Welch Whirl

A "Magic" 8th Birthday Party

The week before Wiley's designated birthday I started suggesting to him that for his birthday we just get a few kids together and going to Jump on It. But Wiley would have none of that (oh, it would have been so simple to do it this way!). Instead he told me he wanted "a wizard party."

Huh? What kind of wizards are we talking about? Harry Potter wizards, Wizards of Waverly Place wizards, Lord of the Rings wizards? Where did this come from? In the end, the wizard he was talking about was Merlin (think Sword in the Stone). I was slightly baffled by the idea of a wizard party but soon Wiley and I were planning away. He was very specific about wanting to use scrolls. So here are the invitations with coordinating maps to the house.


We decided to have crafts for the guests to do while waiting for everyone to arrive. Wands made out of dowels and tin foil and wizard hats made out of poster board and construction paper. Oh, the work. I stayed up way too late one night cutting out the hats and the shapes. I kept telling myself, he will love you for it.

As the guests arrived, if they weren't already dressed as wizards we had wizard clothing for them to put on and we had a backdrop for pictures. Ben dressed up like Gandalf with the full beard and everything.


Both Ben and I studied magic tricks for a week. We each had a few awesome tricks to perform for the kids, but even better, we showed them how to do the tricks and then they got to do them themselves. We even did the cut-the-lady-in-two trick. AWESOME.



We had bottles full of gross looking stuff, and a menu. The kiddos could go down the menu and circle what crazy food they wanted. Here is what we served.

"Flaming monster eyes" (meatballs in BBQ sauce)
"Fried skeleton ribs" (fried mozzarella sticks)
"Cheesy worms" (Cheetos)
"Dried bat wings with guts" (chips and salsa)
"Dehydrated fish" (goldfish)
"Troll eyes" (green grapes)
"Slivered giants liver" (canned pears dyed green)
"Mini dragon brains" (canned peaches dyed red)
"Monster hearts" (strawberries)
"Lizards tongue in sauce" (carrots with ranch)
"Gnome legs in sauce" (celery with ranch dressing)
"Troll fingers" (bottled green beans)

We also had an awesome blue potion drink. It was blue Kool-aid with Sprite, green sherbet, with floating Jello eyes and chunks of fruit. Sorry I don't have pictures of everything. I was trying to be a hostess and not a photographer.

I'm most proud of the cake. It turned out to be HUGE. I made two cakes and built up the the base of the hat with various sizes of cake circles and a wooden dowel. The point of the cake is an ice cream cone stuffed with cake. The shapes on the cake are made up of flattened Airheads and Starbursts. It took two days to make the thing.



We gave out Magic Tricks kits from the dollar store for party favors and sent the kids all home giddy about the magic. Oh, phew. It seriously was fun to put together and throw the party for Wiley. He was really happy with the results, and he told me that he felt really popular because his party was cool (oh, to be eight again). That wasn't what we were aiming for, but he seemed pleased nonetheless.

Ben and I decided that we would not throw another party for him of this magnitude until it was his 16th birthday, or maybe not until he turns 18. Hopefully, he won't be requesting wizard parties then ...