ARRRRR.... it be a pirate party!

{living}

So as I mentioned in my last post I've spent much of the past couple weeks doing a lot of prep work for stuff without a lot of finished projects or excursions to show for it yet....... One of the things I was working on you may remember was a pirate birthday party for my (65 year old) dad.  I've been wanting an excuse to do a pirate party for several years now and he wanted one for his birthday, so BOOM... there it was.  As I was beginning planning for it a couple months ago I had two things that I wanted for the party.  I didn't want it to look like a kids party, and I was looking for a little twist on just a plain old pirate party.  It didn't take long for the "twist" to present itself.......  My dad is a reenactor and since he got into the hobby has been known to style the mustache part of his facial hair in lots of... umm.... interesting ways.  (yes we of course give him a hard time about it, it would be okay if it were just for events, but he likes to wear it like that for real life too....) and he has gotten a bit of a reputation for his mustache, and curling and playing with it.  So the party's theme became "'Mustache' Bill, The Pirate's Birthday Party".  It also gave me the chance to get in on the mustache trend that still seems to be going strong right now.  I even designed a skull and cross-sabres with a curled mustache as the party's logo.  So here's some pictures of the decorations and such from the party........ {I do have to say though before getting to the pictures that I wasn't able to get very many good pictures of stuff because I wasn't able to get to the area to set up as early as I would have liked and then I had to go pick my husband up from work and we didn't get back until just after the party started so I had to leave a few last minute things for my mom to do and then missed my best opportunity for pictures..... in fact most of the ones I have of the decorations were actually taken the next day......)

The logo I designed for the party

The invitations

The desert table (without any deserts...) the party was held on my parents deck and it had the feel of the deck of a ship.

the desert table side of the deck again..... you can see one of the tables with it's centerpiece on it (I have a close up picture of the centerpieces further down)

Desert table sans deserts again.... closer view

this 'treasure chest" started life as a blue plastic toy/storage chest for kids from wal-mart that cost somewhere around $5.  I spray painted it (with spray paints I already had none the less) to make it look more realistic

gold nuggets and gold and silver bars pirate booty (aka candy)

picked up this lighted palm tree for 50% off in the summer clearance section of And That!  (which in other places is known as Christmas Tree Shoppes) there's a picture of it lit up further down

close up of the centerpieces..... unfortunately I didn't get a good shot of the tables set up because the final set up of them was one of the things I had to leave for my mom to do while I was gone and by the time I got back there were people sitting at all of them.... lol

This was where the buffet was (up against the wall of their house)

detail shot of the decorations

close up of the pirate flag I made with the party's custom logo (I made a stencil out of ink jet label paper by printing the logo out then cutting it out and stuck it to the back of the flag and the gave it a good spray with white spray paint and this is what bled through)

pirate booty and a pirate skull (which was actually meant to be a Halloween decoration (I got him at And That! too)

I added the mustache myself though ;)

hmmm.... kinda the same picture that you just saw, but here you go I think it's a slightly different angle lol

The Cake

the cake with the lighted palm treee

I had plain black square paper plates for the food but I found these awesome plates at Hobby Lobby and fell in love with them for a pirate party so I got them for the dessert plates

We also had two games, Pin the Mustache on the Pirate, basically pin the tail on the donkey, but with mustaches and a 36"x40" engineering print from staples ($7!) of my dad in his pirate get up; and a sword duel with foam swords from Dollar Tree...... and the prizes were an assortment of mini liquors (Captain Morgans and some others) and some candy..... I may have some pictures of at least the pin the mustache on the pirate game and the prizes, but i don't have them on the computer yet so if and when I do I'll add them to this post :)

Hurry up......... and wait......

{living}&{cooking}
 
Well, between some more sketchiness with the internet (we never did call the cable company to come out and take a look at it because it stopped giving us trouble, but then last week it was being a bit temperamental again), and several weeks of seemingly constant busy-ness, but not much show for it I have not been doing a very good job of keeping up with this blog.  There's been a lot going on here the past couple weeks and a lot of stuff I've been doing/working on, but it's been almost entirely prep work for upcoming exciting-ness..... soooo..... I both haven't really had much to post or the time to get on here.  But I did promise some summer pie recipes and I'll be sharing one of those today (and it's super easy). But before I get to that I want to share some of the other stuff that I've been working on lately.  For one I've got a party coming up that I'm working on, it's for my dad's birthday and he wanted to have a pirate party (which I've been dying to have an excuse to to a pirate party ), but being me I wanted to put a little bit of a different spin on it, and he is well known among his family and friends for the, umm...., interesting ways he likes to style his mustache (he does reenacting and often has the ends curled up dramatically, or pointy, or both) and so this party is a "Mustache Bill, The Pirate" themed party.  Which is also great because it takes advantage of the current mustache trend. So of course I've been working on and shopping for all sorts of mustache and pirate themed items.  For the party logo I designed a skull and cross-sabres with a mustache. These were the invitations we sent out and you probably can't tell but the "wax" seal closing them has the party logo on it.

of course after the party I'll post pictures of everything all set up too.

I've also been getting everything we need and getting it together for a rafting trip down the river that we have planned to do soon with a friend of ours.  I am actually really really excited about this and I'm sure I'll be posting pictures and commentary on the trip soon after.  I'm especially excited to be able to be getting out and doing something outdoorsy before summer is over since we haven't even been able to go to the mountains as much as we normally would this summer.  It seems like every time my husband had the day off and we would have been able to go either the weather was bad or something else came up that kept us from going.  I'm certainly enjoying the fact that we have had a lot more cooler weather this summer than normal, but all the rain that's come with it had kind of put a damper on being able to get out and enjoy it. (But then again I do love storms and rainy cozy days).  I think though that some of the summer bucket list items may get pushed onto the fall list, now that we are running out of summer (specifically my "around the world in VA"  day/road trips, we haven't managed to do one yet this summer lol).

And speaking of Fall. I am super excited that it's so close (even if there was more I wanted to try to fit in this summer). Fall is probably my favorite season.  The temperature is perfect, the food is delicious, it's got great holidays. I have to admit that I've already started working on not only stuff for Halloween (did I mention Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.... I mean you get to play dress up as an adult with no one thinking you're crazy for it, and you get to let your inner goth out... hahaha), but stuff for Thanksgiving too.  We have real Thanksgiving at my parents house, but my first Thanksgiving in my house I had a few friends over for a Thanksgiving dinner party a day or two before Thanksgiving and we some-what jokingly called it pre-Thanksgiving dinner (I think it was actually on the day before Thanksgiving that year, and I made a whole Thanksgiving meal).  Pre-Thanksgiving dinner is now an annual tradition that is coming up on it's 8th year, and this year my theme is "Glowing with Thankfulness" so I've been working on and planning lots of glittery and "glowing" decorations (glitter, metallic, shiny, candles, etc.).  Sometime in November I'll have to post some photos of years past, we've had "Thankful for the little things" (my favorite part of that one was serving cornish game hens as little turkeys), "Thankful for Each Other" (the first year after my husband and I got married), "Enormously Thankful" (I made a giant cornucopia out of a grapevine wreath and grapevine garland and filled it with a giant pumpkin and giant ear of corn and huge leaves and giant grapes....), and last year was "Naturally, Thankful" (by far one of my most awesome decorations to date was the turkey centerpiece I made for the buffet table, that was made all from fruits and vegetables.... it also made it to my parents for real Thanksgiving day to decorate the sideboard)

But anyway, it's not fall quite yet, so back to summer and getting the most out of the last few weeks (or perhaps days with the cool fall-like weather we've had this past week) of it.  And to my peanut butter banana cream pie recipe :)

Peanut Butter - Banana Cream Pie

 Ingrediants:
3/4 - 1c. creamy peanut butter (you can use more or less to taste)
1 package banana cream pudding/pie filling mix
milk (amount called for on the pudding package - use the amount for "pie filling", if they don't have instructions for that on the package just use a little less then for the pudding)
pre-made (store bought or homemade) Graham Cracker pie crusts (I've always made it with mini pie crusts so I end up with individual pies, I'm sure you could use one big pie crust too although you might have to thicken the filling just a bit for it to cut very well)

The steps for making this pie are very simple and it really only takes a few minutes of hands on time
{1} Melt your peanut butter in a saucepan over medium heat stirring often

{2} While your peanut butter is melting make the banana cream pudding according to the package directions

{3} Pour the melted peanut butter into the banana cream pudding and mix (using a whisk) until well mixed and smooth

{4} Pour/spoon into crusts and refrigerate for at least 30-60 minutes (or as long as the pudding package suggests) before eating.  I usually buy pre-made mini graham cracker crusts, they're made by Keebler and come 4 to a package.  I've never actually made more then the four because I've not needed more than that and didn't want to buy extra crusts, but I'm pretty sure you could get 6 out of this amount of filling.  I always have right much left over.  I just eat it as pudding while I'm waiting for the pies to set hehehe ;)

Also when transporting these I have found that the bases fit perfectly into my standard size cupcake carrier, you just have to stagger them since they are wider at the top.