Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
I don’t know about you, but throwing parties for my children plays a big part in my Disney Driven Life. During the planning processes of these parties, my Neurotic Disney Mom tendencies come out big time. “What’s that you say? You don’t want a Disney related party theme this year. DS2? How dare you?!” I won’t get into the substance of the story of when my sweet little middle guy wanted a party with a character from the channel we do not name…
My oldest, on the other hand, is a die hard like his Mommy. In the past 3 years we have had a Mickey party, a Mickey Sparrow party (couldn’t decide between Mickey and pirates…) and we just threw him a Jake and the Neverland Pirates party for his 5th birthday with friends from school. Now DS5′s name is Jake…he has an amazing love for pirates and his favorite animated movie is Peter Pan. So when Jake and the Neverland Pirates came out on Disney Junior, he already knew what kind of party he was having this year!
Jake and the Neverland Pirates is a fairly new show, so there is yet to be any merchandise for it. (Look out for it in 2012, it’s coming!) So for this party we had to be creative! Luckily we came across a few ideas on the Disney Junior Website! They had cute Jake invitations available for download, so we printed these out on card stock and stuffed them in some envelopes that we already had. Then we made address labels using some pirate clip art, and our homemade invitations were ready for the mail box!
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
For goodie bags, I found these cute little treasure chests at Dollar Tree. They come flat, but you can fold them up. I stuffed them with some pirate themed things and candy that I also purchased at Dollar Tree. The kids also took home small bags of Pirates Booty.
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
I made two cakes. Both of them I found in Family Fun Magazine. The first was a pirate hat, and the second was a treasure map made out of cupcakes!
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
When the children arrived at the party I gave them each a bandana and an eye patch that they got to take home. I got these at Dollar Tree and Target. We also did our own little Pirates League and painted their faces!
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
We played two games. We had a treasure hunt where the children went around the yard searching for gold doubloons that they collected in little pirate loot bags and took home with them. I found these at Dollar Tree. We also played Pin the Mustache on Captain Hook. I printed out a coloring page of Captain Hook on a transparency, and projected it onto a large sheet of paper using an overhead projector. I then traced the image with pencil, outlined it with permanent marker, colored it in, and laminated it. I cut mustaches out of black construction paper, laminated them, and put double stick tape on the back. The kids had a ball trying to get Hook’s mustache in the right spot without being able to see!
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
The party was at noon so I had some hungry little pirates on my hands! For lunch we served ham and turkey sandwiches in the shape of Neverland animals. I used animal cookie cutters that I found at Michaels craft store to make these. We also had Pirates Booty which are baked rice and corn puffs, and veggies with hummus for dipping. For decor I used these great cloth pirate party banners, parrots, monkeys, a pirate flag on our flag pole, and a center piece of a palm tree, and some of my Jake’s Peter Pan figures. We used some very cute pirate themed plates and napkins, and we had a cardboard pirate scene that the kids could stick their heads in and take pictures! Most of these things I got at Dollar Tree and Target.
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
The real kicker at our party was that we had a visit from a real live pirate! Captain Jack (aka my DH!) came to tell some tales of his adventures in the Caribbean!!
Photo Credit: Molly Beckley
I throw these parties for my children in hopes that I am making memories for them that will last a lifetime. They are only young for such a short time, and this is just one more thing I can do to try to impart a love of Disney and all things magical into their lives!
Contributed by: Molly Beckley (NDM#398) Molly is a DDL Planning with Little Ones Blogger. She is also the creator of The Real Disney Mom.