ELEVEN: A Harry Potter Party

How is is possible that I have an 11 year old?!? Time is truly a thief and I really want it to slow down but I absolutely love having a front row seat in watching Paige grow and become such an amazing young lady. She is pure kindness and goodness with a love of life and the little things. She is such a good kid and I love being her mom!

Here is what Paige is up to at eleven:

• She is in 5th grade and loves school. She always tries her best and is very determine at learning anything new. She is willing to put in the work and she is very willing to ask questions if she doesn't understand or is struggling with something. She is an amazing student and is always willing to help others and include others. This school year she tried out orchestra for the first time and chose to play the violin and absolutely loves it. She will be going into middle school next year which is exciting and a little scary (probably more for mom than her). 
• She is a really good friend. She is very considerate and she has some good core friends at school. She loves to have friends over and is always thinking of little things to do or make for her friends that would make them happy.
• She is the most amazing gift giver and note writer. She is very giving and thinks of all the little details when giving a gift. Her gifts are always very thoughtful and she write such kind notes that just melt your heart.
• She LOVES to read! She is often found with a book and has a goal to read 60 books by the end of the year. She loves to go to the library and always has a pile of books to bring home.
• She loves her sleep and is my child that needs her sleep or it will affect her. If she gets over tired, she gets emotional so a good bedtime and making sleep a priority is important. 
• She is still pretty shy but has gotten a lot better in social settings especially when Nate or I are around. If we were around, she used to refuse to talk or would look to us to talk for her, but she is becoming more confident and it is fun to watch. I know she is most confident at school and I'm glad that she is willing to be herself and use her voice for good at school. Just this school year, she led her group of friends in petitioning to the principal for getting a snack time. She even went to different classes and talked with them in signing this petition and they presented a letter to the principal that Paige wrote with their reasons and the signed petition and the principal allowed them to add snack time in the day. 
• She has the sweetest testimony of Jesus Christ and is very in tune with the Spirit. She gives the best family home evening lessons and is interested in listening when we are talking about the gospel.
• She deals with lots of worry and some anxiety that we have to work through. It is hard for her to open up with things that are on her mind but when she does, it always helps and then we can talk through it and give her strategies that will help her. She struggles with change or new things but almost always loves the new things that she tries. I have discovered with her that if there is something on her mind, she is more willing to write about it then talk about the issue. It has been a learning curve for us but I know with time, experience, and her knowing things that help her that we can overcome the things that worry her, even if it is one day at a time.
• She is the most incredible big sister. She is always willing to help and always wants to babysit. She loves coming up with crafts or activities to do with her sisters. She pretty much has taught Baylor how to read and loves to do preschool with her (though Baylor isn't always the most willing student). She and Baylor can push each other's buttons but then also have so much fun together. One of my favorite things that they do together is make videos on my phone on how to do a craft or science experiment. She loves to do anything with McCall besides changing poopy diapers. :)
• She is very creative and detail oriented. She loves to all things arts and crafts. 
• She loves to write and create stories and poems and has the most beautiful hand writing.
• She loves to create power point presentations or spends time on the computer creating preschool packets for Baylor.
• She loves to plan things and help me plan things. She loves to plan a party and loves all the little details and for her 11th birthday she decided to do a Harry Potter themed party and spent so much time thinking of all the fun details and things to do. It turned out so fun and it was fun to watch her create this vision of what she wanted it to look like and then it come to life.

Here are some small details that she created or thought of to decorate the house with for her party. She wanted a family one and a friends one. So we got everything all decorated for the family party and had a Harry Potter house for a week until her friend party.

For the family party, everyone came through the wall (a red tablecloth that Paige drew lines on to look like brick) at Platform 9 3/4 and then came to Hogwarts where they were sorted. Each person got to sit on the chair and I put a witch hat on their head and Nate, in his announcer voice, drew the different houses from a bag to sort everyone.

Their first challenge at Hogwarts was to help free the house elf, Dobby. Paige had printed off lots of paper galleons (the money in Harry Potter) and for each game they would get so many galleons and then they saved them and got to spend them at Honey Dukes at the end of the evening. So for this first game to save an elf you have to give them an article of clothing, so we used socks and had like a bean bag toss and depending on what number they got their pair of socks in is how many galleons they got.

Then everyone had Quidditch practice. We hung three glow stick rings from the ceiling in our hallway and they had to throw a ball through the rings while riding on a broom. They got a galleon for trying and another if they made it through one of the rings. This was a little tricky since the rings swung around.

Then it was time for dinner in the Great Hall. We had paper candles that we had cut out hanging from the ceiling with thread and then Paige came up with all the food items and related them to Harry Potter. We had Mrs. Weasley's sandwiches, Professor Sprout's garden, dragon eggs, and Polyjuice. (The drawings on the wall were Baylor's contribution to the decorations. She drew pictures of Harry Potter and Hermionie.)

Then after dinner we had our different Hogwarts classes. First up was Charms and we learned the spell Wingardium Leviosa which is the levitating spell so everyone got to practice saying the spell and made a balloon levitate. 

Then we had Divination. We had a fortune teller and then whatever you ended up picking you had to do that thing. They were all Harry Potter related like pretend to ride a broomstick, act like an owl, or howl like a werewolf. 

One of them was draw a Harry Potter scar on your forehead and it seemed to be a popular pick.

Then we did Muggle Studies. Nate helped create this box where I put muggle items and then each student had to reach in the box and with just their hands, feel the item and guess the Muggle item.

On Nona's turn, she had her eyes closed so I could put the item in the box without her seeing and Pops put McCall in the box. :)

Then it was time to spend the galleons they earned during the party and get candy from Honey Dukes. 

Then we had a little photo op and I just love these pictures! They are so fun!

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book #3) one of the books that Harry has to get for one of his classes is the Monster Book of Monsters. It is alive and tries to eat Harry in the book and movie. She saw the idea for a cake being the book and then we kind of came up with our own version of how to create this monster book. It turned out really fun!

Cake and Present Time

She got a fancy feather quill from Nona and Pops that you have to dip in ink and everything and was so excited about it! It was such a fun party! Paige did such a great job in planning it and thinking of all these fun details. 

On Paige's actual birthday, we had a busy evening so it was just our family to celebrate with her. She did receive phone calls and text from family and she felt loved and had a great day. We did go over to Nona and Pop's house to get her measured and for her to do her money grab.

She picked Little Caesar's Pizza for dinner and then she got to open up presents from us before our busy evening of touring Paige's middle school for next year. 

I got some cupcakes from Fred Meyer so that we had a little dessert on her actual birthday.

Then on Saturday she had her Harry Potter birthday with her friends. She loved the day and they had lots of fun together!

We first had the same foods that we had at her family birthday party and then instead of using the witch hat for sorting, we had cupcakes where in the center was the different colors of the different Hogwarts houses.

Emily (bottom left) was disappointed in getting Slytherin. :)

Then they saved Dobby with the sock toss.

It was a nice enough day that we got to move Quidditch outside and I held hula hoops up for them to throw different balls through. I was kind of a scaredy cat and would freak out and scream if the ball was coming too close to my head so the rings weren't the most stable and the girls thought it was funny. I'm glad I could provide some entertainment for them! 

Then they each got to make their own wand by decorating a stick with washi tape.

Then they had Charms class with their wands.

Then Divination.

They all wanted to draw a Harry Potter scar of their forehead.

Some fun pictures with their wands before doing the next class.

The next class was Herbology. They each got to plant a daffodil and plant some seeds to grow.

Addison and Kinsley were able to show up and I'm so glad they were able to come even if it was just for a short amount of time. The next class was Potions and they each made bath bombs. I'm so glad that it was nice enough to do this outside because it was a mess! They had fun but it was messy and I had never done them before so it was a bit of a learning curve but they turned out.

Then the last class was Muggle Studies.

Paige then opened her presents and she got some really fun things.

Then the girls got to go to Honey Dukes and spend their galleons they earned and each of them went home with a bag full of candy, a new wand, flowers, and bath bombs.

It was another really fun party and Paige has some really sweet friends.

Happy 11th Birthday Paige!