My little baby sister is 6. I can believe how fast she and Kian are growing up. They need to slow down!! Ella's birthday is the 26th of November, so we usually do a little family celebration at Thanksgiving with some other cousins who have upcoming birthdays.
Amelia and Ella celebrating their B-Days at Thanksgiving!
My parents flew me out for Thanksgiving, which I was so thankful for, because I needed a break from my apartment and I really missed my little lovies! And my parents too, of course! I was excited to be able to be there for Ella's party, and when my Mom told me she wanted a Harry Potter themed party, I immediately got a thousand times more excited. Naturally. But poor Elle Bell got the stomach flu on Thanksgiving! Of all days to throw up...poor girl. Her party was scheduled for the next day. But thankfully it was the 24 hour kind of flu, so we were able to reschedule the party for Saturday before I had to fly back to Rexburg. My Mom and I had worked really hard on the decorations and I really didn't want to miss it. We were only expecting about 6 kids to show up because we had to change the date, but we ended up having 10! It was really fun, and I'm so glad that Ella was feeling better so that she could enjoy it all.
My Mom and I found a
ton of awesome ideas on Pinterest for the party, and on Wednesday, we started shopping like fiends. The first thing I started making were the pom pom balls. I made ten of them in the colors of each Hogwarts house. My Mom and I also made these really cool wands from chopsticks, hot glue, beads, and spray paint. They were easy to make and ended up looking
really cool! We tied a label on them with the type of wood, size, and core like from the books. I also made house ties in the colors of each house to pin on the kids after we sorted them. We also prepared some cups with food dye and made potions! We let the food dye dry over night and the kids came up and poured in sprite and added pop rocks! It was pretty cool! They loved it! We also made a snitch from a Styrofoam ball. We painted it and glued gold paper to tooth picks and stuck them in the side of the ball to make wings. And then we glittered the crap out of it!
For food, my Mom made this awesome Basilisk calzone that smelled super yummy (if only I could have had some). She made some chocolate frogs too and lighting scar cupcakes. We also had some Bertie Botts beans! We decided to use the cauldron from Halloween to make butterbeer too, and just poured in some cream soda and mixed it with Vanilla ice cream. It was
so good!
We ended up borrowing a sorting hat from a church friend and decorated the place with my Harry Potter stuff. I had a time turner, light-up wand, chocolate frog box and a wizard trading card. I took some red lipstick and wrote "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened...enemies of the heir beware" on the bathroom mirror too! We also framed a photo from the movies and put it on the island in the kitchen. In the front room, right as the kids entered, we had a suitcase filled with round, black glasses that I made out of pipe cleaners! I also made a sign that said "Platform 9 3/4" that I stuck next to the suitcase. It looked really cute. We bought a big, thick poster at Wal-Mart (our least favorite store, haha) and made a Sirius Black "Have You Seen This Wizard" sign and had the kids pose in it! It was so awesome how it turned out, and the kids had a lot of fun making faces!
We definitely did A LOT to make this party a success, but it was so FUN! And it was SO worth it.
My Platform sign!
The bathroom mirror :)
The calzone! It had olives for eyes and a peperoni tongue!
She had so much fun opening presents.
The sorting hat and ties (which I made with felt and glue)! To sort the kids, I went into another room and my Mom put her phone on speaker phone and I called her and told the kids which house they were sorted into! It was really cute, they had to sit on the chair at the front of the room and state their full name. It was adorable watching them try to remember their middle names! Haha.
Eli posing as Sirius Black!
She got some awesome gifts!
Our potion station! We found this decal at Joanne's Fabrics for 70% off. It was perfect!
Our poster
Heidi and Kylie with the snitch!
The island
Livi Lou posing as Sirius Black. Isn't she menacing??
Making some potions! We used these cool, medieval-style, silver mugs that we had totally forgotten that we had!
Aiden posing.
The chocolate frogs! We used a mold and chocolate chips. They were yummy!
Testing out their wands.
The wands we made. I wish I had gotten a closer picture of them to show the detail!
Gryffindor and Hufflepuff pom poms and candles!
Ravenclaw pom poms.
Ella making her Sirius Black face!
The front room.
She found the snitch! The kids searched for the snitch outside in the green belt. They were running all over the place!
Potions and Slytherin pom poms! (and spongebob...lol)
Reed posing.
The table, minus the basilisk calzone. The pom pom balls turned out great! Gryffindor! This was before we turned on the cool candles.
The party was so much fun and the kids had a great time!
Emma Thompson does a wonderful job playing Travers; exuding propriety and dripping with sarcasm. By the end of the film, you will fall in love with her. 
The supporting actors of the film are remarkable as well. B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman play Dick and Bob Sherman, the composers of Mary Poppins. It's a fun walk down memory lane watching them come up with well-known songs from the film and you'll want to song along! Bradley Whitford does a delightful job playing Don DaGradi, the screen writer of Mary Poppins, and brings a lot of fun to the film. 
