Potions and wands and cupcakes too

Just a few photos to share from Chester's Birthday two weeks ago. Instead of writing the children's names on the goodie bags, we wrote names of the characters from the movie. We had this same group of kids over a couple of months ago to watch The Philospher's Stone together, then Chester decided he may as well make his Birthday Harry Potter themed as well. This time they watched the second movie. It's a long movie, so we took an "intermission" to serve dinner and dessert, then presents. Below are one of the things we put in the goodie bag - our version of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. (They are the gourmet jelly beans from Walmart - and are not too expensive - they even have the ID chart on the back of the bag! They had lots of fun with these!

Here is dessert - Butterbeer cupcakes. Thanks for the recipe Kelly! Even though Chester doesn't usually like cake, he enjoyed these. The wands the boys got for Christmas are also in this photo - they were worth the effort of ordering by phone - Chester got Harry's and Pickle Pants got Voldemort's. They love them! They go around the house "casting spells" on one another. :)

Lastly, I made some "licorice wands" by dipping licorice in melted chocolate wafers and then dipping in cupcake sprinkles. I love the black ones! I ate way too many of these since the kiddos preferred the red. Don't tell! We found the idea for these on-line on a Harry Potter related website.

The potion labels are from a fabulous book my parents got for Chester at Christmas, it is all about the Harry Potter series - comments from the producer, actors, etc. A fun read, even for me! It included lots of hands-on stuff like the ticket to the ball, the Marauders' map, etc. Too fun!

Have a great start to your week!

Shanna :)

p.s. Hope to be back soon with a card.