birthday madness is over

We finally had Cade's birthday party.

After me feeling like poop and then being gone for a week.... it was about time.

Thankfully, the boy was patient.

The party was on Friday.

It was a family party - which I prefer and so did he.

Love it when it works out like that: When your kids actually have the same preferences that you do.

He wanted a Pirate Wii party - and I wanted a low key party...

it worked out fine.

Now I have no idea if there is a Wii pirate game, but he just wanted to play Mario Karts but have a pirate ship cake. So that is what we did.

Somehow he also managed to convince his eldest sister to dress up like a "she-pirate".

This is what he believes a she-pirate looks like:

She is missing an eye-patch, which is naturally an integral part of being a she-pirate.

They did attempt to make some but they didn't turn out so well.

I was rather thankful that they didn't ask me to make some - I was just too plain ol' lazy to bother, and they we having a good time trying.

Maddy also too charge of making a banner "Ahoy Mateys" (I have no idea if that is spelled right, but she seemed to think so) and a map. She did quite a delightful job, yes?

I hung some burlap up, wrapped some around the birthday boy chair, and called it done!

Nice.

Cade made his own pirate hat, eye patch (the one he attempted.... and was successful for a few minutes), and hook.

Arrrgh.

The cake was about the only effort that I put in, and even (don't tell Cade this) that was pretty much a slacker job on my part.

- I think this whole having-a-birthday-after-Christmas-when-I-have-already-crashed-from-the-flurry-of-activity just doesn't agree with me. By the time his birthday rolls around, I'm kind of done for a while. It is a huge blessing that he is pretty satisfied with mediocre... Does that make me a bad mom? -

Okay, so the cake.

It turned out cute, but before I put on the sails it looked down right pathetic.

One sloppy job!

And fortunately I made the sails two weeks earlier when the original party was supposed to be.

I found toffee flavored shoe string/lace (whatever) candy at Ikea in MD, so it added a cuteness factor - looking like ropes.

I stuck the candles in the "canons" on the sides of the ship.

I thought that might be better than burning the sails, and therefore the cake, down.

He managed to blow all the candles out, and I managed to only get 5 wax drops on the not-mine-table. Hmm.... yup, I thought about the 5 cent paper sails but didn't think about the $700 solid wood table.

Smart, Carla.

Really smart.

Cade was quite delighted with all of his gifts.

Cap'n Crunch Cereal and kinder eggs....

(brilliant gift!)

Nerf gun.... He loves those!

As well as Pirate swords (he got two - good thing as it is very difficult to have a fight with just one.... we, the entire family, have all had a chance to dual the pirate) and an eye patch (worn all day Saturday and Sunday.... and would have today if he didn't have school), frisbee disk thing - very cool and flies far, and a cool little disk throwing thingy that I can't really describe any better than that unless I write a whole long paragraph and I don't want to so I'll leave it at that especially considering how annoying run-on sentences can be.

And then came Wii.

All the kids were at it for the first four minutes or so, and then one of them had the brilliant idea of playing tag outside instead (this may be the one time I use the word brilliant in a serious, non-sarcastic way.... don't get used to it.).

Love that they played outside instead.

But there was a little competition between two female adults, one teenaged guy and the birthday boy.

I'm happy to say that the birthday boy kicked their booties (that is a much more piratey way of saying butts...).

So now the almost three week long celebration of Cade's 8th birthday has come to a close.

Problem is, we are going on a month and a half with Maddy's....

We are finally having her party on Saturday.

And she doesn't do low key.