James’ parents gave us season passes for Schlitterbahn New Braunfels this summer! I brought my water camera along to get some fun pictures of us at the parks!
Rilyn and Asher going down the Master Blaster!
Ella nervous about going on the Master Blaster…
Me and Ella finishing the Master Blaster! She loved it!
The kids favorite water activity was at Blastenhoff going around this “lazy river” that had waves going through it!
The girls left for week long overnight camp at Pine Cove Silverado June 1-7th! This was their first overnight camp, and they had a BLAST! Rilyn even got to have her birthday there! They are definitely going to go back to Pine Cove next summer-Asher will get to join them too!
Waiting to go into camp!
Walking into camp with their friends, Cole and Anna!
Rilyn in front of her cabin-Sunflower 4!
As a parent, I really love that Pine Cove posts pictures of everyday to their blog so I can check what my kids are doing each day! Here are some of the pictures of them doing the fun activities during the week!
Ella and Anna canoeing!
Ella and Anna water ziplining!
They have theme nights every night and this was glow night!
Club is where they have praise and worship! Ella is in the #7 yellow shirt.
Rilyn during camo night (she is in the back holding her arm up)
Rilyn with her counselor, Who Ya Messin’ With, during a water fight!
If it’s your birthday during camp you get to go on stage during lunch and they sing the Birthday Rap to you!
A snowman rapping to Rilyn for her 10th birthday! Only at camp!
Rilyn’s letter from camp!
While the girls were off at summer camp for a week, Asher had his last day of kindergarten on June 4th!
After Asher came home, we went to the neighborhood pool to kick off the summer!! I got to try out my new Pentax Optio WG-3 GPS purple 16 MP Waterproof Digital Camera with 3-Inch LCD Screen (Purple)
that I got for my birthday!
Asher and one of his best friends!
Click here to see all the Harry Potter decorations!
When the kids arrived we started with the sorting hat. I bought school rings so after they heard their school, they had to wear their school ring. We also made wands out of Totally Bamboo Twist Chopsticks, Set of 5 pairs
and hot glue and passed them out at this time.
We taped a phone into the hat and used the app Zello as a walkie talkie. My husband was in another room with a script (we sorted the kids into schools before the party). When I said loudly, “It’s Ella’s turn”, he read the script for her on his phone and the hat magically talked!
Ella is so excited to be in Ravenclaw!
Here is Bellatrix passing out the wands!
The next event was “Bean Boozled”. I bought each child Harry Potter Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans ~ 6 Pack
and they got points for swallowing the “fun” flavors.
I gave them each a dixie cup to spit if they needed. About half of the kids played and then half of those dropped out of the game mid-way! To watch them chew was hilarious though!
Next up was potion class outside!
The “new professor” at Hogwarts was a little ambitious with his potion making skills!
Then it was the kid’s turn to make a “cloud” potion!
I love seeing the “students” faces in this picture! Look at their green clouds!
The potion (baking soda, water, drops of dish soap, and vinegar dyed green) worked so well, that it actually started to rain and we had to run inside for cake! Darn! 😉
Singing to Rilyn!
Cake time!
During cake time, we dismissed the kids one at a time to go to Honeydukes and fill a bag with all the fun candy to take home!
The rain was short thankfully, and so after cake, we went back outside for the “Quidditch All-Star Tournament”. Basically, we had four stations set up in our backyard and the four schools had to travel to each one together and try to earn points and be the winning school! The four stations were, “Quaffle Shoot Out”, “Quick Feet, Dead Aim”, “Dragon Egg Toss”, and “Snatch the Sneaky Snitch”. All of these games were designed to assess the skills of a great Quidditch player!
For Quaffle Shoot Out, we used our trampoline and took the net down and made Quidditch hoops. We used Rilyn’s uncle, aka Death Eater to be the goalie and he tried to block the students from throwing balls into the hoops!
The Dragon Egg Toss was a water balloon toss! Every great Quidditch player needs good hand eye coordination!
Quick Feet Dead Aim tested their speed in various obstacles, and then their aim to knock down as many Valdemort faces as they could!
Snatch the Sneaky Snitch was a fishing bob we spray painted gold and threw on the roof. We let it roll down and each student had to catch it! It was tricky because fishing bobs bounce around everywhere as they are rolling down the roof!
As James was tabulating the points, we went back inside for edible potion making! The kids LOVED this! They got to mix various sodas, pop rocks, fruit gushers, Kool-Aid, Tang, etc. We gave them each lots of straws so they could taste each others! Some of them named their potions and wrote recipe cards! LOL
Then it was present time!
James came in with the scores, and Gryffindor won the Quidditch tournament, which happened to be the birthday girl’s team! Can you tell she was excited?!
After the party was over, we presented Rilyn with a ticket on the Hogwarts Express as her gift. What could it mean?!
That’s right! A trip- just me, daddy, and Rilyn- to Universal Studios Orlando Harry Potter land in July!!
The sweetest thing happened during this moment. We told Ella beforehand about the gift (we are going to take all the kids on a special alone trip when they turn 10 years old.) Ella was so happy for Rilyn that she cried “happy tears” for her! She kept saying, “I’m just so happy for her!” Here is a picture of Ella crying happy tears for her sister!
Rilyn has read all of the Harry Potter books, and she really wanted a Harry Potter birthday for her 10th. I have only read the first book, and watched the first movie, so I relied on Pinterest to help plan this party! We started off by sending “White Owl invitations” to her neighborhood friends.
Rilyn drew all the owls herself!
Rilyn running from house to house delivering the invites!
The decorations!
The wall of crepe paper represents the 4 school colors!
I made the floating candles by spray painting cardboard paper towel holders white and putting a Instapark® LCL-24 Battery-powered Flameless LED Tealight Candles, 2-Dozen Pack
in each one. I hung each candle with fishing line to appear floating!
In the dining hall, I replaced most of our pictures with pictures of characters from the movies.
Hedwig Aurora Plush 12″ Snowy Flopsie
!
Photo booth op!
the bathroom!
This is Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes joke shop! We let each child pick one joke as a party favor when they were leaving. We found all of these at the dollar store!
Potion class outdoors
Honeydukes table with Cybrtrayd A126 Frog Chocolate Candy Mold with Exclusive Cybrtrayd Copyrighted Chocolate Molding Instructions
and acid pops (dum dums rolled in pop rocks!), gummy worms, chocolate wands, and cake!
Rilyn dressed as Hermoine for Halloween, so we just used this picture for her cake! Easy!
The front of our house I hung a sheet that I painted to look like Platform 9 3/4!
Walk through and let the party begin!
When you walk through the wall, you might meet Hagrid! (Rilyn’s Papaw dressed up and looks AMAZING!)
You also might meet Mrs. Weasley, Bellatrix, a Death Eater, and the “new professor-cousin of Snape”
Click here for what we did at the party!
After the dance recital, James and I celebrated 13 years of marriage! We got his and hers pedicures (his first one, but won’t be the last!), and some yummy Thai food! LOL
The next week, the kids all had their grade level awards ceremonies and they each did outstanding! Asher got the boys Principal’s Award which means “most improved”. He is reading on a first grade level, and loves art and is beginning to really write!
Ella is reading on a high 3rd grade level, and won 2nd place in her whole grade level (110 students), for Accelerated Reader points! She got a trophy too! She got “All A Honor Roll”, and she also won the “Math award” in her class for being so great at math!
Her AR trophy
Ella and her 1st and 2nd grade teacher! We will miss her SO MUCH!
Unfortunately, Rilyn had to miss her actual 4th grade ceremony, and so her sweet teacher gave her a personal one in class on her last day of school. Rilyn won 1st place in her whole grade level for Accelerated Reader points and won the “History Award” in her class because she is always so curious, and wants to learn about everything history! She got “All A Honor Roll” too!
Rilyn and her teacher!
the paquettes 