Ella's Harry Potter Birthday Party

After some arm twisting, I was able to convince Ella to let me host a Harry Potter themed birthday party for her friend party this year.  Since Ella is not an avid reader like Lia was at 10 years old, she has not read the Harry Potter books and doesn't love these stories like Lia did at this age.  But since I spent hours and hours preparing for Lia's 10th birthday party, I really wanted to be able to reuse all of the decorations and activity ideas that I created for Lia's party since I just don't have the time or energy to start all over again for another themed party of Ella's choice.  After giving Ella permission to binge watch six of the eight movies earlier in the month, Ella warmed up to the idea and actually started to get excited to host this party.  We invited over twenty girls and learned that several could not come due to it being Easter weekend or Spring Break in their school district.  As a result, we ended up with twelve girls coming which ended up being a perfect sized group.  Ella had friends from school, church, gymnastics, and theater.  Everyone was so polite and well-behaved.  We followed the same schedule for Ella's party as we did for Lia's party with a craft and then several games before opening gifts and finishing off with cupcakes and ice cream.  Ella was kind enough to let Emmett participate in the entire party and everyone seemed to have a great time.  Ella loved having so many of her friends under our roof at the same time and thoroughly enjoyed playing games and opening her gifts.

To help Ella get more excited for this party, I ordered a cute, Harry Potter birthday shirt from etsy.  She combined it with Lia's old Hogwarts cape, a pair of Luna Lovegood sunglasses, and a wand for her party outfit. She looked so cute for the party.

A close-up of Ella with her party outfit on.

Like last time, my good friend, Wendy, allowed me to go through her amazing collection of Harry Potter items to borrow as decorations for the party.  This is what our table in the foyer looked like after entering our house.

Just like with Lia's party, I had an owlery set up after walking under the flying keys hanging from the ceiling.

In addition to decorating the mantle in the family room, we decorated two tables with Gryffindor colors.  We also hung floating candles from the ceiling.

A close-up of the head table where Ella sat with half of the girls.

The second table complete with cupcakes, candles, and broomsticks.

As the girls arrived to the party, we offered them the chance to put on a lightening-bolt tattoo on their forehead or somewhere else on their body.  Most girls chose to put it on their neck which cracked me up.

I think that Emmett was the only one who had Ron put the tattoo on his forehead.

We then headed out to the garage for the craft activity.  All of the girls made snitches out of styrofoam balls and yellow feathers.  Lia thought of this craft all on her own six years ago.

We then came back inside for the girls to play "Pin the lightening bolt on Harry's face."  Here is Ella's friend, Addy, putting her lightening bolt on the poster we made for Lia' party.

We then played a game where the girls had to throw an actual Quaffle ball into a ring cut out from a poster board while standing from three different lines taped on the floor in our family room.  Here is Gracie throwing the ball from the first line.

Here is Ella throwing the ball from the middle line.

We then played "hot potato" with a wand.  The circle shrunk down to only two girls after everyone had been eliminated one round at a time.

We finished off with the games by playing the funniest one of them all.  The girls had to eat one of the Bernie Botts Every Flavored Beans after spinning a spinner that would tell them what color to choose from of a box.  Some bean candies were delicious and others were disgusting.  Luckily, we provided a little garbage can for both groups of girls to spit into if they chose a disgusting flavored bean.

Ella then had the chance to open up gifts from all of her friends.  Here she is reading the card from one of her good theater friends, Gianna.

Ella opening up a gift from one of her gymnastics buddy, Lily.

Ella opening up another gift from her gymnastics friend, Annabelle.

Ella reading a card from Addy, one of her close friends from school.

A group shot of all of the girls before we headed to the kitchen for dessert.

From left to right:

Back row:  Madelyn, Aria, Ella, Addy, Gianna, Gracie, Landon

Front row:  Annabelle, Everly, Lily, Evie, Elif, Payton

Ella making a funny face while her friends sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

The entire table smiling for me while they enjoyed eating their cupcakes, ice cream, and punch.

Ella's State Championship Gymnastics Meet

In the midst of a very busy second weekend of performing in three more Annie productions, Ron and I accompanied Ella to compete in Tacoma at the state championship gymnastics meet.  She was assigned a 6 pm report time for a 6:30 start time just a few days ago.  As a result, I had to have a very difficult conversation with her theater director, asking for permission for Ella to miss the Saturday evening performance.  Luckily, since Ella had been assigned an orphan ensemble role with only one line, her director was understanding of our situation and kindly gave me permission to pull Ella from the performance which was such a relief!  Since Ella's meet didn't start until 6:30 pm, she competed on all four of her events past 9 pm.  By the time the medal ceremony ended, it was 10 o'clock on the dot.  In Ella's two years of competitive gymnastics, she has never been assigned to an evening meet, so this was definitely a first for her and me!  Needless to say, the three of us were very tired by the time we got home at 10:30 pm and I got Ella to bed at 11:05 after she had a snack and a bath to wash out all of the hair gel and glitter out in her hair.

Regardless of the busy weekend and late meet time, Ella did an excellent job competing in all four of her events.  She received her highest scores of the season in vault and on beam and received her highest all around score of the season.  Her scores for each events were:  Bars: 9.425, Beam: 8.925, Floor: 9.05, Vault: 9.325.  With an all around score of 36.725, Ella came in 6th place which meant that she is the sixth best gymnast in our state in her age group for Level 3 which is a huge accomplishment!  Since only the top nine girls receive a medal in each age group, Ella was called up to the blocks to receive a medal during the ceremony.  Ron and I are so proud of her and of how hard she has worked this school year, especially while juggling several hours of theater rehearsal on top of 12 hours of gymnastics practice during the summer, fall, and winter months.  She is an extremely determined, focused, and hard-working girl when it comes to pursuing her passions.  Well done, Ella!  We are so proud of you!

Ella mounting the beam at the beginning of her routine.

Ella doing a handstand...

and landing her leap.

Coach Chad giving Ella a pep talk before the start of her floor routine.  Ella said that after he gives her advice on specific floor skills, he always says, "You're an actress, so you got this!"

Ella starting off her routine.

Ella doing her handstand into a forward roll.

Kicking over from a bridge.

Sliding into the splits.

Finishing off the routine with her ending pose.

Ella running to jump on the spring board of the vault.

Going into her bounder.

Flying over the mat and...

landing on her feet.

Ella starting her bar routine.

Completing a double, back hip circle.

Completing her front hip circle.

Ella doing a cast.

Ella in bird perch before...

leaping off into her dismount.

Sticking the landing and saluting the judges.

Ella came in 6th place overall for her age group in Level 3.  Here she is walking up to the stage to receive her medal.

Taking her medal from one of the meet staff.

Ella and the rest of the gymnasts saluting the crowd after receiving their medals.

A proud Ella showing off her medal at the end of a very late night!

Way to go, Ella!

Ella Performs in Annie!

Ella just finished up two whirlwind weekends performing a total of six shows of Annie at Northwest Theatre Lab.  She has been juggling rehearsals two days a week on top of 12 hours of gymnastics practice and a weekly Matilda practice since the middle of January.  Just like in the fall, Ella had something every day after school, five days a week, and two activities on Saturday.  Thanks to her endless amounts of energy, Ella maintained this crazy schedule for over two months and really loved every minute of it.  She was cast as one of the younger orphans in the ensemble and thoroughly enjoyed learning all of the songs and fun choreography to go with them.  She also was in this play with several of her theater friends and had a great time being with them at every rehearsal.  In addition, Annie was a double feature with the musical, Oliver, which meant that Ella was able to participate in one of their opening scenes, too.  I was able to go and see Annie three times and absolutely loved watching Ella perform as an orphan.  She did such a great job singing and dancing and even performed a back handspring on a wooden stage during "You're Not Fully Dressed Without a Smile."  Overall, this was a wonderful experience for Ella and I am so grateful that she was able to fit this play into her busy schedule!

Ella singing with the other orphans during "It's the Hard-Knock Life."

Ella and the other orphans scrubbing the floor while singing.

Ella making a very dramatic face while singing, "It's the Hard-Knock Life."

Ella helping a group of girls carry one of the orphans in the air.

Getting ready to hide Annie in Mr. Bundle's laundry cart.

Ella laying a sheet on top of Annie to help hide her from Miss Hannigan.

Annie singing with Sandy at her side.

Ella performing in N.Y.C.

The one other role Ella had in this play was to perform as an usherette with her friend, Gianna.  Here they are directing Annie where to sit in the movie theater.

Ella and Gianna moving out the bench for Annie, Grace, and Mr. Warbucks to sit on for the movie.

Ella fighting over a Christmas gift with another orphan during the final scene of the play.

Ella with two of the other orphans at the Christmas party singing, "Tomorrow."

Ella waving to the audience after taking her bow.

Ella performing in "Food Glorious Food" in Oliver.

Since Oliver ran so late, Ron and Emmett slipped out (with my parents and Rebecca) after watching Ella perform in her second show on March 16th.  As a result, I was only able to get a picture with Logan and me after the show was over.

Since Bye Bye Birdie did not perform on Sundays, Lia was able to come to see Ella's third show with me on March 17th.  Here are the two girls posing together after Oliver was over.  Ella had a few other friends from school and gymnastics come to watch her in one of her six shows.

Ella's good friend from school, Elise, also played the role of an orphan in Annie.  Here is a photo that I was able to take of the two girls in their matching, Annie shirts after their final show on March 24th.