The Pokemon Party

I decided that Alec would have a big party this year with friends. It's been awhile since I've done this. 

I sometimes get overwhelmed trying to make all the birthdays extra-special. So many children, so many birthdays. So the last few years we have only done family celebrations. It is still very fun and the kids are happy, but it is definitely less exciting. Since eight is a special birthday and I've never have given Alec a "friends party", we did this in a big way. Alec got to choose the theme- Pokemon.

I used Pinterest and various blogs over and over again trying to familiarize myself with Pokemon. The kids are amused when they hear me say something about pokeballs or evolving pokemon. Geoff looks impressed if I mention Piplup or Torchic or Caterpie or Squirtle. It is not my normal vocabulary. 

Could it be I am actually becoming a cool mom? 

Um, no. Definitely not. 

 

Feeding the pokemon (and their trainers) required special food.

  

Decorations were painted by big sister Maren. She is so good.

I also made dozens of pokeballs, which are important to catch the pokemon. :)

That cool poster of all the pokemon was emailed to me by an amazing artist on the Internet. His artwork is now used at Pokemon parties all over the world after a popular blogger used it for her son's party. It's a fun decoration for Alec's room now. He loves trying to locate the specific pokemon.

For this game they hunted Pokemon cards that were all over the house. Then they had to find at least one of those Pokemon on the poster to get their badge.

Victini 

Alec wore his Ash costume of course.

 

We had lots of pokemon trainer games, trying to perfect their battle skills. 

This one involved beanbags and a Golbat.

For each game the kids earned a badge. 

  

This game was for improving the steamroller move. (big bowl at the bottom of the slide) Alec had to make it more difficult by getting on the roof.

They stomped balloons that contained tiny pokemon.

I downloaded a couple of pokemon songs which we used with the balloon stomp and musical chairs.

Guessing how many caterpie were in the jar...

Mariah won- 136 caterpie.

This game was to practice punching moves. 

"Punch the Jigglypuff"

 

 

Practicing accuracy with paper airplanes.

Hit a Pokeball with your plane, earn your badge.

 

Annalisa was GRUMPY during the party. I tried to ignore it.

Pin the Tail on the Marill

Everyone earned a badge for this one. 

(Where the heck does that tail go anyway?)

Evolving the Caterpie (by cocooning of course)

 

 Aubree made a cute little Caterpie.

 Yes, that is a homemade pokeball pinata...

The kids like helping me with this. (unless it got boring or messy, that is)

Anna perked up enough to do the pinata of course.

Unwrap!

Still grumpy

Some disc throwing   

The cake and the pokeballs

At the end they showed me all the badges they earned and became official pokemon trainers. (pokemon catchers? I'm still a little confused.) 

I awarded them their pokeballs. They had been wanting and waiting for these the whole time.

One little boy asked how he gets the pokemon inside. Hmm... I'm not that good. Maybe I built up this prize a little too much!

They went on a little treasure hunt for their goody bags and then it was time to go home. 

Whew! I survived the Pokemon party!

The brothers kept saying to Alec, "I hope you appreciate this. I never got a party this good."

No, and you never will.