Harry Potter Party!

As many of you know, Mitch and I are Harry Potter fans. We have read all of the books (a couple of times each) and absolutely loved them! We also love going to the movies (the books are definitely better). The last few movies we went to the midnight showings. Well, this year we will not be going to the midnight show, due to not wanting to get a babysitter for Makenzie, my job, and Mitch having school. Occasionally I like to get on mugglenet.com and read what is going on with all of the Harry Potter stuff. I found some recipes there that I wanted to try. So, I decided to throw a Harry Potter party! With the movie coming out this upcoming weekend I thought it would be a perfect time to hold the party.

A couple of weeks ago I gave out invitations and I made sure to tell everyone to dress up like their favorite Harry Potter character. I planned the food (all things that Harry Potter would eat) and planned some activities for the kids and some games for the adults. Here are some highlights of the party!

THE YUMMY FOOD!
We had Chocolate Frogs (chocolate covered frog gummies), Treacle Fudge, Ton Tongue Toffee, Licorice Wands, Pretzel Wands and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans! I also made cupcakes for the kids to decorate. And we had Pumpkin Juice and Butterbeer to drink.


I did something a little mean (but incredibly funny). I found some jelly bellies that were called "Bean Boozled" jelly beans. It was a box of jelly beans where each color had two flavors; one fruity and yummy and the other quite nasty. An example is the green jelly beans were either flavored 'juicy pear' or 'booger.' They look exactly the same, but taste very different! Some of the other nasty flavors included: skunk spray, pencil shavings, baby wipes and moldy cheese. Yuck! I took the big container of gormet jelly beans I had bought and added the two little boxes of the bean boozled beans and didn't tell anyone. It was quite funny when Katie ate a jelly bean and was shocked with its nasty flavor. It was also fun to watch others find the gross jelly beans to try them! "Alas, earwax!" Gotta love the Every Flavor jelly beans!


THE DECORATIONS!
I didn't put up a ton of decorations, but the ones I did have I think turned out fun! As everyone came up to our home next to the front door we had a sign on one side that said "Platform 9" and another on the other side that said "Platform 10." I was planning on making the front door look like a brick wall, but I ran out of time. My favorite decoration was in the bathroom.
Moaning Myrtle!


THE ACTIVITIES & GAMES!
When everyone came in they all got to be "sorted." I made a small version of the sorting hat and had found some Harry Potter silly bands. They each got to pick a silly band and then whatever shape (the animals that represent each house) it was meant what house you were in. Each of the kids were also given a wand (a glow stick). The kids could also make candy bracelets and color Harry Potter coloring pages.


For the adults there was a jar of jelly beans that they tried to guess the number of jelly beans. The one that guessed the closest won the jar of jelly beans (none of the bean boozled jelly beans were included!). We had a little snake that was passed around. When the person who had the snake said "Voldemort" someone could take the snake from them. The person who had the snake in the end won a copy of the book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. We also all got together and played Harry Potter Scene-It. It was so much fun! I borrowed it from a friend, but I definitely would love to own this one!


THE COSTUME CONTEST!
As I mentioned above on the invitations I told everyone to come dressed up. We had some fun costumes. We had Hogwarts students, Hermione Granger, Cedric Diggory, Professor Trelawny, Lupin and Winkie the House Elf. One family came with little signs on each of them with super creative sayings. Examples are: Why so Sirius?, Got Gillyweed?, Do I look Riddikulus?, I Lovegood just like Luna does! Like I said, super creative! We had everyone vote on who had the best costume and Makenzie won! We gave the prize (chocolate galleons, sickles and knuts) to second place. Do you like her costume?


Me: Professor Trelawny (I tried to find glasses, but couldn't) Makenzie: Winkie the House Elf (with her Butterbeer bottle!) Mitch: Remus Lupin


The party was a lot of fun! I have a lot of ideas I thought of too late or wasn't able to do. Oh well, maybe next time! I can't believe we haven't had a Harry Potter party before this! Thank you to everyone that came! We had a brilliant time!



Mark you calendars for July 2011 - Our next Harry Potter Party!