Gotta Catch ‘Em All: Pokemon Birthday at Home

On a family walk, my little boy started singing (with great energy and perfect pitch, complete with fist by his face), “I want to be the very best, like no one ever was…” Do you know how cool that moment was for a parent who grew up in the time of Pokémon?? He didn’t get much further before we all joined him for the rest of the entire song! On our later walks, Jer pointed to funky cracks made from roots coming out of the asphalt, and called them “Charmander poo”. The kids freaked! F especially had a big imagination finding all kinds of evidence of Pokémon on our adventures, and a special connection with Charmander. W loved Pikachu (who doesn’t!) and they often pretended to either catch or be their favorites.

This year, F turned 5 and W turned 3 while they were at their grandparents which was super cool for them! They were able to have a cake and a fun time with family there, but we were far away getting the basement ready for all of us to be able to live there. After we moved into the basement, Jer had been taking the boys to the park and around the neighborhood daily to catch Pokémon on a game on his phone. I wasn’t going to throw a birthday party for them, but Jeremy convinced me otherwise. So we made it work! In ONE DAY! It was insane!!

The party was held at the end of July, so it was HOT outside. We had hamburgers and Nacho Dorito’s for lunch, and played some fun and simple games with best friends. There was a form of freeze dance / musical chairs but we didn’t have enough seats or room for that many chairs… so we cut out circles from paper and that was a “spot” they could sit on! Then we went outside and did an egg toss (with raw eggs that Jer colored into pokéballs using red and black sharpie).

Pokemon Birthday Cake

The boys loved their birthday cake! Thank you, Costco, for pre-made cheesecakes. I made a strawberry compote to go on top and wanted to kind of make the red half of the pokéball, but my BFF pointed out the cheesecake would taste better if everyone just poured their own. The toppers are made of white chocolate candy melts! I poured a mix of gel coloring to get the colors I wanted. Jer drew the designs on paper so I could easily follow it, and I piped a bunch of ziplock bags and did several layers of details before freezing them. Charlie (who loves Pikachu) stopped breathing and squealed when he got a Pikachu tail.

F got a Pokemon Throw N’ Pop ball with Charmander inside that he can pretend to throw, and the little figure will pop out! He also got a Pokéball Plus for Nintendo Switch, which basically connects to that Pokémon GO mobile game and it will shake when he catches pokémon in the actual park. (I don’t know, Jeremy said F would love it). They played for hours!

W is our little builder and has spent most of his time over the summer constructing things out of Magnet Tiles which he got from Christmas. For his birthday, we decided to get him a box of Jasonwell brand ones that were still high quality and came with a bigger variety of pieces. Their number of tiles doubled, and all the kids were able to play together and build even larger designs!