Coleman turned 8 on January 14th. It was his first friend party that we celebrated at a place other than the house. I must admit, I liked the no prep, no clean up party but knew we entering a new era. My first born is growing up, becoming a big boy, one who says "Mooom" with an annoyed tone when he's embarrased or thinks he knows more than his parents. Fun times ahead.
The family party:
We gave him his new bike early in the day so he could test it out.
Brent is the International school in the Phillipines he went to for nursery and preschool. So funny he thinks of it like a college.
His birthday party at Wazee's World where they played two games of laser tag and some arcade games.
The kids had a blast comparing their scores. Coleman got second place, even beating out Daddy!
First he wanted to read the girls a bedtime story.
Then a week later I caught him up past his bedtime.
He has become an independent reader! Made this mama's heart proud when he was reading books by bathroom light. I used to hide under my covers with a flashlight with my latest book.
Wednesday evening, on our way to church I was mentioning to Coleman that we wouldn't have time to do both church and homework, so we would put off homework to the next night. He's been earning Ninjago TV shows by completing homework without complaining, ahem.
Coleman: Yeah, 'cause God is more important than homework.
Carter: Yeah, but God wants you to do your homework too.
There you go- it must be the 11th Commandment that broke off the stone tablet:
Thou shall do your homework! (and without complaint, whining or grimacing I might add)
If you buy a boy some Legos, chances are he'll want to get more. If the boy gets more Legos, chances are he'll need some place to display them. I saw this on pinterest and thought we could do something similar.
First step was to find all the Lego dudes as we refer to them at our house.
We set up a hospital of sorts, putting legs and hands in one area, heads in another and accessories in another. Using this method, many Minifigs were able to make a full recovery.
Next step is start assembling Minifigs onto the 2 X 2 squares.
If you buy a boy some Legos, chances are he'll end up with about 100 Minifigs. A 100! I couldn't believe it.
If said boy has a toddler sister, then one must find a way to keep the Lego dudes out of reach.
Jake and Coleman attached the back of the square using a hot glue gun to two inch moulding.
Then Jake nailed the moulding to the wall. Some of the Minifigs came off, but they just got glued back on.
The wall display is impressive and best of all, since we are renting, it's portable and doesn't damage the wall. The display has become quite the conversation piece and everyone loves talking about their favorites.
For his birthday, my soon-to-be-seven year old wanted a Pokemon birthday party. We tackled it like last year and started with cake ideas for inspiration.
The Cake
To get inspiration, I have usually googled it to look at images, but for the next party I will visit Pinterest. Coleman like this one in our search. Of course it contained the most Pokemon figures but at least the cake part was easy (haha, it never is for me!).
I purchased the Pokemon figures off of Ebay for $30. I was in a Nutella mood so I wanted to add a layer of it in between two cakes. I am not the best at frosting cakes so I looked online for tips.
I saw at Prudent Baby, that you could kind of "seal" the cake with a liquid version of the icing. It was easier than making a sugar glaze so I tried it.
I smoothed it down the cut sides but it didn't quite "dry" as I needed it to. The best tip I read off the blog was to put extra parchment paper down under the cake in sections so after you were done icing, you could pull those out and the underside of the cake plate would be clean. I was out of paper so I used foil which worked well.
Oh my, look at that Nutella layer!
The pre-icing didn't work, so I went with my usual method of freezing the cake. That worked and I managed to ice it.
We washed the figures with hot soapy water. My husband made the goal posts of popsicle sticks, super glue and yellow electrical tape. I used Wilton's Kelly Green color for the icing but only because that's what I had already. I would have liked to use a brighter green. What I realized later, is that although the cake was tall because it was going to have this delicious Nutella layer, it was small and not roomy for all the Pokemon figures.
Let the battle begin!
The Shirt
My husband played with some images on Photoshop and created a customized birthday shirt. If you want to do something like this, you can also use a free program like Gimp (for Macs).
Tips:
Make sure image is a mirror image before printing
Don't leave your iron on too long and break it
Have an extra shirt to use or two- a small stain can be covered up by the graphic
Buy a 10 pack of transfer sheets just in case
The Playlist
We purchased an album called Pokemon - 2.b.a. Master which with songs like the Pokemon theme song and Pokerap, how could we go wrong? I'm sure I'll be listening to it in the car as well.
The Games
We find it's good to have three games planned and allow for flexibility.
Bubble Battle: We bought an inexpensive bubble blower machine and let the kids have fun (note to self: do not forget extra bubble solution at home). This will also be great for our other kids' parties, having it on as the guest arrive gives the kids something to do.
Pokeball Dodgeball: We bought several inexpensive, red play balls, drew a black line and a circle around them. Then we lined them up on the rope line and played kids vs. adults and then kids vs. kids. It was Coleman's favorite game and the other kids loved it!
Pokemon Search & Find: We used some of those leftover Pokemon figures and hid them all over (think Easter eggs) and then when they found one, they traded it in for a candy ring pop.
The Party Favors
We purchased Pokemon treat boxes from Party City and filled them with:
Pokemon cards
Pokemon ring
Pokemon bracelet
The kids were then able to fill their boxes with candy from the Pikachu pinata!
I saw this Pokemon card birthday invite and thought it was a creative spin on the traditional invite.
Of course I wanted to create one for Coleman which meant I had to learn some Photoshop, which was not easy. Lucky for me, my hubby knows some stuff. I however, learned the hard way to frequently save your work, most of which I lost the first time around (yes, there were some silly tears involved). Creating one the second time around was easier than the first and did go much quicker.
Here's what we came up with:
We included the where and the when of the party information. Then we printed them off as photos, I did a little snipping around the corners.
I put Coleman to work addressing and stuffing envelopes.
I even printed a 5x7 so we could put it in frame as a keepsake.
Here's a "blank" template I've modified from the original source to be more user friendly:
You can right-click to save and use it in Word, Photoshop or any other image-manipulating program. Have fun creating your own Pokemon card.
Stay tuned... my next post will give you some ideas on creating a Pokemon birthday party of your own!
Seven years ago, we celebrated the surprising early arrival of our firstborn son, Coleman. At only 6 pounds, he was so small he wore preemie clothes for the first week.
Today, as I shot this picture, I must admit I was getting teary eyed.
Happy Birthday to our Lego-fanatic, Wii-playing, football-loving son!
which with songs like the Pokemon theme song and Pokerap, how could we go wrong? I'm sure I'll be listening to it in the car as well.
