Baron's Pokemon Trainer Birthday Party!

 Well, hey! Guess what? Baron finally got the birthday party of his dreams! And I delivered only 3 months past his due date, er.... birthday. You see, I had promised him a Pokemon birthday party and just had absolutely no idea what in the world we would do at such a party, and then I found THIS blog and you see, I just had to do every little thing because it was all so darn cute, but I didn't have time because of school, and that's how I came to be throwing Baron a birthday party in the middle of summer when his birthday is actually in the middle of spring :) (I love run-on sentences) And I do have to say, the gal who came up with this party idea and all of the cute little favors and games is a Pokemon genius. All credit goes to her. I just executed it. And executed it pretty darn well if I do say so myself. This party took the most time to do. But it was worth it because I loved doing it. And Baron had so much fun.

Any who, onto the party!

Invitations: I made these. I never make invitations, but they were darling. So I had to do it. I stayed up really late one night watching Amazon Prime and it took me about 3 hours to make them. I watched a really lame movie while doing it (Uptown Girls, I think?) so it was definitely worth my while ;) They are little pokeballs and the invite just pulls right out. I think I traced and cut out 50 circles for this invite, varying sizes, of course.

Onto party day. I did very simple decor. I used all of the printouts from the cute gal's blog and just put my own spin on it. I used a black, red, white, and blue color theme. For the food we had little sack lunches with turkey and cheese sandwiches, strawberries, chips, and a can of fruit punch.  You see, in the cartoon, Ash (the main character) and his friends are always traveling from one city to another looking to battle gym leaders and gain experience with their pokemon. So, I thought it fitting to have a simple sack lunch. We also had chocolate cupcakes with white frosting for dessert (Baron's choice). For party favors (these were my favorite!) we had little sling bags with the pokemon sigil (that Laylah, Brea (my sis-in-law) and my Mother-in-law whipped up in a couple hours) and stenciled hats (just like Ash's , again with the pokemon sigil!) so the boys could feel like they were becoming real Pokemon trainers.

The theme of the party was how to become a real pokemon trainer. We divided it up into 4 steps, with a break in the middle to eat and rest (becoming a trainer is hard work!)

And just a few pokemon were hanging around for added inspiration.

Once the boys arrived, they received their hats and bags.

Then they were put to work to try and catch their pokemon. I had a big poster with every single pokemon on it. I would tell them the name of a pokemon and whoever found it on the poster (Where's Waldo style) would get that pokemon to put in their pokeball. Once they found a pokemon they waited out of the game until everyone had a pokemon.

Next it was time to care for their pokemon. In the show Ash does this by earning badges. I had hidden badges all over the yard and each boy could find up to 4. Badges help your pokemon become better and more obedient. I made them wait in the backyard under the tree until I yelled at them to come search in the front yard.

 They found all the badges in record time!

We let them sit and have a break after that. They ate their snack/sack lunch and they chatted all about pokemon and who had the best one.

Here is an example of the little pokemon and pokeball. I painted disco ball necklaces from the party store to look like pokeballs. I found a pack of 50 miniature pokemon on ebay and they fit perfectly inside the pokeball. Match made in pokemon heaven.

After everyone was rested up the real work began. It was time to train our pokemon and get them ready to battle. We played games like Red Rover to teach our pokemon attack moves, we played Steal the Flag to teach defense, we had running races to teach speed, and we played Dodgeball to teach our pokemon agility.  I only got a few pictures of the game playing, because I was inside getting our last game ready. Andy ran most of the games and he said the boys had a blast.

 The last part of the party was to see how well we had trained our pokemon and let them battle! Of course, Meowth is the bad guy in the cartoon, so he was the one we battled. We made this pinata, it was so very easy but time consuming. It was filled with treats and the little leftover pokemon figures that we didn't use in the pokeballs (remember, I had a pack of 50 and only used 10 in the Catch Your Pokemon game.)

Birthday Boy went first and everyone got a turn after him.

 Andy ended up breaking it open when no one else could and then the boys swarmed to the ground.

After we had deemed all of the boys Pokemon masters, we sang Happy Birthday and had cupcakes. 

And then it was present time. Bear got a lot of fun things, many pokemon related and he was in heaven. 

He spent the remainder of the evening playing night games in the cul-de-sac with all of the neighborhood kids wearing his pokemon hat and sling bag. I think he liked it and it made me so happy. Mostly happy that it was over, but happy nonetheless ;)

Happy (latest of late) Birthday's Pokemon Boy!