You're a Wizard, Harry (Hollyn)

We supposedly have only certain birthdays that are eligible for a party: 5, 8, 12, 16. That has gone completely out the window though as Ky, then Hollyn, requested a party on their most recent birthdays and I didn't want to refuse.

Since she was turning 11, Hollyn thought it would be appropriate to have a Harry Potter themed party. I couldn't deny that that seemed like something we had to take advantage of. Life was CRAZY busy leading up to the party: Brennan's birthday on Wednesday, but not celebrated until Thurs, hosting Easter the following Sunday and celebrating Hollyn's birthday the following Tuesday, and then the party was Friday. To save money, I'd opted to make most of the decorations myself which was somewhat time consuming. But what was MOST time consuming was sorting through the gazillion ideas and then finding the free printables. 😛 All the ideas are on peoples' blogs, which you have to browse through, then follow their links where they found certain things which take you to another person's blog, who has a ton of other links sending you to other sources, and eventually you might find the image you want and either it's on an Etsy page for a price, or you have to register an account on some content-sharing page to access the image. 😩 I seriously spent SOOOO many hours just following leads trying to find the free content to print, to create the party.

In the end, of course I couldn't get to everything I would have liked to, and it stressed me out for weeks, and I secretly wanted it to look REALLY amazing. But for what it was, I'm pleased and the kids seemed genuinely impressed. Most importantly, I believe they all had fun.

Not pictured: Sign on inside of toilet lid saying: Ministry of Magic This Way, with an arrow pointing down into the toilet bowl.

When guests arrived they selected a wand, and received a wand permit to fill out, as well as a sheet showing many spells and curses.

(Post Party Picture)

We tried to use a cootie-catcher as a house-sorting hat, but it was kind of too much as guests continued to arrive. I think we had 7 come? Plus my three littles made for a LOT of hyper commotion in a small space.

(Pre-Party, still prepping and cleaning)

We started Hogwarts at Potions class where we made slime. It was a bit crazy. (Nate tooks pics but I keep forgetting to get them from him.)

To have some clean-up and recovery time, I sent the students to HoneyDukes and to the Dining Hall to enjoy some feasting.

Broomsticks

Not pictured: Slytherin-Snakes (spagetthi), Herbology Bites (veggie tray), Butterbeer (obvs. had to have that.)

(Before hanging from the ceiling of the Dining Hall)

Spell Casting/Charms class - they used various spells to keep their balloons in the air. (Or against each other, naturally.)

Dobby needs clothes!

Yay! He's getting socks!

After classes at Hogwarts ended, we thought we'd chill out to one of the movies... but then chickens and the creek came up, so that was the final adventure. Several of the kiddos went home pretty wet. (One of them had purposefully dunked himself completely, repeatedly.) But I think fun was had by all.