Birthday fun, arrrrrgh!

My babies are getting older.

Boy oh boy do I love this picture...thanks Mrs. Coffman, first grade teacher extraordinaire.

 In particular, these two babies are getting older (actually, we have a cluster of three birthdays within a two week period, but lets chat about these boys for today).

And of course, when babies get older, that calls for a little celebration

(Can you tell that these flames are burning with different
colors?  Well, they are, it was pretty sweet in real life, not
quite so awesome in the picture.)

So we put together a party.  The boys chose a pirate theme.

We worked to get things ready and then set up the yard for the big day.  

We had a pirate ship.

Pirate ship ready to be bombarded by water balloon bombs.  Sadly, the ship did not survive.

We had a tatoo parlor.

Even us ladies got in on the action.

We also made sure to have treats (of course, what is a party without sweets).

Friends arrived and off we went plunging head long into the fun.  We earned pirate coins for each activity and saved them for fun later on.

We pinned the treasure on the map.

Dug foil covered coins out of Jello with our faces.

We walked the plank!

We did manage to sink a lovely pirate ship on its maiden voyage.

We even learned to maneuver using hooks for hands (and then sang a sea chanty after eating a bunch of pretzels).

Finally, we used our coins to purchase punch passes to find a treasure map.

And we shoveled our way to a fabulous treasure.

 We topped it all off with a piniata and presents and called it a day.

Birthdays really are a fabulous excuse to have a great time.

Thanks boys for getting older so we can celebrate you more and more.