Birthday Party Madness

I don't know where it came from, I don't know how long it'll last, but I am obsessed with creating completely over-the-top birthday parties for my kids (but subconsciously, it's likely way more for me).

It began when I was on my 2nd mat leave and I had time to bake my own cake for Steve and thought it would be fun for my 2.5 yo to help out. We decided on a dinosaur themed cake, since Duncan was obsessed with dinosaurs, and this was the result:

Really bad, right? Tasted good though. And it got the creative juices flowing.

Not great, I know, but that was free-hand with only Betty Crocker French Vanilla icing tinted with normal food colouring, on a boxed cherry-chip cake. And so the madness began.

Every year since daycare started, I had to bring in treats for the daycare kids, so enter extra-large iced cookies:

I made this with Pillsbury Cookie Dough in the tube and some more french vanilla icing with normal food colouring, all for under $5 bucks. So good, so easy, high impact and doesn't cost $35+ dollars <ahem> Mrs. Fields (I'm not kidding - look it up).

Then I tried my hand at rice krispie squares - topped with icing (natch), a delicious and easy treat:

Duncan was obsessed with Thomas at the time - pretty primary, but the kid thought I was Picasso.

As for actual birthday parties, we usually rented a big play space at the very last minute and at a ridiculously high cost and large guest list (trying to get our money's worth).

That is, until last year. That was when we failed to book something in December for Duncan's 6th party at the end of January 2011. We decided to try our hand at having an at-home party. I mean, how hard could it be? It's just an exaggerated play-date, with cake and presents, right?

Holy shit, no it wasn't.

Duncan had a new obsession at the time - Harry Potter. Even though he hadn't even seen any of the movies or read any of the books, he HAD to have a Harry Potter birthday party. I was totally game - I had read the first five books a decade ago and had seen some of the films. I was actually really excited to have a common interest with Duncan that we could both get excited about.

So, as any mother would do when faced with an exorbitant task with very little time and very little inspiration, I googled the hell out of "Harry Potter Birthday Party for a 6 year old" and all the variations I could dream up.

After reading countless posts from the prior ten years, I copied the text of an invitation, replacing some things, here and there. When I printed it off, it looked pretty plain, so I found a Hogwarts Logo, and pasted it in as a watermark.

 

It still didn't have the old-worldly vibe that I was going for, so I decided to try colouring the stark-white printer paper with a wet tea bag and then let it dry over our floor heater in the kitchen. It turned out PERFECTLY  - the colour was a nice tinge of old, while the wetness of the tea bag created a nice weathered and crinkly feel to the paper. And just to go completely and obnoxiously overboard, I found a red candle, and after tri-folding the letter, I sealed it with the wax. We delivered them to the daycare the next day and to my surpsrise, the majority of the parents responded in the role-play genre.

After the invitations were taken care of, I had to begin the planning of the actual party. From all of the ideas I gathered from the interwebz, I settled on the following:

Sorting Hat and House Badges

I made this sorting hat out of brown paper bags that I taped together and just played around with the design. It worked out pretty well.  Then I printed off the house badges, cut them out and put double-sided tape on the backs. When the kids came in, we used an iPad Harry Potter game that had a part of the game that would allow you to have the sorting hat choose your house. If the kids liked what they were given, they kept it - if they wanted to change houses, they could. Because he was only 6, we didn't really break off into team game-play, so it was just something cool to start out with.

After the kids got settled in, we got started with Potions Class. I had 3 big bottles of Bubbly Water (Club Soda), Sweet Bubbly Water (Sprite) and Puddle Water (Root Beer). Each kid had a clear plastic cup with a stir stick.

Potions Class set up for 16 kids.

Nice sugar rush for the kids right off the bat.

Then on the side I had jars set up with Dried Dragon Spit (Pop Rocks), Frog Eyeballs (peeled grapes frozen in ice cubes), Frozen Rodent Poo (wild blueberries frozen in ice cubes), And other special powders (coloured koolaids) and sprinkles. After we poured the liquid, we passed aroung the other stuff and let them add as much or as little as they liked. Kids enjoyed it and the sugar rush it gave them.

Next, we had the kids select wands. I had a ton of chopsticks from years of take-out gluttony, so I used those and prettied them up with electrical tape and ribbons. Then they stood in a cup and each kid could choose their own. Unfortunately, the only picture I have was of one of the boys collected and pocketing the leftovers at the end of the party.



If you look closely, you can see the differnt coloured tips.



I looked up some simple spells online and we gathered in the basement. I taught them the spells and we played around with falling down, or freezing people or making them go crazy or making them lie down.

Next we brought out the Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans for the adventurous ones:

I kept the chart hidden and made up names for all of them and let them go at them.

Then we did Care for Magical Creatures. Again, I did NOT get a picture of this and it was sooo cool. Steve and I spent a half hour the night before stuffing little Dragon and Magical Creature plastic figurines into dark gray and black balloons and then blowing them up. It was pretty awesome. I still don't know how we got them into the balloons but we did - and with only 3 minor skin wounds.

This is what they creatures looked like and if you look hard, you can see the wand in the backgroun too.

We let the kids pick their own balloons and play gently with them for a while. Then I got the scissors out and began "hatching" the "eggs". They added those toys to their lootbags.

Lunch (pizza, fruit, veggies) was served with juice boxes. Then the cake came out. It was my first foray into the magical world of proper cake-decorating food-colouring gel. Besides the black icing tasting like hell, I think it turned out really well.

My Harry Potter Cake - a coloured representation of all the Hogwarts' Houses.

After the cake, we did the Defense Against the Dark Arts Class. After training, I pulled out the Dementor Pinata and the kids had at it for about 10 minutes, before we had to get a knife to help them.


Dementor Pinata - made with black tissue paper and some black eyeshadow trying to define a ghastly face.

 After the pinata, it was almost time to go. I had a huge display of candy laid out (ala HoneyDukes) and gave each kid a plastic bag and said they could choose 5 different types (gummy worms, ring pops, chocolate rocks, licorice, etc.). Obviously, the candy store was a huge hit.

All in all, a very rockin' party. My favourite part was the huge hug I got from Duncan right before bedtime - by total surprise - and when he said, "thanks for the awesome party, Mommy". He really loved it and I almost felt like he was proud of it. Score.

This post is now out of control, so I'll wrap it up.

But be prepared for my next blog documenting the most AWESOME 7 year old Star Wars party EVER...!