Jake's Birthday

Jake turned 8 years old! Wow! He had a Harry Potter themed party. It was a lot of fun planning it. His friends loved the owl delivery of the invitation. The owls were Jake's idea, I just had to do the work. We set up the narrow walkway on the side of the house to be Diagon Alley. The kids had to go to Gringott's to get money to shop for(make) wands, golden snitches, bookmarks and pet puppets. Then at the end they could use their extra money at Honeydukes candy store set up in the dining room.

After the kids ate, they attended "classes". These were games set up around the front and back yard. (i.e. keeping a balloon in the air by hitting it with your wand was Charms class: Wingardium Leviosa...all you HP fans get the drift...) It was a lot of fun for all. It got a little hectic keeping the kids busy, so we sort of set the camera down and forgot to take many pics.

The great hall was the location of the birthday feast.

Sam even got in on the action with his Gryffindor tie. Then he went and took a nap. It was driving him crazy that he was not allowed to continually shop at Honeydukes. He was obsessed with trying to get the licorice wands down.

We had a sorting hat for the kids to pull a house sticker out of, then a school tie to wear. Here is Max in his Ravenclaw regalia.

Here is Jake's golden snitch cake. He loved it, even though it was my first time trying a ball cake ( I used a pyrex bowl to bake it.) . We looked around for recipes to fondant that tastes good. This one was pretty good and easy. The best part was planning the party with Jake. We would search the net for ideas and change them up if needed. He is very creative and imaginative. He would have a grandiose idea and I was in charge of trying to execute it...It was always worth the effort when he would get excited if I was able to pull it off successfully.