Thursday, March 5, 2015

Lorien's 10th Birthday Party - Harry Potter

Happy 10th Birthday Lorien!!!!  When she told me she wanted to have a Harry Potter birthday party I literally jumped for joy.  I've been wanting to do a Harry Potter party since before I even had kids.  I couldn't wait to make this the best party EVER.

For the invites I made an invite to Hogwarts for all of Lorien's friends.  I printed them in a fancy script font & printed them on brown paper.  Then I wadded them up & burned the edges, rolled them into a scroll, & sealed them with wax.  SO CUTE.

Next I used my helium tank to blow up some white balloons & drew owl faces on them.  We hand delivered all of the invites via owl post.  Lorien's friends got a kick out of it.


The next big project was the cake.  Holy moly was this cake hard.  She wanted a Quidditch Pitch so I really thought & thought & thought about how I could do that in cake form.  I ended up baking two 9x13 rectangle cake, put them side by side, & cut them into a large oval shape.  I frosted it with green to make it look like grass & added the white goal areas & lines in the field.  Then I made 4 batches of rice krispie treats, glued them together with frosting, & carved them into the Quidditch Stand shapes. Then I frosted them to look like the different Hogwarts Houses.  My friend who has a 3D printer printed the little hoops for me.  8.5 hours later, I had a Quidditch Pitch cake.  It wasn't super pretty, but it worked & Lorien LOVED it which was the most important thing.





After a long day of cake decorating, I called it a night & went to bed early so I could wake up & decorated for the party.

We did a wizard theme with blacks, purples, & blues & I thought it turned our really pretty.



Happy Birthday birthday girl!!!


I still can't believe she's 10 years old.


We had a few fun things to use as decorations like a sorting hat, a scarf, some wands, & some potion books.


Lorien wanted each of her guests to have their own wand so she made them herself.  We bought her different sized wooden downs & some paint & she spent 3 days carving, sanding, & painting wands for all her friends.


Potions Class set-up.


My friend who has the 3D printer also printed me some really fun Harry Potter charms to give the kids as they completed each station/area/class at the party.


And you can't have a Harry Potter party without Platform 9 3/4.



I made some chocolate frogs for the trolly & we had some Bertie Botts to play with as well.


I love these two girlies so much.


Once everyone arrived, I gave them the rundown of what we were doing.  Only one kid at the party had read Harry Potter so it was kind of funny trying to explain all these magical things to a bunch of 10 year olds who really didn't care.  Lorien was in heaven though.


Our first stop was Ollivander's shop where each of the kids got to try out different wands until a wand chose them.


When the wand wasn't a good match, the piano would play or the drum set would make some noise, but when it was a good wand for that person, the lights behind the kids would start flashing & they knew it was their wand.



Next we headed to platform 9 3/4 to get on the Hogwarts Express.


Don't forget that they have to run directly at the brick wall or it won't work.  ;-)



While on the train, I got to take the trolly around for some yummy treats.


The kids had a blast with the Bertie Botts beans.  They ate them ALL & enjoyed trying to figure out if they had a "good one" or a "nasty one."  Their faces were priceless.




Once we got to Hogwarts, it was time to be sorted into houses.  My husband had recorded the voice of the sorting hat saying the house names & then we played the recording back for each kid.  We wound up with 3 Gryffindors, 1 Slytherin, 2 Hufflepuffs, & 3 Ravenclaws


Lorien got Gryffindor of course.


As did Cadence.



And Taya was thrilled to be put into Hufflepuff which for some odd reason is her favorite house.



Our first class of the day was Herbology.  We needed to re-pot some mandrakes.  My husband hid behind the kids with his power saw & would turn it on as soon as they pulled the mandrake out of it's pot.  The first one scared them & they all jumped, but then they laughed & all of them wanted a turn re-potting a mandrake.





After that we did FLYING lessons in our garage.  My dear friend who is the best science teacher ever has a homemade hover board that she uses for school for science & she let me borrow it for the party. How cool is that?  A HOVER BOARD.  It hovers about 3 inches above the ground & moves just like an air hockey puck.  We pushed the kids all around the garage & they were laughing & giggling & begging for more.  Flying lessons was a huge success.




This pic (below) shows the hovering capabilities better than any other pic I took.  It's such a cool little toy.  And Trek & I may or may not have played on it a little bit Back to the Future style after the party was over.  Shhh. . . it's a secret.


After flying lessons we went to Potions class where we did 2 science experiments.  We made some milk tie dye & then homemade lava lamps.  I love that kids love science.





Finally it was time to have a grand feast in the Great Hall.  Hooray for cake & ice cream.




Lorien got some really fun presents from her friends.  She really has a good bunch of kiddos around her.  I just adore her friends.

Michael gave her a bracelet & necklace with her name on them.  SO sweet.

Peyton made her an adorable candy/money bouquet.

Christian gave her some fun new family games.
We LOVE games in our family.

Giselle spoiled her with candy & Friends legos

These four girls are just the best!

Happy Birthday Lorien.  Thank you for letting plan such a fun birthday party.  I had a blast.  We love you!!!!

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