Pirate Party Ideas for Pre-Schoolers

I don't know what I was thinking, throwing a birthday party for my four year old when I have a 2 week old baby at home....oh wait.... I know exactly what I was thinking.....: It was something like this: "My big behind has been glued to my bed and chair nursing for how many days now?? We all know this is going to go on for several months....and ...I don't want to spend all my days sitting in a chair nursing....although I do enjoy it..... I want to enjoy my other children too.... I love them too....and...I want something fun to do too- with all that spare time I have when my butt isn't glued to this chair or my bed.....for 12 hours a day.... so why not throw a memorable birthday party for our little guy when the baby is only 2 weeks old-- that isn't too crazy is it?" OK so that is what I was thinking, and it was a really fun party to do, but now I'm thinking, next time I'll recruit some parent helpers, OR wait a few more weeks to have a birthday party:) Nevertheless, the house was a mess, (embarassing) BUT the boys had so much fun! My son is still talking about it, hours later-after it is over!
Here is what we did:

THE CAKE: a Treasure Chest- found this idea on Family Fun.com. Although I did
not do it the same exact way- I used some of the suggestions given in the comments- and added some of my own ideas....but I am NO cake maker, so I was pleased with the end result :) (and I had to do a practice cake- see below) Here are some more treasure chest cakes.

THE PIRATE SHIP: THANKS to my dear, sweet husband, we had a pirate ship for the party :) This was so fun and he did such a great job with it! We had a big box from a glider we got-for nursing- and we saw a photo of a cardboard pirate ship online, well we decided to make one too! Here it is getting attacked by sharks :)

Yo Ho Yo Ho a Pirate's Life for Me! I had to have this saying up somewhere so I made a banner w/ paper crafting stuff and twine: )

Little Pirates on the ship!

My practice cake- Ha ha ha... I'm not a cake maker, but I tried ;)

Pin the eye-patch on the Pirate- using a piece of cardboard from the garage, and looking at some pirate clip art I found on-line, we made this fun pirate for a little game :)

THIS WAS A HIT!! Stories at birthday parties are the best! Talk about calming down a crowd...and we had this story on tape which makes it even more fun to listen to! Much better than a movie- although quite shorter in length ;) Loved this part of the party :)

We found some pirate coloring pages online so we gave each child some new colored pencils and some coloring pages (they just took these home :))

Thank you Oriental Trading- I ordered a few little things- pirate hats, mini- treasure chests for our treasure hunt- that were hidden in a larger treasure chest basket we use for storage. We made the map and since they were all 3 or 4, and can't read, we just had them go room to room looking for clues- you know- a pretend treasure hunt- that they loved! They all had telescopes (cardboard tubes) too, but the treasure maps were a real favorite item :) The mini treasure chests w/ c-a-n-d-y- and some small things, were taken home- doubled as favors :) Upon arrival, they each got a hat and a few "ta-toos", and a candy necklace- since pirates wear jewerly...:)

So now I am going to go take a nap before I have to nurse the baby again :) But it was a fun memory- birthdays only come once a year so we need to celebrate, right?
The reward for me was last night when my four year old said, "I had a really great birthday today, didn't I? And now I am four years old."