Diagon Alley-Themed Harry Potter Birthday Party!

I love throwing over-the-top birthday parties. I LOVE Harry Potter. And I love my son. 

Put these three things together and you've got yourself one heck of a Diagon Alley themed Harry Potter birthday party. 

I don't know if it's more accurate to say this all started when I read Harry Potter, when I introduced Griffin to Harry Potter, OR when my amazing friends Barbara and Dawn decided to throw a Harry Potter themed Halloween party and basically BUILD Diagon Alley. Either way I the stars aligned and we were able to take their backdrops and create one heck of a magical party!

We started the experience with "owl delivered" acceptance letters to Hogwarts for each attendee complete with an original piece of Harry Potter artwork by the birthday boy.

Once the day of the party arrived, we were hoping for sunshine but got lots of rain. Turns out rain isn't so bad to create British ambiance and my dumpy garage works pretty well as the location for Diagon Alley!

We had it all from Flourish & Blotts (complete with wizarding text books) to Potages Cauldron Shop to the Leaky Cauldron. Of course, first the kids had to stop at Gringotts Wizarding Bank to pick up some money!

Then, it was off to the Leaky Cauldron for pumpkin juice or polyjuice potion (aka Hawaiian punch and dry ice).

Then, we made our way to Ollivanders to paint our wands with "dragon blood" and "phoenix feathers."

Next up, everyone was sorted into the four houses by picking a house color out of the sort hat and then receiving their house tie!

We attacked a "dementor" piñata and played pin the scar on Harry. 

Then, it was time to pass through to Platform 9 3/4 and take the Hogwarts Express to Hogwarts for the great feast! Our feast was laid out on farm tables from Flower + Furbish which were perfect!

We made Griffin's birthday cake look like the cake Hagrid brings to Harry upon their first meeting. I then proceeded to give the children every form of sugar I could manage from chocolate frogs to "cauldron creams", from licorice wands to pumpkin pasties and golden snitches. 

It was a truly magical day.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Themed Baby Shower!

In celebration of Chocolate Chip Cookie Day, I thought I would share photos from Amos's baby shower. Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite food. Plus, incorporating Famous Amos cookies made the theme perfect for mom and baby!

Why I Throw My Kids Over-the-top Birthday Parties

It’s birthday party season in the Holland household. Griffin's birthday is May 16th and Amos's birthday is June 3rd so the party planning has begun in earnest. Every year I spend a ton of time planning (and designing and crafting and baking) for two big parties to celebrate these awesome little guys. 

I go big and I'm not going to apologize. 

Recently, I’ve noticed the over the top birthday party has gotten a bit of a bad rap and part of it is well-deserved. Thanks in part to the Real Housewives and their like, parties became a spectacle of overindulgence. On top of it all, the celebrated child at these lavish affairs often didn’t seem like they were having a good time. I mean nothing says people are done embracing a trend and ready to judge it quite like a TLC reality show.

And while I would never belong on Outrageous Kid Parties, I do not and will not apologize for my parties. I spent almost a year planning Griffin’s first birthday party. I scoured every corner of the Internet for ideas and spent hours turning those ideas into reality. We had over fifty people in our backyard for barbecue and cake and it was one of the happiest days of my life. I gathered with all the people I love and celebrated this amazing creature that had entered my life.

That experience only gets better as Griffin and Amos become more involved in the process of celebrating. They love to look through Pinterest pages and pick invitations and cakes and activities.

Honestly, keeping them involved in recent years has also helped me keep my motivations in check. The first year the party is for the family and the guests to celebrate the precious life of this little baby. However, as the years go on, I always try to remind myself that the parties are for the KIDS.

So, I've scrapped the water bottle covers because they don't care. I let it go when Griffin wants to add hand-drawn pictures to my perfectly designed invitations. I don't try to talk Amos into a theme that would be more fun to plan.

Amos wants Turbo the Snail. Amos gets Turbo the Snail.

Doing it all again never seems like a chore. (Although I am glad Felix was born in the winter so to spread out the effort a bit!) It seems like a gift. I figure if I’m lucky I’ll get ten birthday parties with each of them before they become too cool for a “kids party” and I’m going to make the most of every one of them. 

The parties and the memories they create are my gifts to them. If God forbid something happens to me, I hope my boys can look at all the effort I poured into these parties and feel my love for them. Not because parents who don’t throw crazy parties don’t love their kids. That’s absurd. I love entertaining and I love creating and every year I get to do what I love to celebrate who I love.

So, my labor of love continues. Now, if you excuse me, I have to hot glue a birthday banner.

What is your labor of love for your kids? Do you hand sew Halloween costumes or cook homemade meals? Does your toddler already have college paid for thanks to your frugal living? Or do you carefully record every milestone in beautifully bound journals? Where do you go above and beyond?

A Perfect Pair Baby Shower

Not only am I pregnant, but two of my closest friends from college are also due within weeks of me – one with twins! In an effort to save our friends multiple car trips, we scheduled both Aimee’s and Erin’s baby showers last weekend. It was a party planning bonanza and I thought I’d share some of the adorable details.

First up on Saturday was Aimee’s shower celebrating the arrival of twin boys – Noah and Charlie. Our theme was “A Perfect Pair.”

Brown and green were also the colors in her nursery and we tried to use baby items she could take and use in their room – blankets,  onesies, and a name banner. The adorable invitations above were from Paperlicious. We played a Twin Baby Babble Word Game that I designed to match the invitations. We also had a “Pear Tree” where everyone could write their hopes for the babies on little paper pears to hang on the tree. The momma-to-be took them all home in a little book at the end of the shower.

Everything went beautifully and we passed out Doublemint gum as party favors as everyone was leaving.

Just in case you have a twin shower around the corner – I’m sharing a free printable version of the Twin Baby Babble game with all of you!

Enjoy!

Huffpo Live: Canceling Christmas

I was on HuffPo Live today talking about my post on

Check it out!

Why You Can't Cancel Christmas

A few weeks ago, I posted this status update on Facebook.

Post by Sarah Stewart Holland.

My poor little serious Griffin was genuinely worried he had been too naughty to get any presents from Santa. Never mind that I had made nary a mention of any Santa-induced repercussions for bad behavior and that we also purposefully described our Elf as the non-surveillance kind, he was still stressed.

So, I let him in on a little secret. Everybody gets presents. I told him I'd never heard of child in my entire life that didn't get presents from Santa. I confessed it was all a big, giant bluff.

Imagine my surprise when earlier this week I encountered the Henderson family - who had indeed cancelled Christmas. After confessing on her blog Over The Big Moon that she and her husband had decided to cancel Christmas, Lisa's story went viral spreading to Good Morning, America and The Huffington Post. 

She explains:

“We have not cancelled putting up decorations, celebrating the birth of our Savior, or any of our other heartwarming traditions. But, we have cancelled presents, Santa, and stockings. Their letters to Santa this year will be asking Santa to find someone who needs their presents more.

Here is why – John and I feel like we are fighting a very hard uphill battle with our kids when it comes to entitlement. It is one of the biggest struggles as a parent these days in middle class America. Our kids have been acting so ungrateful lately. They expect so much even when their behavior is disrespectful. We gave them good warning, either it was time for their behavior to change or there would be consequences. We patiently worked with them for several months and guess what, very little changed. One day after a particularly bad display of entitlement John said, “we should just cancel Christmas.” And, so that’s what we did.”

— Lisa Henderson

In many ways, I'm sympathetic to her struggle. Entitlement is a hard thing and sometimes feels like an uphill battle. I remember one of the first lessons I taught Griffin as a baby was I'm going to eat my FIRST breakfast before you demand your SECOND.

The struggle is particularly difficult during this time of year with the much-bemoaned attention on consumerism. I remember learning a difficult lesson regarding Christmas and kids just a few years ago. I was so focused on Santa getting Griffin exactly what he wanted that I had unintentionally taught him Santa takes orders instead of requests. When "Santa" didn't get it exactly right, he was disappointed instead of thrilled at the new toy he had just received. 

I resolved never again to focus so much attention on getting exactly what you asked for.

We've been careful to dial it back this year as well. When Griffin told me he wanted to ask Santa for a Nintendo DS, I told him Santa had to get my approval and I would not be granting it for a video game system. I explained he was too young and he already had plenty of apps to play on the Kindle Fire his father had recently purchased. He took the news in stride. 

So, while I understand Lisa Henderson's concerns, I must say I don't agree with her approach. 

Gratitude is not a character trait but a daily practice - among both children and adults. It's not something your children "have" but something you work on every single day. For me, the idea that a child would be punished for lack of gratitude by the removal of material possessions seems to put all the focus in exactly the wrong place.

Now, the Henderson family has made it clear they will be using the money they would have spent on gifts for service projects and that their children will be making gifts for one another in an effort to "teach their children to be charitable and grateful." All of that sounds wonderful and definitely something we do every year to make sure we put the emphasis on giving instead of receiving.

However, by linking her children's gratitude to the external motivation of receiving presents I still think Lisa Henderson is missing the point. I don't want my children to be grateful because I'm yelling at them to be. I don't want my children to exhibit gratitude because they're afraid of what I'll do if they don't. 

I want my children to find a space for gratitude in their every day life because I believe it is a source of true fulfillment - all year long, not only in December. I want my children to see the role gratitude plays in my own life and model that behavior because they see the benefits go far beyond what presents I receive on Christmas morning.

After all, I give to my children at Christmas because I feel so grateful to have them in my life and because the act of giving to them brings me great joy - even when their reactions don't always meet my expectations.

Hosting a Holiday Open House

We hosted our annual holiday open house this Sunday. I decorate. Nicholas cooks. All our friends come over and we have a wonderful afternoon spreading a little holiday cheer (and mint chocolate chip cake... YUM!) 

Check out Salt & Nectar for all the details!

Gingerbread House Party

Inspired to shake it up this holiday season, I decided to host a small gingerbread house party for Griffin and his friends after school. I am now an expert on all the gingerbread tips and tricks so if you want to know what works best to glue the houses or if you want to just see some cute kids and their creations, click on over to Salt & Nectar to see all the details!