake. I split the batter into 6 bowls and colored them with food coloring. Then I put one color on top of each other in the pan. The kids were screaming with excitement when I cut the first piece. They apparently had never seen anything like it before. It was yummy!