We Threw a Harry Potter Party

Last year my good friend Monica threw an AMAZING Harry Potter birthday party for her daughter's 7th birthday. I remember that Mike and I were impressed by the invitation alone that we were joking about drawing straws to see who would be the lucky one to take Aidan to this party (We are Harry Potter fans). Aidan had such a great time at the party that afterwards he begged me to throw him one too. I knew my friend had put A LOT of time into prepping for her daughter's party, so I told Aidan that I would throw him a Harry Potter birthday party the following year for his 8th birthday (clearly someone had cast the Imperio curse on me). A few weeks later I found out that I was pregnant with Jaken, and I knew that prepping for this Harry Potter party was going to have to start early because it going to be a lot harder when the baby was born. So about 6 months before December , Mike and I were not only getting ready for our 3rd kid, but we were also like elves doing all sorts of things for this party in our spare time: sewing sorting scarves, making wand boxes, putting together costumes, making floating candles, creating Diagon Alley shops and signs, creating the various wizardry classes, making invitations, and designing the Hogwart's castle birthday cake.
We are very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends that love Aidan, because it was with their help and participation that made this party truly a 5 star event. We definitely had a cast and crew for this party. My brother-in-law was willing to dress up as Hagrid to meet the kids at Platform 9 3/4  and show them through the "brick wall" to Diagon Alley, my friend Monica lent the sorting hat and taught the Care of Magical Creatures class where the kids hatched dragon eggs in their cauldrons, my brother Alex and his girlfirend not only helped me decorate the Great Hall but they also taught the Transfiguration class where the kids turned water into snow, my husband dressed up as Ollivander and ran the wand shop, I taught the Potions class where the kids made Felix Felicis potion bottle necklaces, Monica's daughter ran our Honeydukes shop, my mother-in-law bought and made the food for the feast in the Great Hall, my sister videotaped the party, my piano student, Sofia, lent us the house banners to hang in the Great Hall and her family bought the chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Jelly Beans for our Honeydukes shop, my Tita Rosie took care of the baby during the party, and my honorary brother Andrew took pictures during the party. Whew! Listing that all off almost sounded like it could be a variation to the "Twelve Days of Christmas", huh? What can I say, Aidan is a special boy :)  But I must say, that as incredible and fun as it was throwing this party, Mike and I agreed that we will not being throwing something this elaborate for at least another couple of years! However, if you want to know exactly how we Muggle parents put this party together just click on the any of the links above and confirm your suspicions on  how nuts we are, heehee!

Diagon Alley and the Shops

For the party we decided to set up a mini Diagon Alley with 4 shops and a "Have you seen this Wizard" photo booth for when the kids passed through the brick wall backdrop from Platform 9 3/4.

For the beginning of the party we set up the two shops “Flourish and Blotts” and “Potages Cauldrons” where the kids could get their cauldrons and Hogwart’s Special Session Booklets.

 I bought the cauldrons in bulk from the actual supplier which made them much cheaper than buying them off different party websites. The booklet took a bit of time to write because in Harry Potter there isn’t anything about hatching dragon eggs in water, or turning water into snow, or an actual recipe for “Felix Felicis” potion. So I had to make a lot of it up creatively to fit within our party theme classes. After I finished writing the booklet, Mike added various graphics to the pages and edited the fonts. We printed the booklet on aged paper and then used black cardstock for the cover and twine to bind the book together. This booklet was very useful when needing to burn a few minutes while waiting for the next class to finish.

For the rest of the party we had Ollivander’s wand shop which we quickly switched into Honeydukes at the end of the party. If it wasn’t for my piano student’s family helping us out with getting the chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans as a birthday present to Aidan then we would have never had a Honeydukes shop (the chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans would have sent us over our party budget ). Luckily, there was also Oriental Trading that had plenty of inexpensive candies that we were able to create labels to fit within our Harry Potter theme to keep us in budget.

After eating the birthday cake, the kids were super excited to go downstairs and spend the Gringott galleons they had earned during their classes on various candies at our Honeydukes.

Ollivander Wand Boxes

Over the summer I was able to find good deal for the wands on Etsy.com. At first I was just going to hand out the wands to the kids at the party but Mike was so excited to help me out with this party theme that he insisted that he would be able to create a Ollivander's wand shop for the party if I would make boxes for the wands. When I finally found the right size boxes that would fit the wands it was clear that the white color on the boxes was not going to cut it. Mike and I agreed that they needed to be painted in order to give them an "old antique" look (like most of the things in Harry Potter look in the movie). I spent the next couple of days spray painting the boxes dark navy blue. Next, I found free printables to use for the labels on the boxes at http://sugiai.blogspot.com/2013/03/diy-harry-potter-wand-boxes.html. I had Mike print them out for me on clear stick paper, stuck the labels onto gold cardstock, cut them out, and then glued the cardstock labels to the boxes. Another thing I needed Mike to create was small labels for me to glue to the other end of the boxes that described the wand's wood and core. Lastly, I lined the inside of the boxes with cotton and placed the wand inside. Tah Dah!

Harry Potter Wizardry classes

For Aidan's Harry Potter party we decided that we would rotate the 4 houses of kids through 4 classes. The 4 classes we devised for this party were Potions class, Care of Magical Creatures class, Transfiguration class, and a field trip to Ollivanders wand shop with Hagrid.

I taught the Potions class where the kids made “Felix Felicis” (liquid luck) potion bottle necklaces. I ordered bottle necklaces from Etsy.com a couple months before the party and had Mike create the bottle labels which he printed out on adhesive gold foil. Next I won an AMAZING deal for chemistry shot glasses off of ebay.com which I used to hold the natural cane syrup for the potion’s recipe. I had the kids use disposable eye droppers to fill their bottles with natural cane syrup (Middlemist Camellia honey), then I had the kids use disposable tweezers to put a pinch of Wilton Edible Gold Star Glitter (light powder) into their bottles. I borrowed motar and pestles from nearby relatives and had the kids crush pearls into powder to sprinkle into their bottles (Wilton candy pearls). With all the ingredients to the potion added to the bottle, I finally had the kids cork the tops of their necklace bottles tightly and then give the bottle a good shake. Poof! “Felix Felicis” J

My friend Monica taught the Care of Magical Creatures class where we had the kids hatch dragon eggs.

For this class I was able to get a good deal from a vendor on Etsy.com who was willing to make me bath fizzy eggs with little toy dragons inside, https://www.etsy.com/shop/TwoSistersSpa

I simply had to find little toy dragons that were small enough. Luckily I stumbled across a website that sold dragon paratrooper party favors. I was able to snag the last 24 dragons (they were apparently discontinued and those were the last 24 in stock!) and had them shipped to the vendor. She simply cut the parachutes off the little dragons and enclosed them within tiny plastic capsules. Then she molded the bath fizz around the capsules in the shape of an egg.

To add more pizzaz to this class than just simply dropping a dragon bath fizz egg into the cauldron. I bought some multi colored glitter (powdered mermaid scales) and had the kids add a pinch of the glitter to the warm water in their cauldrons first before dropping in their dragon eggs.

When the kids dropped their dragon eggs into the water of their cauldrons the effect was more awesome than I thought it would be. The eggs bubbled and fizzed in the cauldrons dissolving to leave behind the capsule with the tiny plastic baby dragon inside. The kids got to check their class booklet to see what kind of dragon they had hatched.

  For the Transfiguration class I had my brother use “Insta-snow”. Since my brother has been “pulling one over me” since we were little, I knew he would be perfect for creating an illusion to the kids that they were creating snow from their wands. He and his girlfriend did a great job leading this class and I also bought containers to package up the snow so that the kids could bring home to play with (I didn’t want all that snow staying at my house).

The creation of Ollivander’s wand shop was all Mike. As much as we both wanted to create an effect from the movie with a gold light shining along with gust of air blowing at the kids when they were given the right wand, it was pretty evident that we were on a budget and that we were running out of time because of how neurotic we were both being towards every detail of this party. So Mike came up with the idea to use our TV to play wand casting effects that he could control from the laptop when the kids were given the right wand. It was truly brilliant! When the kids got a wrong wand, he set up his shop so that either a bell would go off (tied with invisible string), or books would fall out (painted cereal boxes with legos inside tied with invisible string), or that candles would blow out (remote controled LED candles).

Hogwart's Castle Cake

If there was one thing that I was nervous about making for Aidan's Harry Potter party, I would have to say that it was the Hogwart's castle cake that Aidan wanted. My friend Monica made her daughter an impressive Hogwart's castle cake for her party and Aidan wanted one too.

 I happened to stumble across a Wilton Castle Cake kit and decided that I would use it to make the Hogwart's castle cake. After throwing a bunch of parties, I've come to notice that kids honestly can't tell whether a cake is made from scratch or not, so to save myself some time and unnecessary stress I simply baked a chocolate cake from a box mix and frosted it with vanilla frosting that I colored using grey, brown, and green food coloring. Since I absolutely hate fondant, I coated the towers of the cake in colored white chocolate. This part proved to be harder than I thought and if I ever visit “crazy town”  and decide to do this party and cake again, I will definitely being doing it my friend’s way. Using ice cream cones for the towers the way she did was definitely the smart way to go, plus you can actually eat them. Anyways, for the bottom part of the cake I used a mini oval cutter that my friend let me borrow to make rock imprints in the grey frosting, then I used a grass tip to pipe grass frosting around the base of the castle. I finished the castle off with chocolate bar doors and Harry Potter lego figures. Ta Dah!

Harry Potter Party Invitations

During November, Mike and I started putting together the Harry Potter invitations. I was able to find a pic online of a "non-mean" looking white owl and Mike was able to clean up the graphic enough for me to use on the envelopes  (most of the owl images online looked mean and as if they were going to “claw-out” the kid who tries to open the envelope).

I bought aged paper and envelopes to print on (No folks, I'm not crazy enough to age my own paper, I do have 3 kids afterall...), and then wrote the wording of the invitations. Next, we downloaded Harry Potter fonts to use with the wording on the invitations and envelopes (there are many websites that show you how to do this). Mike downloaded an image of the Hogwarts crest to use on the top of the invitations and the back of the envelopes. Just when I thought we were done, Mike told me that he thought the paper didn't look "old" enough and that it would look even better if the edges were aged more. So I went to Michaels and bought some distressing ink and aged the edges to the invites.

Since we were planning on having a Platform 9 3/4, Mike thought it would be great to also include a ticket to the Hogwart's Express in the invitation. So he printed out tickets from a free printable I found online at:

http://harrypotterparaphernalia.blogspot.com/2012/01/lettersinvitations-platform-9-34-ticket.html

Finally I melted red wax, dripped it to the back of the envelopes, and sealed them with an “H” seal stamp that my friend Monica let me borrow. 

Caleb was so impressed with the invitation that he asked for me to make one for him too.

The Great Hall Party Room

For the Hogwart's Great Hall I bought 3 packages of  “Design-A-Room Mad Scientist Wall Background” for the walls. I won a bid on ebay.com for 2 LED flame lights to hang from the walls along with the house banners that I was able to borrow from my piano student. Of course no Great Hall would be complete without floating candles so once Halloween came, I purchased tea lights in bulk and proceeded to wrap them in cardstock and used my hot glue gun to create wax along the tops of the candles. As the hot glue dried, I attached invisible string to the candles so that when they were hung they would look as if they were floating. To hang the candles in the Great Hall without damaging the paint on my ceiling I used Command Decorating Clips and had my brother 30 min before the guests arrived switch on the candles using a chopstick. I was EXTREMELY blessed that my brother’s girlfriend had read all the Harry Potter books and knew exactly how I wanted my living room to be decorated with all these supplies I had prepared, because I had to put all my time into the Hogwart’s Castle birthday cake on the day of the party. She and my brother did a wonderful job! The room looked truly amazing when they put up all the decorations and set the tables with the gold goblets and gold paper plates. 

Hogwarts Sorting Scarves

Aidan still has the Gryffindor scarf he received from his friend’s Harry Potter party and uses it often. Seeing how much he liked his scarf sold me into the idea of doing the same thing for his party. Sewing the “sorting scarves” was the first thing I tackled for Aidan’s Harry Potter party. First I purchased fleece fabric and thread from the fabric store. Then I cut and pinned the fabric together to run through the sewing machine. Except….I hadn’t used a sewing machine since I was 14 years old and was completely clueless as to how to work one. Luckily, there was good ‘ol YouTube, and after studying a couple videos I was able to feel confident enough to attempt sewing these scarves. The first one was probably the worst, but after sewing the third scarf it was smooth sailing. 

Hagrid's Costume

When I told my friend Monica that I too was crazy enough to try throwing this party, she advised me to go on a shopping spree when Halloween sales kicked in.

It was great advice! I purchased robes, witches hats, potion bottles, backdrops, cauldrons, etc... as they all went on sale during Halloween.

At her daughter’s party, her husband dressed up like Hagrid and Aidan loved him! I remember Aidan walking up to him a couple of times during the party and saying, “Hi Hagrid!” So over the summer I asked my brother-in-law if he would be willing to dress up as Hagrid during Aidan's party (besides being blessed with major cooking skills, my brother-in-law is also blessed with quite the tall gene). He was such a sweetie and said "yes". So during Halloween, I started piecing together his Hagrid costume. If you want to design a Hagrid costume on a budget, this is what I did:

For Hagrid’s trenchcoat I purchased the “Adult's Adult Plus Jonah Hex Quentin Turnbull Costume”. I bought the “Mountain Man Wig and Beard Set” for Hagrid’s hair and beard. And for the rest of the costume I bought a burgundy shirt and belt from Sears.com using my reward points. The only thing I asked my brother-in-law was if he could just bring dark pants and boots to wear with his costume on the day of the party. He looked amazing! 

Aidan loses his 1st Tooth!

Yesterday Aidan lost his first tooth! He and I were doing some math homework in the kitchen and while he was thinking over a problem he fiddled his first tooth right out of his mouth (some kids will do anything to get out of doing homework, heehee!). Before bed, Aidan put his tooth in his glow-in-the-dark tooth fairy box, made the tooth fairy a little meal near his bed (why should Santa Claus be the only one to get some food during his visit he thought), and tucked it under his pillow.

The next morning Mike and I woke to hearing Aidan excitedly calling for Caleb to wake up so he could see what the tooth fairy had left. That awesome tooth fairy left our boy two gold dollar coins (Every child has a different tooth fairy, and Aidan’s happens to give him gold dollar coins) Next thing we knew, Aidan came bursting through our bedroom door waving the gold coins along with a big gaping-hole smile. It was great! Then he ran back to his bed to get the scroll of paper that was also left tied to his tooth fairy box. He climbed back into our bed and had Mike read these two certificates from the tooth fairy:

Then Aidan said that we should celebrate this moment by eating a special breakfast. So Daddy cooked potato pancakes for breakfast to celebrate. Congratulations Aidan on losing your first tooth!

Surprise Macaron Tower

It is very rare that I am able to surprise Mike. Usually when I have a surprise planned for him I end up not being able to contain myself or I forget to cover my tracks well enough (Actually, I’ve been like this for many years…just ask my brother and sister) But this year for his birthday I am proud to say that I was able to pull one off! When it comes to celebrating his birthday, Mike often prefers to celebrate with pie instead of cake. Pie is one of his favorite desserts (particularly peach pie or pecan pie) so for the past few years I’ve always made him a peach pie instead of cake for his birthday. This year, however, he developed a fondness for a new dessert…French macarons! Our church ended up moving last year one street away from a French bakery that specializes in French macarons. So almost every Sunday after service we stop by and treat ourselves each to a macaron.

I decided for Mike’s birthday this year that I would surprise him and make macaron tower with candles on top instead of the typical birthday pie. The kids were super excited to make a “cookie tower” for their dad. First I purchased a foam cone from Michaels, some toothpicks, and then I needed to purchase 32 macarons. I grossly underestimating how many macarons I would need to cover the foam cone, because I ended up needing to drive to the French bakery twice! Luckily, I had Flo Rider (his music) in the car to keep me upbeat from being annoyed at myself.

That afternoon when the boys and I sat down to construct covering the cone in macarons, we discovered that they were quite delicate. And let me just say that “delicate” cookies, plus boys, plus toothpicks do not go well together…. Luckily, after 3 crumbled macarons and some toothpick sword fights, the boys figured out how to gently handle the macarons to finish the tower (Caleb called it a “cookie rocket”).

When daddy came home from work later that evening, we asked him to leave the room while we turned down the lights and lit the candles on top of the marcaron tower. After Mike blew out the candles we asked if he was surprise. He smiled and said that he was surprised that not only had we actually made the macaron tower ourselves, but that Mommy had put the candles to say he was 38 again instead of 39 years old. At first I thought he was joking, because I’ve always known that we were 8 years apart and I am 30. But as the math slowly “clicked” that I hadn’t had my birthday yet (I stink at math….) I realized he was right (Man, was he smiling big at watching this dawn on me!). Feeling a bit silly, I haughtily smiled back and replied that I was planning to remain 30 forever so I had been nice enough to keep him at 38 this year, Ha! Mike of course laughed and said this was definitely one of his best birthdays and that Mommy was full of surprises that even she didn’t know about.

Our New House!

It’s already been a little over a week since we officially moved into our new home! Even though our new home seems to have come with a never-ending list of to-do’s, it has been an exciting and happy time for our family. Without a doubt, the boys have two favorite areas where they enjoy playing at our new house: in their treehouse and bedroom.

When we were house hunting , one thing that Mike and I decided that we would not compromise  on in a house was having a backyard with trees for the boys. Once we found our home with a “woodsy” backyard, we could not resist getting a treehouse built for our boys. Luckily, we were blessed to find a treehouse contractor as soon as we moved in who was willing to work within our budget and build us everything we dreamed of in a treehouse for the boys (As it turned out, we ended up being this treehouse contractor’s last project for a while because he was moving out of state the following weekend). He did an amazing job, and the boys have been having a lot of fun out in the backyard finding sticks for swords and creating adventures in their treehouse. 

 

Even though we let the boys know that they could each have their own room when we moved into our new home, they told us that they still wanted to share a room together (awww….). Their only request was that they could finally have a bunk bed. Unfortunately, the only room large enough for them to share with a bunk bed clearly had a girl previously in it. The carpet was pink, the closets were pink, and a little chandelier hung from the ceiling. When we let the boys know that this was the only room big enough for them to share they both gagged and declared that no boy should have to sleep in that girlie room.  They then ran across the hall to our master bedroom and said that this next big bedroom would be perfect for them (Ha, ha! No way!). So once we closed on the house, Mike and I quickly redid the “pink bedroom”. We changed the carpet, switched out the chandelier for a ceiling fan, painted the walls blue, and put in a bunk bed.  The first night in their new bedroom the boys behaved like it was Christmas morning (which made it a bit difficult to get them to sleep right away…), they could not stop sliding down their bunk bed, diving into the tent, and rolling around in the new carpet. 

After they fell asleep, Mike and I went to our room and collapsed on our air mattress for the night.
The next day both boys started their first day of school! Aidan into 1^st grade and Caleb into the Three’s class.   

So even though we still have a garage crowded with stuff that needs to be stored or donated and many projects to be done, with the boys feeling happy and settled at home and at school, it is impossible for us not to feel the same way .