I wasn’t too keen on the whole pirate thing, not really a fan of skull & crossbones but after reading a younger version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Caleb was captivated by the story and requested a treasure hunting birthday.  Given the new baby and pretty maxed out state of life at the moment we certainly flew by the seat of our pants unlike last years 2 months of prep for the Robinhood party!  But it all worked out okay, amazing how when you pull together and work hard what fun you can come up with!  We focused on the ‘treasure’ aspect instead of the stealing and looting aspect which worked out to be super fun…

We spent the afternoon getting ready, red nails for the girls just for fun!

The kids tested out the boat in the ‘sea of good Hope’ (AKA backyard)

Audrey kept checking her nails for dryness

The daughter of my parents friend made this amazing cupcake-cake-map…I’m learning, ever so slowly, to pass on what I’m not able to do in the current season and the cake was certainly one of those things.

The only super easy food I could think of at Costco last week was teriaki meatballs over brown rice, our friend Tom deemed them cannonballs and they were a pirate hit.  And they cooked all day in the crock pot so very little work for me!

Daddy made an awesome treasure map and sent the kids searching for the booty

Didn’t take too long to dig up the treasure with all these hands!

Caleb and his crew

the littlest of the ‘good pirates’

What a treat to have a gorgeous sunny day to celebrate, though we’d have still had fun in rain it would not have been quite the same.  It was wonderfully fun for our sweet 7 year old and I told him more than once…the real treasure is him.

And I meant it.  This sensitive, passionate, bright-minded and uniquely-wired boy is truly a gift to our family.  He has taught us all a great deal about patience, self-control and how to love without condition.  We are all better for knowing him.