On Thursday she had her friend birthday party. Originally she was planning on Friday for that, but since school was canceled on Friday we thought Thursday would be a better night.
She just invited about 6 or 7 girls and they were all able to come. Since it was her 11th birthday she choose a Harry Potter theme. It was a huge hit. She made most of the decorations ahead of time (signs for the different shops and classes and decrees from the 5th book) and Rebecca and I added a few touches (3/4 up by our house numbers, stars hanging over the dinning room table).
Her guests received Hogwarts invites that were adapted to her party time and location. The party started at 3:30 with wand making. We have made these types of wands with dowels, hot glue, and paint several times before so even though this did take up a lot of time, it went pretty quickly. Then Julia got to show off her bedroom (the cupboard under the stairs) - I set this up while she was away at school and I thought she would be embarrassed to show her friends, but she seemed to really like it. Next we did the sorting hat. All the girls got put into Griffindor or Ravenclaw and Ethan, Christian, and Elliott got Slitherin. After that we went downstairs to play quidich. It was Griffindor vs. Ravenclaw with Slitherin being the bludgers. For this game we had three laundry baskets on each side and two balloons as quaffles. They got a point each time they could get a balloon into any one of the other team's basket. They couldn't carry the balloons and Slitherin got to throw little soft footballs (the bludgers) at anyone they wanted. The game got pretty wild and in the end Ravenclaw was victorious. Then we went back upstairs for a visit to HoneyDukes for cupcakes. Then potions class to make slime. After that Julia opened up her presents. That was the end of the official party, but all of the girls were invited to stay for pizza and to watch the first Harry Potter movie until about 8pm. It seemed like everyone had a blast and it was fun to see Julia play and talk with her friends now that she is almost a teenager.
Then on Saturday we did all of the regular birthday celebrations. Julia ordered Monkeybread, bacon, and sausage for breakfast. Then she opened up presents and she wanted to go out shopping with some of her birthday money. For lunch she requested nutella sandwiches and left over macaroni and cheese. Then I played some one-on-one laser tag with her. We were supposed to go out rollerskating in the afternoon, but we found out our coupons were not good for Saturday so we are going to go Monday evening. For dinner we had lasagna! Then we ended the night watching The Princess Bride.
We have continued the celebrations today with lots of game playing and just doing activities of her choosing.
We are so lucky to have Julia in our family. And so lucky that she was our first child. She helps out so much with her younger siblings and sets an excellent example for them at school or wherever she is. When she was young she always used to love spending time with me, but now she has developed a really close relationship with Rebecca. It is really neat seeing their friendship.
Julia was in charge of frosting and decorating her cake. She is trying to cover up that some of the frosting is falling down on the sides.
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