Feliz Cumpleaños a Diego

This week my "baby" boy is turning four years old. I love to celebrate his birthday but I have a hard time seeing him grow up so fast. I remember the week after he was born being extremely emotional and at one point I was crying (again) because I realized that he would go off to college some day and leave home. Now I am not (nearly) that irrational but I do sometimes wish I could keep him little and innocent. I know that is not possible so I just try to appreciate every day that I am lucky enough to spend with him. He is such a funny and caring little boy and I just love him so much. Ok, I will stop before I start crying.

Since my family is in town for Christmas we have had a small birthday party for Diego a couple of days after Christmas for the last two years. We are thinking about a new plan for next year since this is overwhelming for all of us. We have not decided what that will look like but we maybe doing a half-birthday party in the summer.

Here are some pictures from our Pirate party:

First, the pirate ship cake. I can not take all of the credit for the idea for this cake. After I decide the theme for my kids' parties, I head over the the Coolest Birthday Cakes for ideas. Real moms submit photos of cakes that they have made to share with the rest of us. For my cake I used two chocolate sheet cakes stacked and cut in the shape of a ship, Rolos in the wrappers for the "gold," Rolos out of the wrappers for the "portholes," Whoppers for the "cannonballs," chopsticks for the masts, Lego pirate men, shark and treasure chest, coconut dyed blue for the "water," and crushed graham crackers for the "sandy island."

I ordered the pirate hats, sticker sheets to make treasure maps (seen below), the small plastic treasure chests (shown above) and gold coins from Oriental Trading. Two of the activites of the party were making the treasure maps and then a treasure hunt. The treasure hunt was basically the kids using the treasure chests to look for gold coins that we hid around the house. I would have liked to do it outside but it was very cold.
We did venture outside to break the piñata. Dale, Dale, Dale..... My in-laws always buy the piñata. This year it was a huge pirate.
Overall the party was a success. Diego was happy and that is all that matters. Later when I put him to bed, I asked him his favorite part of the party and he said that it was his cake. Did I mention that I love that kid? :)