A Day at Hogwarts...aka Brady's 6th Birthday Party!!!

Part I.  Invitations

Invitations read as follows:

You are hereby invited to attend the

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and

Wizardry to participate in classes, a

Quidditch tournament and a feast in

honor of the birthday of your friend,

Brady Graf.

Arrive at Platform 9 3/4

on February 12th, 2011

at the stroke of 11 o'clock a.m.

Please RSVP by owl post email or

muggle telephone:

We invited 18 friends and guess what...THEY ALL CAME!!!!

Part II.  Platform 9 3/4

This picture came out dark, but as the children arrived at the party they got to go through the brick wall at Platform 9 3/4 just like Harry did on his first trip to Hogwarts!  This took me HOURS to make but I think it set the scene for the party and was also an awesome backdrop to take pictures of our guests in front of!!!

Part III.  Welcome to Hogwarts!

Our livingroom as  the Gryffindor Common Room

Brady and I searched the internet for images that we were able to print and then fill picture frames with.  Again, many, many hours went into this "transformation" but I think it was awesome and Brady loved it!

As you entered the room the Fat Lady Painting greeted you on the left, as well as the Owl Post Headquarters (empyt birdcage, as Hedwig was on vacation from all of her invitation deliveries!)

 

To the right was a bookcase with various pictures of the common rooms' hero, Harry displayed, as well as a symbol of the Deathly Hallows, quills, textbooks and a few remaining wands from Ollivander's Wand Shop.

 This was present central:

All of the picture frames in the livingroom (ah hem, I mean common room)

were filled with Hogwarts themed people and events:

Birthday banners.  I had planned to have the mantle covered in bottles filled with maps

and all sorts of creepy concoctions, but alas, I ran out of time!

 I made these banners and pendants out of felt and thought that they gave the room great flair. 

I really loved how everything turned out!

 Guests Arriving:

As the guests arrived we played the Quidditch tournament from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book I) so the kids who weren't as familiar with Harry Potter could get an idea of the game that they would be playing.  We also adorned each of the children (who elected to) a Harry Potter scar of their own on the forehead and they each chose a wand in either black, brown, red or silver.

Next they were instructed on proper wand care and use and they were split into two "teams" if you will. 

I tried to remain calm and use strategy to conquer this party and it's 18 attendees

(not including birthday boy, little sister and friend's little sister!)  21 kiddos in all!!!

Potions Class:

My AWESOME friend Charlotte stayed for the party and helped me run the potions class. I would have been in bad shape without her!!! The Potions class was a hit but it definately didn't go as I intended. At the last minute I decided to forgo mixing the kool-aid into water and having several jars of different colored liquids on the table. I thought that if I just mixed the sugar with the Kool-aid mix that it would be sweet enough and give good color, less messy and funner for the kids to mix into their potions cups. Well, I was wrong...many of the kids complained that their potions really didn't taste like very much but sweet water, so if we ever do this agin we'll have to go for the messier route!

All in all, the kids loved mixing the different colored sugars and creating gross looking concoctions. There were also many who tried the pop rocks in the water and it made a cool crackling sound, but once again, if I had to do over I wouldn't use the pop rocks and I would save myself some money!

Ingredients:

Red Crystals = Fizzing Whizbees

Red sugar = Hippogriff liver

Blue sugar = Unicorn blood

Orange sugar = Truth serum

Green sugar = Gillyweed

Purple sugar = Pollyjuice potion

I forgot to take pictures before the kids got in on the action, so these are the best we have...

Brady and two of his buddies, Aiden and Eric

While one "team" made their Potions the other team had a

Care of Magical Creatures Class

and a

Quidditch Tournament!

Chris was a trooper and kept order with all of "the crazies" outside! We hid many of Brady and Olivia's stuffed animals all around the back yard including 3 moose, 1 unicorn, 1 racoon, 3 frogs, 1 snake, 3 bears, 1 wolf, 1 owl, 1 lion and several others. Then when that team was done they re-hid the animals for the next team to find!

I am sad that I didn't get a picture of the Quidditch Hoops and Chris took them down before he knew I wanted one. I used 3 hula hoops, sprayed them gold and had Chris nail them onto some dowels that I bought at Lowe's. Then he put them into the ground at varying heights. We used a kick ball for the bludger and a yellow golf ball for the golden snitch. We kept it simple and the kids had a great time running around.

                           

Dad video taped and helped Chris keep order!

Meanwhile, in the kitchen my mom was filling chocolate covered ice cream cones with ice cream for me. 

I'm so lucky that she loves to be in the kitchen!

I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the desserts (or any of the food for that matter) so here is a picture from the hostessblog where I got inspired for the birthday "cakes" which were really circle shaped brownies instead of cupcakes.  The kids seemed to like them and loved every messy bit!

We also had a lunch with a cauldron full of Butterbeer (aka Cream Soda), dragon eggs (aka mini corn dog nuggets), skeleton bones (aka crinkle cut french fries), cheese cubes, mandarin oranges and grapes.  The lunch was a hit and we had no disasters!  Thank heavens for a beautifully warm day because we kept the kids outside as much as possible and even ate out on the patio!

Honeyduke's Candy Shoppe:

Before the kids left to go home they got to fill a mini cauldron filled

with Bertie Bott's Every flavor beans, Chocolate frogs and gummy worms.

Each of the kids got to take a mini cauldron home filled with candies from Honeyduke's.

And they each got their picture taken in front of Platform 9 3/4

(a few of our guests opted not to have their picture taken)

Birthday Boy!!!

...and little sister Livy!

Clara and Britney

Parker and Gage (brothers)

Cooper and Eric

Joshua and Logan (cousins)

Anna and William

Aiden and Allen

 

Annie and Collin

Sam and Alivia (siblings)

Presents:

Brady got some really awesome presents from his friends and family!  To name a few:  he got some Bakugans, Star Wars puzzle, kite and book, bubble set, Harry Potter coloring picture, a CD/radio alram clock, Where's Waldo book, $$$$$ and a Lego Harry Potter set!  Thanks everybody!

To end the evening we watched Sam and Alivia for a few hours and all went out to eat for Chinese!  Chris and I were a little nervous about taking four kiddos along but they all did great and we had a good time!  Perfect end to a busy day!