Princess and a Pirate

Emma is turning 4 soon and she has never had a party so this was her year.  She is quite enamored with princesses, but half the kids her age are boys so we had a princess and a pirate party.  My neighbor Sabrina had a superb idea to to buy a blue prom dress from a thrift store - it only cost $2! And that is what made the princess dresses.  We started making dresses together for our girls back in April and they just kept getting fancier and fancier.  Sabrina was brilliant and had me turn the original bodice upside down and use it for Emma's v shaped top, the rest of the bodice pieces made the blue part on Charlotte's bodice and her sleeves. The ribbon on the netting on Emma's dress is gorgeous but got stepped on and ripped off during the party so I have some mending to do.

Unfortunately Nathan wasn't here to be our excited camera man so I asked Andy but he assumed others with cameras would take enough pictures and didn't take many.  Fortunately they are good friends and gave me copies!

I invited kids about Emma's age, but it turned out that brothers and sisters wanted to come too, so the party was a big fun group.  I worked pirates into the princess party by having some bad pirates steal Emma's jewels and her good pirate friends cam to help save it. 

I have a huge stash of material I got from my mom's stash and from a lady at church so I was able to make party favors and decorations out of some of it.  This is our front door castle.  Now that I've taken it down I think I'll sew it to a couple of sheets and use it as a play house.

My original plan was to buy crown and pirate hat kits from Oriental Trading company and have the activity be decorating them, then we'd eat cake and open presents... the end.  In the end it was a bit more involved, but it was my outlet to something fun, and I had a great time planning for it.  I watched a Mormon Message where someone made a cloth crown for a sick little girl.  I thought that was brilliant!!  So I made cloth crowns for the girls and pirate hats for the boys. 

Everyone looked so cute I figured I needed a group picture! After the picture the games started.

I explained the rules of pirates not trying to kill people since it would make princess Emma cry. Then I explained that the pirates stole Emma's jewels (and she can't have a ball without jewels) and they left a note:

Ha Ha, we've ruined your party. Without jewels it's no fun.

If you cannot find them, then WE have won!

Then I explained that as they left they accidentally dropped their map.  So we opened it up and figured out we need to run to the boat.

Hurry Princesses and Pirates; run to your boat

get back Emma's jewels so bad guys can't gloat

I thought the boat was way cute, but even though I used my longest piece of brown material it wasn't quite big enough for all of the princesses and pirates! They had a hard time walking as a group so they all just took baby steps and it took a LONG time to get anywhere -- it helped when I chanted One, Two, One, Two, but after two stops we ditched the boat and just carried the sails.

Along the map we had places we had to stop and do activities.

KISS THE FROG

This poor little frog, has only one wish.

So hurry up now, and give it a kiss!

I was sure not to use a gender so it was ok for everyone to kiss it =>.  The girls had the option of putting lipstick on and actually kissing it, or taping on a paper kiss. The boys just got the paper kiss.  It was cute watching the girls kiss the frog.

Then we took another look at the map to find where to go.

SEPARATE THE JEWELS

The Royal Jewelers indeed are in trouble.

Their jewels are mixed up help them out on the double.

 

We had 2 tables set up one with big beads that the little kids were supposed to separate by color and one that the big kids were supposed to separate by shape.  I had too many jewels and the kids got frustrated before they were done so we just moved on. 

I don't have pictures for the next 2 activities but they were:

DIG FOR TREASURE

Pirates love to have jewels and they like to hide treasure;

so dig some up now, take 3 at your pleasure.

I had little glass jewels and pirate doubloons (that Adan made my drawing pictures on yellow paper then we cut them out and glued a penny between two so they were heavy like money - yep no picture) in a bucket of old rice.  The kids got to dig out the treasure.

Then we did:

WALK THE PLANK

Walking the plank can be a dangerous act;

so swim away fast, before sharks attack.

I had some blue material on the grass near a garden bed that has a 4 inch wide wooden border.  The kids had to walk the plank and jump into the water full of (stuffed) sharks. 

The last game was:
MATCH THE PRINCESS SHOES
Some princesses are careless their possessions they lose.
So look long and hard and match up their shoes. 

I had dress up shoes tied to balloons and the kids were supposed to find them and match up the pairs.  It only kind of worked. Some kids took both shoes that matched while others didn't get any, and some kids just held their shoe and didn't find the match.  Remember I originally planned on fewer kids - it would have been easier with fewer, but it worked and I think everyone had fun. 

Then of course we had to finish off the treasure hunt and find the treasure.  It was in our ceder chest in the living room.  Some of  the older kids hid all the presents in there after we started the games.  She also had some bracelets and necklaces and a brand new fancy crown from Miss Sabrina.  We dressed her up and were ready for the ball.

While I went and set up the feast the princesses got to twirl and dance to the music -- I think all the pirates went outside. 

The feast was nothing special, hot dogs, beans, macaroni salad, veggies, cookies and a cool rainbow jello. Although I was not multitasking well when I made it because I ended up purple, red, orange, yellow, green, blue.  I had the boxes lined up and started at one end but continued from the other end -- oh well, I guess no one can be perfect =>. The biggest hit honestly was the juice.  It was apple juice concentrate and strawberry, orange, banana Crystal light.  It was especially nice since it was so hot outside.  The whole reason we had the party at dinner time was so that it would be cooler, but it was still pretty warm - good thing I made 5 gallons of juice.

I thought the tables full little kids was really cute.  I was impressed that everyone was polite and took turns at the games and that they sat patiently at the table while they waited for parents to bring them food.

Here is her cake.  I looked online and found lots of ideas for castle cakes and I thought it didn't look too hard...  I cooked the cake in jelly roll pans so there were 4 layers in each tier.  I thought I was brilliant and made ice cream cone cupcakes, but they ended up getting a little soggy, so even though I worked really hard to make all the turrets straight they tipped a little bit by the next day - oh well -- live and learn.  I hate to admit it but I worked on the cake for 10 hours.  Honestly I would do it again because it turned out so cool and it fit the party perfectly, but I hope to never make a cake that takes so long again.  I think the only reason it didn't take longsr, is that I have watched way too many episodes of Cake Boss, and I got some tips on how to use fondant better.  

We ate, the kids played and then we had some cake.  I just added the next picture because I thought Emma looked so darn cute!

And of course blowing out candles...

and opening presents.

Somehow this is the only picture of Katie and you can't even see her cool boots, and we don't have  a picture of Matthew in his costume.  I'm sure I'll get another chance, because he wears it a lot!!