Our grandson turned ONE, and of course a wonderful, and lots of fun, Birthday Party was prepared by his parents.

With careful planning, they rented a beach house in Ocean City, NJ for a family vacation, which included the whole family from both their sides, thus total of 17 people.

What could be a better theme for a birthday party celebrated by the beach, than  Pirates?  Totally awesome!

My daughter-in-law, a teacher by profession, was very creative with the whole pirate theme, and decorations, which I will share with you in this post.

This is the beach house where the family vacation took place, including  and very special birthday party.  Special Pirate Flag was flowing in the air during the party (it also came in handy for the grandparents to recognize the right house, while returning from a morning walk on the beach.  As you can imagine how tricky it can be to spot the right house,  since most of them look very similar from the beach side, plus, there are no visible house numbers to go by).

Special balloon arrangements with a Pirate Ship balloon, lots of flags, treasure chests, and fishing nets with fun sea creatures, were part of the birthday decor.

Everyone had lots of fun watching these expandable,  spongy, sea creatures expand, while submerged in a pan of water, over a 24 hour period.  They increased in size at least 200%, and turned into super fun decorations.

These were some of the games the children played at the party.  The inflated baby pool was filled with plastic balls, so the little ones could jump in, and roll around.

Each parent was given a supply of several pieces of fabric, ribbons, sashes, etc. to create a saw free pirate outfit for their child (two variations shown above).

Also, some stick on Pirate Tattoos were available, and special name tags, for children and adults.

The outdoor games included a water balloon toss, during which the children would smash the water balloons on rubber duckies and plastic boats, scattered all over the play area.

The “Walk the Plank” piece was leaned against the edge of the ball pool, and the little pirates (with parent’s assistance) walked up the plank,  and plopped into the ball pool.

Everyone really enjoyed these outdoor activities, and the pirate outfits turned out adorable.

This was the Birthday “Thank You” Favorites corner.

There were “Thank You” favorites for adults – Pirate Trunk full of gold chocolate coins, Pirate Popcorn, and a sample bottle of White Rum.

The “Thank You” favorites for children consisted of a large bag (see above), filled with an inflated Pirate Sword, Pirate Hat, Pirate Eye Patch, Tattoo stickers, small games, and Kraft Materials for the Pirate Outfits.

Since I dedicated this post to decorations and games, my follow up post will be about, the cake and the fun foods, all in Pirate  Theme of course.

Lots of interesting stuff, I promise, so please stay tuned.