He hasn’t stopped playing with it for half an hour, so I’d say the giant Pikachu balloon is a hit.
Cupcakes in the shape of a Pokeball:
It turns out that you can rent a bounce house for your backyard, and they will set it up and take it down and Velcro on various character-themed options, such as Pokemon. Neat, and way easier than hauling all the kids out to the suburban bounce house places. I feel like I’ve levelled-up in kids’ party hosting skills.
This is not really a Pokemon thing, but the kids were pretty delighted by it anyway. (Familiar to gamers.)
Mirna was in town and able to come to Anand’s party. Yay!
One could do a neater version of this, if one were so inclined, but it still amused me and the kids. Fruit in the shape of a Pokeball.
The kids were super-amused that Mommy was Team Rocket. But I have to say, Kavi wears the wig MUCH better.
Charades (Kavi was having a hard time figuring out how to do ‘berry’ for ‘blackberry’), cake.
Elaine was here, eating my curry. 🙂 What a lovely birthday party day, with Mirna visiting at the beginning, Jed in the middle, and Elaine at the end. I now think all of our birthday parties should involve multiple out-of-town visitors. After the main party with little kids ended, we segued into board game night, and played Pandemic (ALMOST won, but not quite), Guillotine (three rounds, v. fun and easy card game), and Wise and Otherwise (making up proverbs game).
Thanks to everyone who helped us clean-up from Anand’s party @ 8, so that I could send the kids up to Kevin to put to bed, and then take Elaine to Amanda‘s excellent Oktoberfest party, which was a delight for the second year in a row. We sat by the fire and talked for two hours, and then Elaine and I came home, sat in the backyard, and talked for a couple more hours. Clearly, seeing her once every few years is insufficient; we had a fair bit of catching up to do.