princesses and pirates! happy 4th maddie!!!

Maddie celebrated her 4th birthday with an awesome Princesses and Pirates Party! We had such a blast, we're still talking about it a week later!

We debated for months on the party theme and all agreed that princesses and pirates would be a perfect fit for her girly girlfriends and piratey guy friends!

Let's just start with the cake, shall we? I saw this cake online somewhere and thought - I have to do that. I knew I was being absolutely crazy... but what can I say? My travel schedule has been intense lately, and when I wasn't traveling, Jim was... so planning and preparing for the party was interesting. I did most of my shopping and research during my lunch hour and then hunkered down a few days before the party and got to work! It came out great. Certainly looked homemade... but I was happy with it and I think Maddie liked it too!

The house was decorated in pink and black with plenty of princess-y and pirate-y activities for everyone!

The craft/activity table had a princess and pirates coloring sheet for when the kids arrived. The girls had tiaras and the boys had pirate hats waiting for them.

When the kids walked in, there was a dressup station fully equipped with princess dresses and shoes, jewelry, pirate hats and eye patches.

Maddie was pretty excited running around the house checking everything out.

She liked the princess sitting area - aka the corner of the couch!

The friends arrived and the fun began! This is little Reagan, she's a friend of Carolines and her brother Connor is in Maddie's class.

The girls got right to work on coloring their sheets.

While the boys ran around the house playing pirates!

Walking the plank was a blast

The loot!

Next up- pin the princess in her castle and treasure on the treasure map!

All good princesses needs to know how to weild a sword!

My lovely little princess.

Caroline had a great time too, but she was a little on the sleepy side and was a bit shy for the cameras! She came as a pirate and definitely played the part! Another fun birthday party for the books!