Little M&M chose Pokémon for his birthday party theme this year. Although this is not something I am terribly familiar with, I still had a ton of fun putting this party together for him. Take a look at some of our party details below: FOOD Here is our beverage table (the free printable water bottle labels came from here): Our party began at 2pm, so we just served snack foods at the beginning of the party, cake at the end of the party and then ordered pizza for whomever was still around at night. This was a family-only party so that was basically everyone! Here are the foods we served as people arrived: And here are our three homemade cookie cakes. We wanted to use primarily chocolate/vanilla frosting so we only made one Pokéball cake out of pre-packaged, colored frosting. PARTY ACTIVITIES and GAMES We love putting together fun games for our parties! Here is what we did today: GAME #1: This game was for the kids and the adults. We simply placed gummy worms in a jar and asked our guests to guess how many "caterpie" were in the jar. At the end of the party we peeked at the guesses, and the person who guessed the right amount (or came the closest) was able to take the jar home with them! GAME #2: Our first hands-on activity of the day was to design a pokéball. We purchased smooth foam balls from the craft store, and offered crayons for them to use to draw on them. I found a perfect chart on Google with some of the most popular pokéballs to serve as inspiration (though the link is faulty so I cannot credit the original maker of this awesome chart). Some of the kids decorated a specific pokéball from the chart: and others designed their very own: GAME #3: Our next game was a scavenger hunt! I created this pokédex in Photoshop Elements and hid each Pokémon image featured on it around the main level of the house. This was surprisingly a super engaging and well-loved activity! The kids were so excited to run around looking high and low for these Pokémon. Later when asked what his favorite part of the party was, the scavenger hunt was definitely mentioned! GAME #4: One thing I know about Pokémon is that you've "Gotta catch 'em all!" So that was the main idea behind this next game. I purchased red and white bowls from the Dollar Tree, and added one Pokémon image to each, with increasing point values. The kids had to use their own pokéball (which they decorated earlier in the party) to toss into the bowls. After five throws, the person with the highest sum of points was the winner. They stood behind a masking tape line just a few feet away from the first bowl. Each kid threw the ball five times, and I was so pleased that everyone got at least a couple shots into the bowls. Some sharp throwers even "caught" the 100-point MewTwo! GAME #5: I discovered this fun science activity on this website. It was such a great addition to the party! We purchased a bag of miniature Pokémon from Amazon. Using a 2:1 mixture of baking soda and water, we hid them inside little eggs. Then, using pipettes and vinegar, the kids were able to "hatch" some Pokémon eggs! We were lucky in that our bag of assorted Pokémon contained 6 Pikachus! So we were sure to include those (distinguishing them with yellow food coloring dots on the eggs) to ensure each guest could hatch a Pikachu (only my two kids had to share one). We had each of the 7 kids hatch a total of three eggs, and then they could take them home with them! For the kids this was a big hit, but note that the vinegar smell was strong at this moment, and the adults definitely noticed! Perhaps open a window or do this activity outside if you are able! GAME #6: Our final game was a Beedrill Balloon Pop! We always like to have some kind of balloon game at our parties, but I wanted something different than the usual. So we blew up about 50-60 yellow and black balloons, filling some of them with images of Weedles and Kakunas (these are lesser evolved Beedrills). The object of the game was for the kids to pop all the balloons to find the one balloon containing the Mega Beedrill (the highest evolved Beedrill). They had SO much fun doing this. And...if you could believe it...the Mega Beedrill was discovered in the very LAST balloon! PRIZES Obviously the winner of the first game, guessing the number of Caterpies in the jar, received the jar of Caterpies. But for the other games that yielded a winner (Gotta Catch 'Em All and Beedrill Balloon Pop) we gave away these chocolate bar "medals." I quickly printed a little image to put on each of them. PARTY FAVORS I turned white favor bags into pokéballs using construction paper. Inside each was a Pokémon cup (Party City), Pokémon pencils and tattoos (Amazon) and some miniature chocolate bars with Pokémon face labels (free labels from here). Obviously, each guest also brought home their decorated pokéballs and the three figurines they each hatched from eggs. It was a tremendous success, and Little M&M was so happy! WE LOVE THROWING PARTIES! If you enjoyed looking at these party details, please take a look back at some of our other exciting themes: Mary Poppins (Honey Pot's 6th birthday party) The Good Dinosaur (Little M&M's 4th birthday party) Aristocats / Kittens (Honey Pot's 5th birthday party) Cars / Race Cars (Little M&M's 3rd birthday party) Peter Pan (Honey Pot's 4th birthday party)* Paw Patrol /Puppies (Little M&M's 2nd birthday party)* The Little Mermaid (Honey Pot's 3rd birthday party)* Hot Air Balloons (Little M&M's 1st birthday party) Elmo / Sesame Street (Honey Pot's 2nd birthday party) * Some of our most popular posts!