Ahoy! A "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" Birthday Party!

My oldest son turned 4 on Saturday.  To celebrate, we threw a pirate party.  But it couldn't be just a pirate party- it had to be a "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" pirate party.  If you don't know, this is a brand-new show from Disney Jr.  It's so new there is no merchandise out for it yet.  So, I did my best to combine "basic" pirate stuff with some homemade "Jake" stuff.  My son even insisted on dressing like Smee- so he wore his blue and white striped shirt and I made him a red stocking cap out of a dollar store t-shirt.

All "Jake" images are copyrights of Walt Disney.  I'm sure they'll have their own stuff out soon, but until then, I'd like to think that old Walt would understand a parent trying to please their child.

To begin with, I downloaded the "Jake" image from Disney Jr. and made my own invitations.  I used a free skull background, then put the Jake image in the header.

For decorations, we had "basic" pirate stuff- a treasure map tablecloth, black, blue, and red balloons, some skull and crossbones signs, etc.

When the kids got there, we gave them bandannas, eyepatches, and earrings, and they decorated a "Jake" spyglass, found here:

Then we played a few games, jumped on our new trampoline, ate lunch, opened presents, ate cake, went on a treasure hunt, and jumped on the trampoline some more.  Who knew pirates had trampolines :)

For food I served pirate themed food.

Fish n Chips- (goldfish crackers and potato chips)

Swords (pretzel sticks)

Cannonballs (grapes)

Golden Nuggets (chicken nuggets)

X Marks the Spot breadsticks (pizza dough shaped into x's)

Crocodile Blood (Red Kool-Aid)

For activities I tried to incorporate some "Jake"-style games-

Pin the Hook on the Captain (I sketched this from a clipart image I found online)

Search for gold Doubloons (Jake and his friends earn these through their adventures)

A treasure hunt for their goody bags (not pictured)

The cake was from FamilyFun magazine and can be found here:  

For the goody bags, I made my own labels, filled brown paper lunch sacks and tied them with jute rope to make them look like loot sacks.

Inside I put a pirate compass and pirate paddleball from the dollar store, bubbles that I wrapped with a "Jake" logo I printed out, pirate stickers, a "Jake" coloring page (found here) and a bag of Hershey's nuggets and individual Rolos.  They also got to keep all their pirate gear and gold doubloons.

P.S.  If you have a "Jake" fan and are headed to Disneyland anytime soon, make sure you check out the Disney Jr. show in California Adventure!  It truly was a magical experience for my kids!

(If you're planning a trip, book through Get Away Today- I've used them several times and it has been awesome every time- no bumps or goof-ups, and we always save a little money with their hard-to-find ticket discounts!  Use code OCRAFTY to save an  extra $10 off any 2-night or longer Southern California package (hotel and 2 ticket minimum).

The kids had a great time, and I had fun being a pirate!  Maybe these ideas will help someone else until Disney gets its Jake party gear out, so I'm linking up to some of these parties: