Orion's Birthday Party

This was the summer of Orion turning 8 and Harry Potter. As I was preparing for the 6th movie I was re-watching all the previous movies. Orion became obsessed with them. He decided that he wanted to have a Harry Potter birthday party. There were a ton of great resources online for amazing Harry Potter party ideas. I also had outside help from the Maroneys and the Morrisons. Thanks guys, you saved me.

The Maroneys cut out and colored all these candles for our floating candles in the eating area. I thought they looked awesome.

Our gathering game was a tasting of the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and trying to guess the flavors. They were just jelly belly type ones, so they were safe.

We had a wand selection game. Kenneth made some great wands out of dowel. We had the kids pick a wand and then they took a party popper and pointed it at me, said an animal and "animagus transfigurus" and then pulled the string. It would go off and scare the crap out of me, and then I would act like the animal they said.

We had a sorting. This is the Morrison's cool sorting hat. I would hold the hat over the child's head and they would pick a card which would tell them what house they were in.

They then decorated their hats and made snitches. I can't believe I don't have a picture of the snitches. It was a lot of work and the kids totally did not appreciate them. Grrrrr.

We played Harry Potter charades. A child would act out something scary and the other kids would try to guess what it was and then say, "Riddikulus," after which the child acting out was supposed to do something silly. I don't have any picture of this because I had a new photographer, Ian, who liked to take artistic shots or only video.

We played "capture the snitch" outside. This was the only time that they were split into their houses.

When we came back inside we saw that the cupcakes had been stolen by Peeves, that silly poltergeist. He sent the kids on a treasure hunt to find the dessert.

The kids were able to make potions for their drinks. There was a love potion and a luck potion, pink lemonade and orange juice ice cubes and then they mixed them with lemon-lime soda.

Opened gifts, thank you very much and then out the door, b-bye. It was a lot of fun.