Sweet Zachary turns 8

April is our birthday month! Zachary turned 8 years old a couple of weeks ago. I still can't believe his surprise arrival -- not that he came (he was almost 2 weeks late), but that he was a boy!!! When he was born also marked my days of being a full-time SAHM. I have been very blessed to be here with my kiddos.

Anyway, Zachary's birthday party had to be late since we had other things going on. However, he was able to open his presents on his birthday. He got a scout shirt, a Lego set, and his own scriptures. He was so cute with his scriptures! He carried them around for days and days. He put bookmarks in a bunch of places and asked me to show him where specific stories were so he could put bookmarks there, too:

I think this picture is actually fewer bookmarks than when I originally saw, because there were also Pokemon cards as bookmarks originally. (He must have played Pokemon and needed to switch them out. :)

Then for his party he wanted a Harry Potter/Star Wars/Pokemon party. Really? Tyler had a water party once with a water Jedi and a water Pokemon, so Zachary figured he could just call his a "magic" party and include all three topics. I convinced him he had to pick one of the three, and he chose Harry Potter.

So I got to work. I made cute invitations using Harry Potter wording (Muggle clothing will be the dress attire; Send an owl with any questions; etc.), then rolled them up and delivered them via owl post. (Okay, the owl in this case was Zachary. ;)

I decided to make a snitch cake, so I had to go buy a ball cake pan. Fortunately our little candy shop in town had not only that, but a gold edible glitter. So I was set! I told the kids I think this is the best snitch cake I've ever made. They were on to me -- it's the only snitch cake I've ever made. Zachary thought for the picture he should be reaching out for it like Harry Potter does in his first Quidditch match:

I also got to work making very cool (and cheap! :) take-home items for the guests. First I bought wood dowels and had Paul sand them into the shape of wands. (This was very easy thanks to my dad's belt-sander.) Then I burned each guest's name on the wand. Then I used chocolate frog molds and made chocolate frogs. We experimented with white and milk chocolate and adding green food coloring to both, so we ended up with four colors of chocolate frogs. We also had to taste-test several Butterbeer recipes to find the best one so we could make it for the party. I mean, can you really have a Harry Potter party without chocolate frogs or butterbeer? ;)

We also bought Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean (okay, Jelly Bellies without the gross flavors ... except for coffee), and Tyler insisted he design pouches for them. I was going to print off a label, but Tyler was a nice brother to go to so much work (it took him a long time!). Their bags also had bouncy-balls (Snitches). Tyler also made galleons since he thought they should have to buy their goody bags.

Needless to say, here's what all their loot (sans Butterbeer) looked like. Awesome!

I think the kids had fun, because it was CHAOS! I nixed a couple of fun games as to not rile them up further. But we did play Moaning Myrtle; Wizard Duel; Who's got the Sorcerer's Stone; Keep Away from Lupin; etc. I love making ordinary games relevant! :) Tyler and I had a great idea for "Exploding Snap," which is mentioned in the HP books, but it definitely would have created more energy, and we were at my max. :)