Neverland Pirate Birthday

Shiver me timbers! Are you ready to parrrrrrrrrrty like a pirate??? My sweet little lads celebrated their birthdays together while we were in California visiting my family. This was a special birthday for them since my Mom hosted and planned a pirate-packed at-home celebration.

Neverland Pirate Cake

My Mom asked me about a theme for the cake, and then she ran with it! W had asked for me to make him a pirate cake (of course), and F asked for a lizard/crocodile one, so I told her about my plan to combine them into a Neverland theme. I am so grateful for my brother’s girlfriend Alex (a talented baker), who made the most beautifully detailed and delicious cakes. She hand-piped all the flowers, created chocolate decorations covered in edible gold, and made several flavors and decorations that we all oohed and aahhhed over!

Neverland Backyard & Pirate Food

My Mom transformed her backyard into a Neverland kid paradise, complete with inflatable crocodiles and pirate ship we could attach to the hose! With leftover wood she had from a greenhouse construction project, she put my Dad to work and they built a teepee from scratch, a temporary covered patio, and a post to hang up a hammock.

My Dad (who makes amazing gourmet meals at home) made his own version of “Pirate Stew” (a Mississippi pot roast over mashed potatoes), we carved a watermelon into a pirate ship, and made blue jello cups with gummy sharks inside. The kids had endless snacks of goldfish crackers (shark bait), jelly cups (pirate grog), candies, and frozen grapes (cannonballs).

Neverland Pirate Birthday Party Activities for Kids

First rule of the seas—”dress for the occasion, ya scurvy sea dogs!!” Even my Dad (the cook) wore an eye patch and pirate hat… And secondly, what’s a pirate adventure without a good SEA CHANTEY? Kids love karaoke at a party. We set up a tattoo parlor with a bowl of water and some paper towels, and temporary tattoos in all sorts of themes. Kids and adults alike went a bit crazy with them, hahaha! I can see how tattoos can be addictive, a few of us started thinking we’d just do one and then felt compelled to get entire sleeves. W ended up with a shark on his chest, and his Dad put more tattoos on him while he fell asleep in the middle of the party—many tattoos in places he’d have to look for later like the back of his knee!

But of course, can you really be a pirate without some treasure hunting? Mom got a pirate treasure box piñata that the kids had a blast with! My Dad barely made it out of being smashed when the kids were blindfolded. She also buried actual gold coins in a box; armed with a map, my oldest went digging around in the backyard until she found it. Funny enough, we discovered that I had made the little box that the coins were in when I was a kid, and my daughter seemed more attached to that than the actual coins.

The kids ended the night by putting together the Star Wars LEGO sets they got as their birthday present, playing in the pirate ship with new friends outside, and enjoying their piñata candy in the hammock over pizza. F learned how to change the color on his chameleon night light (arguably his favorite gift), and I’m pretty sure they all drifted to sleep with exhausted smiles on their faces… bounty in their arms.

The kids have grown close to my family after spending the past 3 summers with them. As I was working on this they kept coming in talking about their birthday and how “I can’t wait to see Grandma and Auntie Lee Ann tomorrow!” Certainly it was adventurous and so much fun for us, thank you to all my family for making it so special! We will treasure these memories forever.