Harry Potter Birthday Party: The Guests Arrive

This is the second installment in a series about a Harry Potter Birthday Party. See the first installment about invitations and costumes here. Then read our post about Katie's Hogwarts Acceptance Letter here.

(Katie waits for her birthday party guests!)

This installment details how the party began. We have a rather unusual feature in the front of our house that I knew I needed to incorporate into our Harry Potter party. It is a pond! It is large enough that we have a boat that the kids play on in the pond. So of course, Hagrid met our party guests at the end of the driveway and rowed them across the pond to Hogwarts!

In the excitement of the moment, I forget to get any actual pictures of party guests arriving in the first -year boat but I made Katie sit in the boat this morning so you could get the idea!

Once they were across the pond, they arrived at Platform 9 3/4. (I know that doesn't make any sense chronologically in the books and/or movies but that is the way  it worked for us!) I found lots of great ideas for the painted brick wall on Pinterest.  I had an old shower curtain that we were getting rid of and I painted it using a rectangular shoe box covered with splotches of red, brown, and orange paint. I didn't want to go buy a sponge and the shoe box worked just fine.

I made the Hogwarts Express sign with terrific lettering that I found here. I cut out the letters and numbers and used a glue stick to attach them to red poster board. Thanks Kathryn at Dirt and Sunshine! I taped my completed poster board to a saw horse and stuck it on the porch.

Here is a cute party guest running at Platform 9 3/4. Once through the brick wall, the students parked their brooms and had their pictures taken.

I made the photo prop by cutting a rectangle in a piece of poster board and hand lettering the words "Have You Seen This Wizard?" with black Sharpie marker.

I made the Azkaban prison signs with some extra black numbers left over from a school project. I attached the numbers to the extra pieces of poster board and then taped on some string so the guests could wear the numbers around their necks as they held up the poster board. I made two different number signs to speed up the process of picture taking. One guests would get the number on and get ready while the other guest was having his or her picture taken.

The kids had so much fun mugging for the camera. And so did the Hogwarts Staff!

Did you ever imagine Professor Dumbledore and Madame Trelawny posing in a Muggle Photo Booth? I know, me neither!

Of course, we had posters of Sirius Black pasted around for inspiration.

Once their pictures were taken, the guests entered Diagon Alley to get their Hogwarts Supplies. I will post about our Diagon Alley next week so stay tuned!


Pin It

Hogwarts Summer School Week 7

The students in just finished Week 7 of the Challenge. Here are some of the fun activities they completed for their Hogwarts Course this week.

Making a countdown chain for the rest of the summer for Transfigurations. (Some of the students said they were sad to have to complete this activity!)

Making a Hagrid-worthy chocolate cake for Harry's birthday in Potions.

Picking up trash in a public place for Charms.

Making S'mores in the oven or over a fire for Potions.

Writing letters to Dumbledore for Ancient Runes. 

Making bark rubbings for Herbology. 

Transforming a paper plate into something else for Tranfigurations.

The winner of the House Cup for Week 7 is Gryffindor. Those over-achievers! They have 4 members of their house who have completed every single activity of the summer or have missed just one! What can you do with those Hermione Granger clones!!

Congratulations Gryffindor for your 3rd consecutive week as winner of the House Cup. Good Luck to the other houses as we finish our summer semester in style!

Pin It

Harry Potter Birthday Party: Invitations and Costumes

As a family of Harry Potter addicts, it was inevitable that we would throw an epic Hogwarts Party for Katie on her 11th birthday. Her big sisters have been pinning party ideas for over a year. And every time we discussed the party, the plans got more elaborate and grandiose. It was like a massive runaway train... the Hogwarts Express. While Katie's siblings have been talking about this for six months, the real party preparations started about a month ago. The fun part about all of this is that it really was a family affair. And it gave my teenagers a fun and productive way to spend their free time this summer. 

Now that our wildly successful party is in the history books, I have broken down my party posts into several categories: 

Invitations and Costumes

The Guests Arrive

Diagon Alley

Sorting Ceremony

Potions

Divination

Finding the Snitch

Quidditch

Honeydukes and Flu Powder

I will posting about the party over the next few weeks. I am so grateful for all the Pinterest and blog ideas that I found on the Internet to help us get ready for this fun event. I think we had a few original ideas that will add to the Harry Potter party lexicon. I hope that our ideas will also be an inspiration for others. 

Meanwhile, I have all my Harry Potter supplies in a huge box in the attic. I am already planning on holding a Hogwarts Party for each of my grandchildren when they turn 11. Won't that be a fun tradition?!!

About a week before they event, we delivered these simple invitations. I simply printed them on some really pretty paper that I found at an office supply store. We asked all the guests to come dressed in a white shirt and wizard robes (if they had any.) This was so that all the guests would look great in the house ties that I had made for each of them.  We also asked the guests to bring their own brooms. This was for our game of Quidditch. (Only half of the guests brought a broom, however. So we revised our Quidditch rules a little bit.) 

The rest of our family also got in the act by dressing up in appropriate costumes. 

This is Mad-Eye Moody and Harry Potter. 

My husband and I are Hagrid and Madame Hooch. 

Here are Bellatrix LeStrange and Albus Dumbledore. 

Sybil Trelawny and Ginny Weasley also made an appearance. 

Here the birthday girl waits for her guests to arrive. Finally, the moment we had been waiting for was here!

Pin It

The Hogwarts Letter Arrives!

Happy Birthday to my sweet Katie! She has been waiting for years for her Hogwarts Letter to arrive. This morning she turned eleven and the anticipated letter appeared in spectacular fashion. (Thanks to her super creative siblings!)

We left to go to a water park this morning and as we were standing on the front porch, Hedwig descended magnificently with her first letter. It had an official looking Hogwarts seal and everything.

(Note: The seal was made with some melted red crayon and an H letter stamp. Once the melted crayon had hardened, we adhered it to the envelope with a glue dot.) 

The letter was addressed to Miss Kathryn Rowley in the Barn in the Basement. This is because she does sleep in a barn bed that her Dad made for her. Not because we don't love her or treat her poorly!

Here is what the letter looked like. It also came with a list of all her Hogwarts supplies.
Here is another picture of Hedwig arriving.

Her brother just happened to be on the roof at the same time that Hedwig descended so he had a spectacular view.

When we arrived home from the water park our house was filled with even more letters. Even one sticking out of the fireplace!

She has continued to find letters all the rest of the day. Apparently the Hogwarts staff was concerned that her parents would rip up the official Hogwarts letter before she could read it so they sent lots of extras!

Now if we can just wait until tomorrow for her Harry Potter birthday party. Stay tuned for more posts about the crazy festivities.

Pin It

New Campfire Food-- Wolf-Ems!

We have discovered the perfect campfire cooking method! No, it doesn't involve sticking your face in a mountain of whipped cream, although that works too.

At all started when I read a newspaper article about Wolf-Ems in our local paper.

This awesome contraption was invented by two local teenage boys who had done a lot of camping and eaten a lot of campfire food. I could relate. This summer we have been to girl's camp, headed up the canyon with friends 4 or 5 times and packed my son off to scout camp. I was definitely on the lookout for some new ways to cook over the campfire. Alright, I was sick of s'mores and tinfoil dinners (my go-to-campfire foods) plus I knew I needed to support these cute Boy Scouts!

I bought our own Wolf-Em sticks before my son and my husband went on their fathers and sons outing this past weekend. I was excited to learn on Saturday afternoon when the boys came home dirty and smelling like smoke that the Wolf-Ems had been a huge hit! You can order your own Wolf-Em Sticks online here.

Wolf-Em Sticks
They are only $10 a piece. I bought 6 to have enough for our family.

All you need to do is coat the end of the stick with non-stick cooking spray and wrap refrigerated biscuit dough around the wood.

Turn the stick with the cool turning system they have patented and soon you will have toasted your dough cup perfectly.

Then pull it off the stick and fill it with anything your heart desires!

So far we have experimented with pie filling, pudding, Nutella and whipped cream. Peach pie filling topped with whipped cream was by far the favorite with the boys.

Tonight we built a fire in our back yard and made Wolf-Ems for the girls and I to try. We are hooked!
(Apple Pie Filling was my favorite!)

I am looking forward to trying chili and cheese as well as bacon and eggs on our next trip to the mountains. I love foods that can be both the main course and the dessert! Get some of these sticks for your family. I guarantee they will Wolf Em Up!

Pin It