Time flew by this October! Ammon and I were planning on having the Powell kids over for a sleepover BEFORE Halloween, but it ended up happening the day after. Oh well. It just meant we didn't need to buy as much candy!
I took the Hogwarts Letter and the List of Supplies and rolled them together. I also printed off on cardstock some owls. I tied the rolled up letters onto the feet of the owls - you know, so it looked like the owls were delivering the lettters ;) While we were at Grandma Dietz's house, I went outside and hung one above each child's seat, so that when they went out to the car, they'd have their own owl waiting to deliver their Hogwarts letter to them! Melissa said they went so crazy because they were so excited. There was a debate among the kids as to whether they were going to the REAL Hogwarts, or to Ammon and Allison's house! Avri is such a crack-up when it comes to Harry Potter. Believing in Harry Potter is like believing in Santa Clause for her. She was SO positive they were going to the REAL Hogwarts!
The evening started off when we reviewed how House Points work. You can get them by being good and by answering questions, but if you're too noisy or if you're not being nice, they could be taken away. Of course, we had rubies (printed on cardstock) since that is what Gryffindor uses! Avri asked me how many rubies they had to earn and what the prize was; good thing I use to be a teacher, thinking on my feet with questions like that come fairly easily. They had to earn 20 rubies to be able to watch the movie.
We were watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, so we planned the activities based off of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
We went outside where we had a golden egg (ball of caramel corn wrapped in plastic wrap so we could eat it later)and each child took turns being a dragon guarding the egg, and the one trying to get it before the dragon tagged them. Successfully getting the egg = 1 ruby
Next, instead of going swimming in a lake searching for their best friends, we bobbed for apples! I wasn't sure how well the kids would like this, but they absolutely LOVED it! It might have helped that we used warm water. They all wanted to keep playing this game over and over! Getting the apple = 1 ruby (which they earned a lot of rubies because they wanted to keep playing...)
Although we proved our green thumb abilities with our garden this past summer, we weren't feeling up to the task of growing shrubs into a maze. So instead we practiced for going into the maze. I had made a simple question game on PowerPoint using their Charms knowledge. Just simple questions about different charms/spells. 1 correctly answered question = 1 ruby. I asked Avri before we started if she wanted to be on her own team, or if she wanted it to be 2 kids vs 2 kids. She chose to have Rigdon on her team, because then it would be like she was on her own team. So Ammon helped out Sadie and Talmage (only a little). Although throughout the game she kept saying it wasn't fair because occasionally Ammon was helping Talmage and Sadie, I think she answered more questions correctly! Lol!
We counted up the rubies they had earned, they had earned almost 30(phew!)! If they hadn't earned 20, I'm not sure what I would have done next, because I was planning on watching the movie! During the movie we snacked on caramel corn; and about half way through the movie we took a break to have some ButterBeer. I made it out of slushy cream soda and coolwhip that had butterscotch flavor in it. We drank it in The Great Hall which I decorated with floating candles and pumpkins! It added a really fun touch! Talmage was funny because after drinking his first glass, he asked for "more beer, but no butter." A few weeks later Rigdon asked me, "Remember when we drank beer at your house?" I just started cracking up laughing because I can only imagine him in nursery at church telling how his Aunt Allison gives him beer...I reminded him that it was really just soda pop.
After the movie, it was super late, so we quickly got ready for bed and went to sleep! In the morning we had "Quiditch Pancakes" for breakfast. I made yellow pancakes that had wings coming out of them for the Snitches and then the kids wanted all the different balls that are used in Quiditch so we also made Quaffals and Bludgers!
It was another successful and SO much fun party!!
Elise says that instead of taking her kids to Disneyland someday, she is just going to fly them to your house because you have so much fun!!!
ReplyDeleteI loved the owls in the car. That would be a blast to find when you sat down in the car!
You are an amazing aunt!!!