Welcome to Hogwarts

April 5th was my oldest son's 11th birthday. In honor of this special occasion we help a one night Hogwarts Trial for him and his friends.
We started off with official invitations written in green ink on preachment paper. Here is what they said:

Dear ,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to a one-night trial with the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry staff in honor of Josephs 11th birthday. Hogwarts is temporarily unavailable do to repairs made necessary by the mischievous acts of certain red headed twins. As a result the Ministry of Magic has set up a safe location disguised as a muggle home at (our address). Please use ministry approve port keys or, to not attract attention, please employ a muggle to bring you by car. The trial will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. on Monday, April 9th, 2007. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary equipment for your trial.
Professor Albus Dumbledore

Please Bring
Muggle attire
A broomstick
A cauldron
One sock for Dobby the House Elf

When the kids arrived at our house we sorted them into houses. Because we were in such a muggle infested location we had to transform the sorting hat to disguise it. I think it really worked.

Here is Hannah being sorted. She ended up in Hufflepuff. I had printed off house badge stickers to put on their shirts.

Next the children had to go Olillvander's to get their wands. My nephew Angus was our Ollivander. The children had to try out their wands by swishing them and calling out an animal name. If the wand was the right one, then Ollivander would transform into that animal.

Here poor Owen is laying on the ground recovering from the attack he suffered when he transformed Ollivander into a Lion.

Now the kids were ready to go to their classes and see if they really were worthy to attend Hogwarts. First up was Potions class with professor Snape. Apparently the Slytherins thought it would be really funny to transform the drinks for the feast into water so the children had to try their hands at potion making to turn it back into pumpkin juice. This is very tricky to do.

The potion went as follows. First Snape poured rainbow water into the cups (vinegar) and the water turned a different color in each cup. (the spoons had dried food coloring on them) Then they added powdered unicorn hair (baking soda) and had to stir it properly. If not it would boil over. (well of course it bubbled over and Snape berated them all).

Next they added dried Hinkypunk hearts (pop rocks) and had to stir till it quit crackling.

Next they added Dragon milk mixed with Oil of Sunshine (2 cups white school glue mixed with 1 1/2 cup water and yellow food coloring). To this they added Essence of Boom slang (2/3 cup water with 2 tsp borax mixed in and food color for effect). Then followed a very complicated series of stirrings.

If they messed this step up they did not end up with delicious and refreshing pumpkin juice. Instead they got ....

Troll Boggies. We all gaged and choked.

Snape felt it necessary to show us how it was really done and whipped up some Sour Snape Grape Spirits for us.

(this was 2 bottles of lemon lime pop and 2 packages of grape Kool-aid mix and the left over pop rocks) It was pretty good.

The next class was Divination with Professor Trelawney.

My Niece Rebecca filled in for us. She had them put Dragon's blood (red food coloring) in a bowl of Troll milk (milk with dish soap added) and them read the fortunes they saw. We saw many basilisks. She then used her Crystal ball (round fish bowl) to read their fortunes.

There were many prophecies given such as , "you will eat cake tonight", and "I see treats in your near future" and such. They kids thought it was really fun and thought she sounded like Gollum.

The kids then went to Care of Magical Creatures with Professor Grubbly-Plank. (my Sister in Law, Miyuki)

She taught them the anatomy of woodland creatures and the showed what they learned by making Origami replicas of owls and bats. They had to touch them with their wand to make them fly (they looked a lot like paper air planes).

The last class was Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Loopy (Lupin's sister).

I had the kids make Anti Dark Wizard Missiles. We took plastic eggs and added powdered asphodel (baking soda) and powdered boom slang skin (citric acid) to this we added essence of gillyweed (green water). We had to quickly shut the eggs and throw them.

If you were fast enough they would blow up.

Sammy worked really fast. His blew up as he threw it.

The children also leaned to do the Patronus Charm. They practiced on a Boggart we found. (Angus)

Our poor Boggart really got hit hard.

The kids then went out in the field and played quidditch. They were all looking for the snitch (a golden Easter egg).

We finally had a feast. We had Wesely Cheesy Weezy Pizza, Pumpkin pasties, our Snape Juice and a Madd Eye Moody Eye cake.

Everyone was really grossed out by the cake. It was great!! (it was baked in a Pampered Chef mixing bowl and we put a blue jell-o eye on top.

We sent everyone home with a bag of treats from Honeyduke's candy Shop.

We gave them Chocolate frogs, Fizzing whizbees, Bertie Bott's every flavor beans, Drooble's best blowing gum, Owl Droppings, lemon drops, Acid worms and a squirting frog. Joe also made each of his guests a wand for them to take home. He will be selling these in his own Etsy store soon. They looked really great!

This party was so much fun. We love to have fun at birthdays and celebrate our family this way. I couldn't have pulled this off without a lot of help from my friends and family. Thanks to Vea for giving up our craft play day and helping me pull this off. Thanks to Sam, Miyuki, Angus and Rebecca for filling in as faculty and Characters.

I hope you enjoyed sharing in our day.