Harry Potter 11th birthday party

Kid 3 turned 11 last weekend and she is a Harry Potter nut. I was going to do a candy themed party but I thought she would like Harry Potter instead. So last weekend, I spent a day online on pinterest and google, planning for her party. There were a lot of things that I didn’t get to do once the time came, but I think the party ended up being great anyway.

We invited the entire class but she forgot to get the invites out before this Monday so we only had three guests. One was a boy and had to go home at eight but the two girls are upstairs with my kiddo now, having a nail polish and makeup fest.

Here is the doorway from my kitchen to my dining room. I wanted this to be in front of the back door but hubby didn’t do the bricks in the right direction and I wasn’t going to complain because hey, he drew bricks on a tablecloth for 45 minutes. He made the sign afterward and I think it came out cute! (Pardon the ipod picture. I didn’t think to get one with the camera.)

 

Here is the dessert table. We had Sorting hat cookies, Butterbeer cupcakes, a Harry Potter Hagrid cake, and ice cream sundae bar. If you aren’t familiar with the story, I spelled happy birthday wrong on purpose.

 

For drinks, we used regular cream soda and just made a sign calling it butterbeer. The jar has “potion punch” which is just green berry Hawaiian punch, gingerale, and raspberry sherbet. I poured the gingerale in last to get the fizz like this. I wanted to make up jars of colored water for extra decoration, to look like potions, but I didn’t have time.

I know I’m displaying these a bit backwards because we ate food before dessert, and we drank the drinks with our meal, but the next photo is of our pizza making station. The kids really seemed to like this. It fit well with the Harry Potter theme and it was cheap. I changed my mind on the foods I wanted several times but I’m glad I finally settled on this. We have plenty left over for omelets too! (SOS pads and fire extinguisher optional… oops.)

 

We didn’t have enough kids to do the sorting ceremony, so we skipped that. I didn’t get the pencils to make pencil wands. We did do two games, though. We did a balloon stomp, and we did a dragon egg hunt. The balloon stomp was loads of fun. I even played.

 

We made ice cream sundaes after this but I didn’t get any photos of that. The kids loved it. Then came the cake.

And presents… she really loves pickles.

 

Finally, we handed out the broom loot bags, which had assorted candy, a slinkie (because slinkies magically walk down the stairs), and a balloon. Then we took photos of the birthday girl with each guest and the group.

 

There was really nothing I missed out on doing that would have made it more fun for them. In the end, she doesn’t care if there’s streamers behind her gift table or a sign in the dining room indicating it’s the great hall, so I think it was a success. With the way she looks in that last picture, I think she agrees.

Also, that concludes birthday season. She’s the last one of the kids to have a birthday through the year. I am SO glad it’s over. Now onto the holidays!