Waffle Recipe using Pancake Mix

Zenon loves breakfast for dinner. I'm not a baker, I'm more a cook so I don't really have any baking products at home except flour, so I had to figure out a recipe to make good waffles using pancake mix.

I found this recipe originally from the internet and just tweaked the measurements a little and added the vanilla extract.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

4 Tbsp softened butter

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups pancake mix

 

Directions:

Ready the waffle iron. Beat the eggs and start adding all other wet ingredients. Add the flour and continue mixing. Cook! :)

Crispy on the outside, nice and moist on the inside.

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Zenon and the Minecraft addiction

Zenon made this today in a game called Minecraft. He's so addicted to this game, I think it's good because he gets to be creative. I have to watch out for the videos he watches about it on YouTube though. Some of them contain bad language.

 

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Sandy Baby

We adopted Sandy on the 1st of Ocotber last year. Our lives have never been the same since.

I admit I've never been big a dog person and because of the many, many challenges that came with her not being trained and myself not being a dog person, I thought about returning her so many times. Time passed and I never gave up. Zenon eventually started warming up to this huge beast that I insist is his baby sister.

I never realized how much we had fallen in love, mostly how much I had fallen in love with our baby, until she ran away a week ago.

It has been a while since I prayed so hard, but I did. I prayed hard because Zenon cried for his puppy, his beautiful beastly sister. I kept calm the whole time, called Home Again, informed my supervisor just in case I had to leave work or not be at work at all, called up local news stations, local police stations, local vets, local shelters, posted on FB, made posters and had friends help me search. I was calm but I started feeling depressed. I missed her. I started thinking about coming home from work and there was no overly excited, overgrown puppy welcoming us home -- jumping up on me and Zenon, too.

I prayed so hard for her to be safe, to come back home, to just be safe.

So much tears of joy shed! We love you Sandy! You overgrown puppy you! We're so happy you're back home!

Advanced Happy Birthday you overgrown baby! We love you!

 

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Tutorial Fail

Whenever I'm working on a project, I try to have a plan - a design in my head and a guideline as to how it should be done step-by-step.

As I make progress however, I find myself having spontaneous bursts of creativity either for the purpose of adjusting the original plan to work better or scratch the original plan in its entirety. So I realize just how bad I am at trying to be a blogger of DIY projects.

When I'm in the zone, nothing distracts me. I do it, I enjoy it, no matter how agonizing the task is, I enjoy the agony that comes with it.

So maybe I shouldn't feel so bad about not taking pictures at every step of the way because it just doesn't work out well for me most times.

S if I'm lucky, ill do tutorial, if not, well....leave a message and I'll put into words to as much as I can, clear, concise and easy to follow instructions when asked.

For now, a picture of Zenon's finished binder. I got the Pokemon images from his Pokemon card boxes. His initials were made using 3" letter pads from Hobby Lobby. I used different colored sharpies to create the abstract patterns.

 

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Ross is love

Yes I am promoting Ross in this blog entry. It is one of the best stores a Mom could have in her arsenal of bargain finds.

As a lot of Moms would agree to, kids shoes are expensive and these things get worn out fast! So this year I figured, I would buy Zenon 2-3 pairs of shoes he could switch around that's designated for school wear only. What I didn't want to do though was to overspend on these shoes either. So where else would we go but Ross. Ross in our area is small but patience and the fact that 'tis the season for beginning-of-the-school-year shopping, I was confident they'd ave a few more choices and sizes than usual.

Thank goodness for patience and determination, we found him shoes and new socks everything for right around $75 only!

 

 

If he wears these shoes out, it won't be such a waste to replace. Thank goodness for bargain stores.

By the way, I love TJ Max, too. Too bad there isn't a Marshall's here!

 

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Running out of ideas

This was lunch for Zenon for the 5th day of school, which was just last Week, Friday. I am almost out of ideas and without the right tools to make bento lunches, it's pretty hard to do, as the Japanese would say, "Mendoksai!", too much work!

So last Friday I made him PB&J and Nutella bites. Zenon liked them so, yay me!

For this week though, I am on vacation from making lunches. So last Monday for Zenon's lunch, after a year of asking for Lunchables for lunch, I finally got him one.

To have him experience the lunch line at school, I gave him money for lunch yesterday.

After this week, after all my reports are done, I can go back to making bento. :)

 

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Filipino Adobo - Bento style

Zenon loved the adobo I made one night so I asked if he wanted to have it for lunch the next day. He said yes so I packed his adobo lunch and couldn't quite figure out how to make it interesting.

I started thinking about what other food adobo is usually served with - sometimes hard boiled eggs are added, or potatoes or both, and sometimes scrambled eggs is what others prefer to eat it with. I personally love adobo with rice for breakfast served with scrambled egg (yes, Filipinos love rice that much, we have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner!).

So I did my research and found a tutorial on YouTube for scrambled eggs styled into Minions! :)

Itadakimasu! Kain na!

 

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The Bento Experiment

Having gone to Japan many, many years ago I started obsessing about the beautifully prepared, craftily put together and wonderfully delicious bento boxes. I was a freshman in high school when I was there and went to a local high school for about 8 months. My mother who's very artistic made me a couple of bentos then.

One of the things on my list to do for Zenon is to show him the world. Since I can't really take him to Japan right now because I believe that would a trip for a more mature Zenon, I will introduce him to Japanese culture the way I know how. He's already obsessed with Pokemon, he should get to know more about the country it originated from.

Day 1: Pikachu bento - I unfortunately didn't realize until very late that I forgot to get Nori sheets so I had to use soy sauce to paint Pikachu's face, dotting the rice with the tip of a straw that I cut so it had a pointy end then dipped in soy sauce.

 

Day 2 - CheeseBEARger

 

So far we're only on the second day of school and we got the Nori sheets today and it makes such a huge difference having it!

 

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Spoiling by Binder

Do I spoil my child?

What type of question is that?! No I don't. Unless doing something like this for Zenon's binder is considered spoiling.

These little things that I do for my baby, I hope he remembers fondly when he's all grown up.

 

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Sharpie Magic!

It was too late when I realized I forgot to order Pokemon gift wrappers for Zenon's birthday so I has to come up with something quick!

What I used:

• Black sharpie
• Silver sharpie
• Gift wrappers from Walmart with circle design
• Leftover Christmas gift wrappers - plain red
• Black and white curling ribbon
• Red, black and white construction paper
• 3" craft punch
• 1" craft punch

 

 

 

 

I had a gift wrapper with balloons and stars on it, too and drew on them like I did the circles to make them look like pokeballs!

The result...

 

 

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The Juggling Schools Act

I needed to make sure that Zenon's summer wasn't going to be an overly extended version of his spring break experience at the Y. He started complaining on his second day there that he was bored and begged not to ever go back. This was very disconcerting to me as Zenon is the type of kid who likes structure, and who wanted to be mentally challenged.

This summer, Zenon started going to summer camp at the on-base child care facility. Since they're an Air Force facility, they have AFI's (Air Force Instructions) they are required to follow which included making sure that the kids always have a fun, creative and mentally challenging activity everyday, plus the places they got to every week are very cool.

Having Zenon on-base also meant waking up at 0540 and driving together to base. I felt more secure that Zenon rode with me every morning. 20 extra minutes of sleep for both of us made us significantly less overwhelmed everyday. Going to the same general vicinity also meant not having to rush each morning which has also significantly reduced stress for both of us, too.

These things made me think of transferring Zenon to the school on-base. If this happens, I wouldn't have to wake Zenon up at 0520 because we needed the 15minutes to drive to the Y to drop him off in the morning. The worst thing about this is the fact that the school is right behind the apartments, a 5-minute walk away. If our unit had an unblocked view to the North we would even be able to see the school! It's part of the route I run when I go outside the apartment complex!

So I decided to transfer Zenon to the elementary school on-base and I was determined to make sure this happens. I was trying to have him go to Kindergarten there last year but they were full and they never called me back like I was told they would.

After all things considered last year, I didn't follow up because Zenon had already settled in well. Besides, the school is rated exemplary while the school on-base has a bad reputation with academic performance.

I wasn't willing to go through another school year of rushing early in the morning, and having to wake an exhausted child to do his homework after school, so I transferred Zenon the same week he started at the child care facility on base.

I called them up and asked them for the documents they needed from me and went there the very next day. I filled everything out and asked them, if filling out all the paperwork meant my son was definitely, for sure, without a doubt, going to this school for this school year for first grade. I asked several times and they said yes. I asked about the transfer papers too and they said not to worry, the transfer papers aren't needed until July. Again, I asked them several times about this and I was told the same thing, that everything was good to go and not to worry.

Just this Monday, 2 months after I filled out the paperwork with the school and was told everything was good to go, I received a call from this school and was given the impression that they cannot accommodate Zenon.

I started getting frustrated and stressed after this phone call because I had the transfer paper submitted online as early as May. I didn't want to take any chances and did my own research thus the early transfer paperwork.

The next day, I got another phone call from the school. My worst nightmare came true. Zenon wasn't going to that school. They couldn't accommodate him. I was told not to worry, to just make sure he's still enrolled in his old school and that when school starts (IN 2 WEEKS!!!), they would know for sure if they are able to take my baby in. I asked what the waiting list was looking like for us and I was told he was the 2nd one in line for 1st grade.

I had to make sure I was hearing everything right because it was mind blowing to me what that I was being told for Zenon to go to another school for a week or so until they are sure they have a slot for him.

Never mind the possibility of paying extra to cancel the before and after school care you have in place, it's the if I am even able to arrange a new before and after school for him when he transfers late was what concerned me most.

Also, the fact that they were doing this to a military child who until their parent/s retire or get out of the service will always be at the risk of settling in then be pulled out abruptly by military orders. So a school putting this type of stress on a child made me angry, and a school located in a military installation, too?? What is going on here??

I called up the school district to know if this is how things are really handled, if there was something I could have done to prevent this from happening and if there was anything I could do to make sure Zenon got in this school. I was told that it was just how things were. I was also told that Zenon was the only 1st grade transferee they had. So how is he 2nd in the waiting list then according the school??

I spoke with my First Sergeant about this to make sure that if in case I needed some type of intervention with the school, considering they're still on an Air Force base, I wouldn't have to tell a whole story of once upon a time.

I won't change my opinion about how things are done in this school district. I still feel it is wrong.

I wasn't willing to sit down and take things as they are. I am a control freak and this was not going well with how I had planned everything.

So I made sure Zenon was still enrolled at his old school. Spoke with the on-base child care facility to know which schools they can bus the kids to.

I called up the 2 other schools I was told they bus to got all the information I needed to enroll Zenon there then spoke to my supervisor to ask for time to do what I needed to do.

This morning, I went to one of the schools. This school is part of the neighboring city's school district. Great, a better chance of having Zenon transferred, I thought.

Still. I went there, provided all the documents they needed and filled out all the paperwork I was handed. I talked to the admin staff a bit to ask how, what I could do to get an positive answer and soon. I came out and told them our situation not for sympathy but for a bit of understanding that I needed an answer so I can stop panicking.

I left the school and 5 minutes later was at the last school I could have Zenon transferred to. I got out of the car and walked to the entrance. I pulled my phone out to check the time and there was a missed call and a voicemail. It was a local number but not a number from base.

I listened to the voicemail. It was the school I was just at. They were asking me to call back. I started feeling sick to my stomach. Zenon won't be able to go there either.

I hit the call back button on my phone and right away they knew who I was. The lady on the other end sounded too happy for the news I was about to get. Good customer service. Then I was told, "your son is in!". I was shocked. I was speechless. I repeated what she said questioningly. "Zenon's in??".

Yes he was, and there was nothing else I needed to do except make sure I had the school supply list.

The admin staff I spoke with had spoken with the principal and told her what I said which was basically the same thing I had written down as reason for Zenon's transfer request.

Tears started forming, I started sobbing. I felt so overwhelmed with joy, relief, and gratitude!

The admin staff (I wish I could remember her name right now, but for the life of me I can't, but will definitely find out and never forget again!) told me the principal's first name and said to not forget to thank her when I get to meet her.

I am so grateful that Zenon is going to a school that's close to base. I can give him just a little but more time to dream, a little bit more energy to be a kid after school and not have to do homework miserably. I will finally be a more visible figure for him in school activities. I will be able to feel more secure knowing he's only a couple of minutes away.

Now, to finally get his school supplies together. :)

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I found my war cry

I have recently started running a mile every afternoon around our apartment complex. I am running on grass, parking lots, gutters, sidewalks, and past my neighbors restraining their dogs who start barking at me with lethal intent.

I have adapted a running regimen that's supposed to be used by Olympians where they run progressively longer distances at different speeds wherein they try to control their pace per mile. It's supposed to help improve your overall stamina and speed.

There are three reasons for doing this at this point in time. One is because I have my annual PT test coming up soon. Reason number 2, is the fact that in 2 years of being stationed in Texas, I have gained 25 lbs and steadily increasing to the point where, I feel so ashamed to have to admit this, but, I had to buy a new set of Blues. Lastly, I'm doing this because I hate running. I hate it so much that even before I run, even if its just for our squadron PT session which we do 3x a week, I feel like throwing up. Every. Single. Time.

I was never athletic. I was never into sports. I simply tried everything out but never took anything seriously. My physical activities were more geared towards speed walking on campus to get to my next class on time back in college.

I've been told it's just a mindset and it is true. My mind is set on "I hate running. I hate running. I hate running a million times forever." Every. Single. Time.

While I was running yesterday though, my thoughts went toward acceptance. I told myself that running is a fact of my life now and the sooner I come to terms with this, the sooner I can cope. I don't have to love running, I just need to do it right. I ran faster that afternoon.

Definitely being in the military, physical fitness is a key component. If you're not fit, start bidding your military career goodbye. I believe that in the AF, after 3 strikes you're out. I would rather not know and not to have to know if this information is accurate because that means I am failing miserably, and when I become a supervisor and this is information I have to know, that means I am failing my troops very miserably.

It only took me 2 years to start thinking of running as a fact of life and I hope this is the miracle I've been looking for to help me. I know for a fact that it is my attitude towards running that is keeping me from getting to the point where I don't have to struggle. I do have my physical limitations as well, but the mental factor is what's keeping me from training my body.

I always try to make up lame excuses to get out of running and when I do have to run, I stop. I don't want to have to do my PT test in a few months and still be scared of failing because I can't run. I want that stress gone.

This morning we did a 2 mile run. The last quarter mile I sprinted like crazy. 2 years of being thought of as the quiet, little Asian who didn't have an aggressive bone in her body, finally found her war cry today. I, found my war cry.

Force me to not just sprint but sprint like crazy to the pace of the 2 fastest runners in my squadron plus a Senior Master Sergeant from the NCO Academy, added to my desperation to finally learn to run well, I definitely found my war cry.

I wanted to cry afterwards, but I held back as much as I could. I ended up with loud sobs and red eyes without tears.

I ran this afternoon, too. 1 mile. Not as fast as yesterday's run time but I ran with my sore thighs, arms, shoulders, shin splints, and whatever other aches and pains I've been feeling since I started. I ran and I'm starting to like it. I'm starting to feel better. I'm a little less stressed than I always am and noticeably more energetic, too.

I will run until my bones break, I will run until my lungs explode. I will run for me because me is the totality of all my love for Zenon, all my goals for us, all the things I want to achieve for him.

I will run and I even have a war cry that goes with it now.

 

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The Birthday Morning Surprise

I wanted to surprise Zenon with something amazing. Something that would get him very excited sbout his birthday, and what better gift to give for that purpose but his Ash Ketchum costume.

When I was sure he was deep in sleep, I sneaked into his room and set-up the birthday surprise as quietly as a burglar around the apartment.

Zenon can read very well so I wrote down instructions for him to follow.

1. the first set of instructions were on his door.

"Good morning! Wear me!" (Arrow drawn pointing down to the pants hanging on his bedroom door.)

Outside his door were his socks and shoes.

:Put on your socks and shoes. Go up the stairs. Look for the next thing to put on." Knowing my child and how overly excited he gets, I needed to make sure that he sticks to the instructions and not run around the apartment looking for clues. Thus, the big arrow pointing up to the stairs.

2. The shirt, vest, Pokemon toys (Pokedex, gloves, and pokeball with Pikachu).

"Put this on then head up to Mom's room." Yup, I had to place big arrows again, better safe than a spoiled birthday surprise!

Outside my door a welcome sign, "Come in and open your gift!!".

 

I set-up a table right in front of the door when you go in and set the Pokemon toys and hat on it, with the last instruction, "Put me on!"

 

Once he had the hat on, I sat up in bed, and told him to look into the mirror then I asked,"Who's that Pokemon?!?!".

To that Zenon replied, "I'm not a Pokemon, I'm Ash Ketchum!!!"

 

Birthday surprise success!!!

 

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DIY Pokemon Birthday Banner

This is the banner that I made for Zenon's birthday. Easy enough to make since there's only 13 letters compared to the 40 invitations I had to make individually.

Here's what you need:

• White cardstock
• Red cardstock
• Electrical tape (3 for $2.99 at WalMart)
• 3" letter pads in assorted colors (or any color of your choice, I wanted gold but it wasn't available) $3.99 at Hobby Lobby
• 1" round craft punch (not in picture) - This isn't required but if you have it, life gets easier
• Glue stick
• Metal ruler
• Cutter
• Scissors
• Fish bowl or anything round that's about 6"-7" in diameter
• Pencil

1. Using the fish bowl or whatever round object you can use to trace a circle, trace 13 on white cardstock then trace 7 on red cardstock. Cut them out.

2. Using the cutter and metal ruler, find the center of the red circle cardstock you've made which gives you 14 half circle pieces.

3. Unwind some electrical tape, sticky side up. Place your half circle piece on the lower half of the electrical tape. You need to do this because when you put the white and red piece together, the electrical tape is perfectly placed in the middle of the circle, especially since the red piece will be raised, this will keep everything looking nice, clean and symmetrical.

4. Put the red half circle and the white circle together. Glue the red piece down. It's starting to look like a pokeball!

5. Pick the color of letters you want to use. If you're going for the multicolor look like I did, plan out the colors you're going to use. I had to make special care not to have blue and yellow by each other.

You can also opt to use the same color letters all throughout. The pack of letter pads have 3 of each color and you have red, purple, blue, green and yellow to choose from. It has also has numbers and some special characters.

Glue down the letter you need. Don't use the glue stick in the letter pad pack. It doesn't work very well.

Do 12 more and you've got yourself a Pokemon Birthday Banner!

 

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The Making of Zenon's 6th Birthday Poke-Bash

I honestly cannot recall Zenon being this persistent about what he wanted for his birthday or for anything else before. Probably because he's still young but somehow he got hooked into Pokemon. For several months he would say this, "All I want for my birthday is a Pokemon card". Of course, me being his mom (poor child!), the response he always got was, "Okay, but you get one, okay? Just one!". Thus the protest would begin until he would give out a loud sigh and surrender with these words, "I just want Pokemon for my birthday Mom, just one is fine.". Awwww, my poor baby! I win!
Many, many months of this has thus of course led to the Pokemon themed 6th birthday. Armed with a tight budget, an addiction to Pinterest and an inkling of craftiness, the making of the birthday began.
First, ideas. I'm familiar with Pokemon, the first generation came out when I was in high school. I remember my step-brother was glued to his game boy playing the game. I remember the sounds, especially the music it played when you run into a Pokemon. I remember being frustrated and irritated with that darn music. I tried understanding the game but my brother got the game straight from Japan, his Dad being Japanese and all, so the whole thing was in Japanese. It didn't help that my brother was fresh from Japan himself so he really couldn't explain much to me. Well, that given, I still ended up liking it because Pikachu was cute and the show was pretty cool.
So, given my obvious lack of Poke-knowledge, I needed to do some research. My research showed that Pokemon has become an extremely vast mass of.....I don't even have any words for it (Pokemon-ness??). It's just a lot of Pokemon amassed over more than a decade and several versions of it called generations. (Generations? Hoo, someone's getting O-L-D.) Given this, I came up with the conclusion to abandon any further research and just grab some ideas other people have had and have used with their own kids' Pokemon themed birthdays. Me = smart.
These days, where else would you get ideas but from the best source in the world -- Pinterest! Thus, began the long weekday nights and long weekend days AND nights of Pinterest (as if this wasn't a recurring activity in this household). However, let us not dismiss good ol' Google, which has also given me some awesome ideas and provided very good resources for the making if this birthday.
In the end we decided to make things easy for us -- stick to the original, the classics if you may, black, red and white, the colors of the Pokeball, which allowed us to have a color theme, too.

The Invitations
I needed to make life easy for me so I scratched my original plan of having pokeball invitations that you can either open or have a page pulled out.
So they came out like so.

I choose you!

The Banner
I saw a picture on Pinterest of a very, very cool Birthday banner where the letters had a pokeball background. Considering I was trying to spare myself from labor due to a 5K I was also putting together (for the day before Zenon's birthday!), I clicked on the pin and it directed me to a website and I found out, the banner was for sale! Yes! $35-45 for the banner, cupcake toppers, goodie bag labels, etc. Sweet deal! Then, came the most annoying catch I've ever encountered in my life thus far -- you're only paying for the PDF file so you can print everything off yourself! Amazing, and so not worth it!
So, I looked for other ideas, googled what was for sale online and decided that the banner I saw was still the best. No, I didn't buy it. Never doing that and don't fall for it either! Making your own is easy and cheap. Trust me. Especially if you invest in some awesome "equipment" called huge circle craft punch (6" diameter, I also bought a 1" one), life and the labors of love become much easier. Besides, these babies are going to be a part of my arts and crafts armament.
Now, a preview of what I came up with compared to the one from Pinterest.

Note the picture of the banner on our dining table has differed a bit from the one we put up. This is due to the fact that my son is an Ohio State fan. We cannot however change the fact that Ash wears a blue vest with yellow accents. In which case, Ash and none of his ancestors are from Michigan.

I'll post a tutorial soon enough, I hope. (Ooh, look who's making tutorials now! Look at you, you professional blogger, arts and crafts guru, you!)

The Ice Cream Bar
That aside, some other ideas I got was to have an ice cream bar. I've always wanted to have one! I mean, for Zenon to have one!
Most ice cream bar pictures I liked had some sort of sign for it so I decided to make my own. At first all I knew was it would have a picture or pictures of ice cream and the words "ice cream" somewhere. One late weekend night I had this idea of making a pokeball ice cream in a cone! Pokeballs are circles and so are ice cream scoops, make a triangle for the cone then tadaaaa!!

Another idea I got was to buy $1 fishbowls from the Dollar Tree and make poke-bowls for the ice cream toppings. So off we went to the local Dollar Tree and got 4 medium sized fishbowls. Unfortunately, despite how easy it would've been to make, I didn't have enough time to make them. I pushed the easiest things to do last but unfortunately due to all the exhaustion and stress for the past couple of months, my body finally started to succumb to illness. So instead of my nightly craft work for Zenon's birthday, I was forced to rest. I could've pushed through but I just died at the end of the day from work. Here's a picture of the poke-bowl I was going to make. I'll still try to make one for the sake of showing how easy it would've really been and how awesome, too. (*Sigh)

We didn't use ice cream cones though, we got plastic dessert cups with stems from the Dollar Tree 5pcs per pack instead. Less chances of ice cream melting through the cone and making a mess.

Poke-Lantern

Look how cool they are! Again though, a fail. I made this my second to the last thing to do right before the bowls. (*SIGH)

This one though I have a pretty good idea of how to make, but if it will be easy I'm still not sure. We still ended up using the red and white lanterns we bought from Hobby Lobby. The entry way to the clubhouse where we had Zenon's birthday was the perfect place for them.

What can I say, my kid loves the camera.

I alternated the white and red lanterns and had them arranged small-medium-large which was perfect because there were 3 lanterns per pack in these sizes. Since we were now only missing the black, we used black curling ribbon to hang them.

Welcome Trainers!
We were supposed to copy this sign and post it up to greet the guests, but would also say, "Please take a hat". Unfortunately because I was sick, missing the printer cord to the laptop and could not drive to go to UPS to have the sign printed, we had to make do with what we had that day. I asked a friend to just write it for me at last minute on the whiteboard that the clubhouse had.

The Ash Ketchum hats we ordered online. It's a good buy because it's not your typical birthday party hat and the fact that it comes undone, became an activity, too and a unique way to welcome and entertain guests.

Z-E-N-O-N spells ZENON!
Fails aside, I did make something that I did not get from google or Pinterest. I got 3D cardboard letters that spelled out Zenon's name and painted it red and white. It turned out so awesome and Zenon loves it! It's in his room as part of his decor now.

Balloons = Birthday, always.
Don't forget the balloons! We bought red, white and black balloons and just scattered them all over the floor!

Got a table? Poke-square it is!
I didn't realize how great an idea it was to have Zenon's birthday at the clubhouse until I realized that all the decorations I had in mind had a perfect place in the venue, including 1 big and 3 medium sized round tables that I never even had to move!
We covered the tables with red and white plastic table covers from the Dollar Tree, then put a strip of black crepe paper streamer in the middle, including the square table in front of the sofa which was perfect for the gifts! So we had 4 Pokeball tables and 1 Poke-square table.

Even the gift wrapping required some creativity due to lack of Pokemon gift wrappers.

Games
We only had 2 because we found a couple of DVDs for $5 each and made that part of the activities.
The first game was a pokeball hunt. The Pinterest pin I got made use of ping pong balls. I used styrofoam balls instead. These are now also adorning my son's room.
Another game that I came up with I called the PsyDuck Walk where you put a balloon between your legs and race!



The Goodie Bags
Now we go to the goodie bags. We ordered a pack of Pokemon mini-figures online for $13.99. There are 24 pcs per pack. We could have gotten it for cheaper but those shipped from China and we couldn't risk not getting them on-time. We did sign up for Amazon Prime so shipping was free.

The paper bags were from the Dollar Tree, 24 pcs per pack. The pokeball I made and glued it on the bag. We also ordered pokemon tattoos online. Other things we added were glow-in-the-dark bracelets, 10pcs per pack, also from the Dollar Tree. Other things in the small goodie bags were a pokemon card, crunch bar, blow pop and 3 pcs of crayons.
I used a birthday ribbon ($1 at the dollar tree) and double-sided tape to keep the crayons together, to be used for the coloring pages. An idea we had for this was to also have a black and white picture pasted on the back of the bag to be colored. Fail on this one again. (*Sigh)
Successes and failures for this party were I guess unavoidable. I knew to not have the 5K and Zenon's birthday back-to-back but I believe both events were successful in their own right. Especially since in the end I was able to make one last, I believe, very awesome personal touch to my baby's birthday, his own Ash Ketchum costume!



Zenon is Ash Ketchum
Even without any budget constraints, I still wouldn't have bought a costume for Zenon because they were just so ridiculously priced and not really what I was looking for. So all the last bits of energy I had, I put into making Zenon's costume.
With all honesty it was easy enough to do now that I've done it, but because I do not have a sewing machine, neither do I know how to use one, and with my non-existent sewing skills, it took everything from me to muster up all my energy to come up with a way to make it plus enough energy to just finish it and finish it on time. There was however no going around the hat, that one, I definitely had to buy online.

This picture was taken at 7:30 am. Zenon woke up to directions to his surprise, the costume. The directions led up to my room where the small yet very important components of the surprise were, the pokedex, pokeball with pikachu, gloves, the hat and mirror were.

I'll post a tutorial on how I made the costume, too. This one will take a while because I do not have any pictures. I was too sick and too focused on finishing to remember to do that. Good times!





In the end, I honestly believe this was one of the best birthdays I have ever put together for my baby. It's the first time I went all out with it. Like my wedding (but failed marriage. *Oh, well.) I put my heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears into it, and like the wedding, I got sick from exhaustion, too.

I had to be somewhat dressed appropriately to be in harmony with Zenon's birthday theme. Black shirt, white shorts and red belt. Solved!

Will I do this again? Yes, I would. I'm more terrified of the day that my baby finally grows out of themed birthdays. Until then, every year will be like this, even better because instead of preparing a month before, we're doing it 2 months before at least. :)
Happy Birthday baby! I love you so much!

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