The Quints 4th Birthday!

Kyndall, Kassidy, Rustin, Ryder and Kaydence

I am more than two months late, but I am finally posting pictures from the quints birthday! Their birthday fell on Sunday this year, so we went to church in the morning and had a few families over for cake in the evening. They are old enough to really "get" birthdays now, so they were SO excited!

The Fab 5 with their gifts---Five is a very "normal" family size, so the quints birthday is like some families Christmas! (Something I should have thought about before saving all the present wrapping until the last minute :-) )

The present wrapping started out with order and taking turns....

...but quickly evolved into mass chaos!

The quints take a break----All that present un-wrapping can be exhausting!

I made each of the quints their own little mini-cake in their color. In addition to color coding, each of the quints has a symbol that they chose to identify their things when multiple colors are not available. Kassidy--flower, Kaydence--sunshine, Kyndall--heart, Rustin--basketball, Ryder--changes his mind a lot (for his cake it was a monster)

Kassidy, Kaydence, Rustin, Kyndall and Ryder

Happy Birthday to Kassidy!!

Happy Birthday to Kaydence!

Happy Birthday to Rustin!!

Happy Birthday to Kyndall!!

Happy Birthday to Ryder!!

For the rest of the party guests, I made two cakes---a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling (to die for!) and...

Lemon cake with raspberry cream cheese filling

The day following the quints actual birthday, we had their "friend" party. After spending lots of time on Riley and Kaiya's birthday parties this year, I decided to make life easy on myself and have the quints party at the Big Bounce.

We invited all the kids from church who are in their Sunday School classes----there are 21 kids their age, so it was a big group! I was really interested to see what my kids would do at the party. They don't get invited on playdates with other kids very often and they are so used to playing with each other, that I wondered if they would stick together or branch out. To my surprise, none of them stayed together---they all buddied up with someone else.

Kassidy with her friends Paige and Marcy

Kaydence with her friend Emmie

Rustin with his buddy Weston

Kyndall was more of a free spirit, running around by herself---she did join a bunch of other girls watching a movie for a little bit.

Ryder with his pal Andrew

We sang Happy Birthday and had cupcakes. I made rainbow cupcakes (pink, purple, yellow for the girls and blue, green, white for the boys) but I was so busy I forgot to take pictures of the inside!

Party Room

Present Time!

Present un-wrapping quickly turned into a free-for-all!

The Party Kids!

The quints with the cute gal that hosted our party at the Big Bounce! It was so much fun, and the best part----I didn't have to get my house ready for a party, or clean up after the 4-year-old invasion!

The Quints 4th Birthday!

Riley's Harry Potter Birthday

In June, Riley turned 11! This was his year for a big "friend" birthday party. He is a HUGE Harry Potter fan. At my last count, he had read all seven books in the series at least four times each. He has been Harry Potter for Halloween twice and Draco Malfoy once. Even his room is decorated in a Harry Potter theme, so it was no surprise that he wanted to have a Harry Potter themed birthday party. Thanks to my sister-in-law, Alicia, who recently threw a Harry Potter party for my nephew and mailed me all of her leftover stuff and thanks to the internet, we were able to put together a pretty fun party!

Party Invitation--outside

Party Invitation--inside. Using a mixture of baking soda and water, we wrote an invisible ink code word in the blank space on the bottom of the invitation. When heated, the solution turns brown, revealing the code word.

Decorations--I wish I could take credit for these, but they all came from my super sister-in-law

Staircase Banner

Hogwarts House Banner and Dining room (the ceiling has been "enchanted" to look like the night sky)

Hogwarts students (aka party kids)

When the kids arrived, we used a sorting hat to sort them into different houses. Each kid got a robe for his/her house (robes were made from XL Men's black t-shirts cut up the middle and ironed on house crest).

Each "student" received a wand (pencil spray-painted gold) and a Lesson's book, which they used for each of their "classes".

They started in "Charms" class, where each house (team) was given a list of spells which they had to match to their function.

Next they went to "Care of Magical Creatures" class where everyone made their own origami owl. (I was so busy running the party that I didn't get pictures of these, but they were cute!)

Page from the Lessons Book for Care of Magical Creatures

The third class was "Divination". I the kids several different Jelly Bellys and they had to taste them and use their powers of divination to determine what flavor they were.

The fourth class, which was definitely everyone's favorite, was Potions! I found a great "potion" online that changed colors and bubbled. The kids thought it was great!

Potion ingredients

Potion Instructions from the Lessons Book

Basilisk Venom: red cabbage juice (made by chopping up red cabbage, putting it in a bowl and pouring boiling water over to cover. Leave for 20 min--water will be purple = red cabbage juice)
Mandrake Root: long pretzel stick
Boomslang: Powder laundry detergent (changes the potion's color)
Eyeballs From a Blind Cat: Garbanzo beans (does nothing, just sounds gross)
Truth Serum: Vinegar (changes the potion's color again)
Bat Dung: black beans (just for fun)
Horn of Bicorn: Baking soda (makes the potion bubble up)
Hippogriff Gizzards: saurkraut (just for fun)
Gillyweed: Italian seasoning (just for fun)

Mixing up the potions

Riley's bubbles over

We ran out of time for the fifth class, which was going to be "Transfiguration" (basically charades with the Harry Potter characters)

We ended the party with a feast in the dining hall and cake.

The "feast"--nothing too magical, just pizza, but I did put a drop of food coloring in the bottom of each of the cups, then covered with ice, so that when the Sprite was poured in, everyone's drink turned a different color

Riley with his friends and Hogwarts cake

The goodie bags were also courtesy of Alicia (my sister-in-law). She had some leftovers from her party. They were so great! Inside the goodie bags, we put Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, Butterbeer and a golden snitch.

Goodie Bag

I love planning fun kids birthday parties, but they sure are a lot of work!!! Riley loved everything, though, so it made it all worth it!


On Riley's actual birthday, we celebrated with a small family party

Riley with his presents (Back: Kaydence, Kassidy, Ryder and Kyndall, Front: Kaiya, Riley and Rustin)

I loved the creative duct tape wrapping on this present from Grandma and Grandpa Wilkinson---almost too cute to open!

The kids crowd around Riley while he opens his presents. Riley is a GREAT present opener---he gets super excited about everything and always jumps up to give the present giver a hug and a Thank You.

Blowing out the candles on his Sour Cream Lemon Birthday Pie!

I cant' believe that I am old enough to have an 11-year old! Riley starts middle school this year and I am just not ready for the drama that usually comes with that. I am sure he will do great--he is such a happy, positive, upbeat kid. His mind is always thinking up some new invention. He has a quick smile and a giggly laugh that is contagious. He has really matured a lot this past year and become much more responsible. I am lucky to be his mom!

Riley's Harry Potter Birthday