Happy Birthday to MEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Today was my 30th Birthday party. (My actual birthday is Tuesday). For over a month now I have been working and planning and buying and cooking and carving and sewing and crafting and generally spending all my free time getting this thing together. I wanted to do something extra special for my birthday this year, 30 is a big birthday, and I haven't had a party since I was in the single digits! I came up with several ideas of things we could do before I finally decided to host a Murder Mystery party. And what better theme than Harry Potter?? I made each guest a hand carved wand as a party favor,

made TONS of delicious food, costumes for Jon and I, made and bought decorations and then finally, the day arrived!! I spent all morning getting the decorations just right at Mom and Dad's house,














then we had lunch, went home to get some more stuff ready and got dressed in our costumes.





and came back to get the rest of the food ready.





















at 5:30 I picked up the baby sitter and dropped him off at home with the kids then rushed back for final details before our guests arrived.
As everyone came in I got pictures,









then we played Harry Potter Scene it while we waited for everyone to get here.




Once all the guests had arrived, we handed out the scrolls with our info on them, what we knew and saw, and explained how the mystery was played. Then we opened the buffet and people started sleuthing and eating. After a while we paused the mystery for the presenting of the wands. Jon had prepared Bio's of all the wands to read to our guests. They were HILARIOUS! He introduced himself as Fred, and told us that he and George had come across a batch of wonderful wands (that happened to be salvaged from the reject bin from Olivanders) He picked up each wand, told the story of what it was and such then I chose a name from the "Goblet of Air" to determine who got each wand. I think everyone liked the stories and their party favors!

After everyone had a proper wand we began the "Duel" . We faced off against each other answering questions from the Harry Potter Scene it cards. We stood facing each other and had to call out the answers like they were spells!





Then we had some more time for chatting/sleuthing before pulling out the Harry Potter Pictionary I had prepared. Everyone did a great job guessing and drawing!

















We finished our sleuthing while we played the game and finally it was time to make our guesses. Everyone voted for "who dun it" and also for the best sleuth, the best actor and the best dressed. Everyone talked while I tallied up the votes. Luna won best sleuth, Bellatrix best Actor and Harry best dressed. Then I opened up the solution envelope and reviled that the majority was correct, we had solved the mystery!
Then it was time for CAKE. Since Ron was Petrified, we needed some Mandrake to fix him up. It was awesome, when everyone sang Happy Birthday, almost everyone said "Cho" instead of "Shannon" I loved it!!








We all sat and ate cake and chatted a bit longer, removing and trading wigs and enjoying each others company before it was time for everyone to go.








Thank you to everyone who came and made my birthday a special one! I had such an amazing time! Also, a special thank you to Harry, Hermione, Luna and Neville for staying late and helping me clean up all the decorations.

I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate my 30th birthday.