Harry Potter's Birthday

I went all out for our Harry Potter birthday celebration this year. I planned lots of fun activities for me and the boys! Here are the pictures of all my prep work to get ready for the day:

I hung up our very own platform 9 3/4 in the hallway:

I created a honeydukes box with some store-bought and homemade Harry Potter themed treats.

I created individual hogwarts letters for the boys delivered by a Hedwig I created from a white balloon:

I bought a Harry Potter loot crate and decided to turn it into the prize of an escape room. I hid clues all over a room that led to keys to unlock locks keeping them from opening the loot crate. All of the clues were direct quotes from the books! For example, one clue was "Honestly, don't you even read?" and the key was hidden in the pages of a Harry Potter book on the bookshelf.

I even bought a wax seal kit so that I could put an authentic seal on the boys' hogwarts letters.

I created a birthday cake to match the cake Hagrid brought Harry when he told him he was a wizard. It was seriously so much fun to do this!

Opening their letters in the morning:

Here is James's letter (Rett's said the same thing). It invited them to a one day summer school session of Hogwarts including a 5k, a Ravenclaw escape room, and Hogsmeade for lunch with a trip to Honeydukes for dessert.

I signed up for a virtual Harry Potter 5k, so the boys and Anthony rode their bikes on the bike trail while I ran it.

When we came home it was time to go through the platform!

Figuring out the clues...

The clues were in little pieces of paper rolled up in tiny glass vials I found at dollar tree.

Extracting the clues:

My favorite hiding place: inside a light bulb paper clip holder that actually screwed into a lamp! The container had a magnet inside the lightbulb to hold the paper clips, so it held the key perfectly. The boys needed lots of hints to find this one.

Tiny Ollivanders shelf:

Serious wand action:

Revealing the loot:

Time for a movie marathon with lunch!

Eating chocolate frogs. Can't forget to eat the legs first so they don't hop away!

I found a place where you could print your own chocolate frog cards, so we ended up with a lot of them:

And of course, butterbeer! Happy Birthday Harry Potter!