Harry Potter Party

Back in December Colin decided he really really wanted a Harry Potter birthday party. I told him we could have a party but that would be his birthday gift from us. We couldn't afford to do both gifts and party. He was fine with that (smart boy ended up with cool gifts from his friends at the party :) and we started planning. He had lots of ideas and wrote out a bunch of lists for me.
Then I showed him pinterest (with harry potter party typed in the search box) and he went nuts. We had so much fun looking for ideas together. We spent a couple of his days off school making Wands for party favors. We had lots of fun doing this together and thanks to the internet great ideas and resources and the Dollar Tree for being so cheap we had a great party!

The Invites:


The entrance:

A blog had a free download of the letters and number so I just had to paint, cut, & glue on some of Ben's scrap wood.


I wasn't going to do the brick wall curtain b/c of the cost & time but then I went into the thrift store and hanging right in the middle was a brick colored sheet and a pack of 12 unused red cloth napkins for $2.99 so I couldn't pass them up. I surprised Colin with the entrance stuff but then Ben forgot to bring in him the front door so he didn't see it until then end :)

The Great Hall


Olivander's Wand Shop:

We found a you tube video online that showed us how to make wands out of paper, elmers glue, newspaper, hot glue and paint. I had everything but the gold paint so they were really cheap, a blast to make with the boys, and turned out really cool!


A stop at Gringotts:

Each kid was given a bag to hold the "Galloens" they would earn during the party. The bags were made out of the thrifted napkins.
The Food:

Colin & Ben made lots of chocolate frogs that were a huge hit with the kids.


All the moms LOVED (and kids too) the Cockroach clusters (recipe here)






Love Potion:

This stuff was a riot b/c all the kids were scared to drink it! They didn't want to fall in Love :) Then some brave ones dared to try it and they all gave it. It is the Shuman's punch recipe( 1 thing of ginger ale/7 up to one thing raspberry sherbet) that makes a nice foam on top to look like a potion.

The "Potter's Pizza" Feast:


Potions Class:

This was a lot of fun. We made the Felix Felicis "Liquid Luck" potion that bubbled and changed colors 3 times!

Quidditch Game:


Next was the funniest thing ever. I bought 3 little boxes of the official Harry Potter jelly beans online (they are super expensive! Found mine for $2 each and that was a steal but they were SO worth the $10) I just didnt' take any pictures. We all sat in a circle and took turns closing our eyes, picking a bean, and eating it. Half of them are yummy flavors and the rest are gross-vomit, sausage, soap, booger, earthworm, pepper, rottenegg, earwax, etc.) Each kid had a little cup to spit it into if they didn't like it. We had a few strong players that were able to swallow the gross ones but it was so funny. We all laughed the whole time!

Next we sang Happy Birthday to Colin and ate cupcakes. They have cake balls on top that are supposed to be the Golden Snitch but they turned out looking like Yoda heads so we called them the Troll/Dobby cupcakes :)


Before leaving the kids were able to stop at HoneyDukes Candy Shop to spend their earned money. There were yummy things like: Dumbledore's Favorite Lemon Drops, Broobles best blowing gum, Blood Pops, Hagrid's Rock cakes, Acid Pops, Bertie Bott's beans (just walmart's version of jelly bellies so no vomit ones here), Jelly slugs, and their own little vial of Liquid Luck.




Colin and his friend Nathan from church



All the Wizards and a couple Witches! I forget to say we did have a SPELLS class to learn some cool spells with our wands too.




This is Ross & Melissa Quijano from our ward. I visit teach Melissa and Ross is like a superhero to the boys. He is a huge kid in a grown up body and LOVES star wars, legos, harry potter, etc. so Colin just loves him and wanted to invite him. They were so nice to come and help out and play with neglected Evrett.








My parents, Jess & John came to play. It was fun having them and being able to celebrate Colin's birthday with them


We didn't get any pictures of Ben but he was here for most of the party. He was on picture duty :) He is on the night shifts so he got home at 10am, slept till 4:00, got up to help me for an hour, helped a TON at the party, then headed to work just before 7:00pm.


Colin had a great time! And almost everyone he invited came. I loved having something FUN to do and think about and make while Ben has been working the worst schedule ever this past month. And this was the easiest group of boys I have ever had for a party. I don't know if its the age....getting older....but I didn't have a headache or anything by the time it was over. They were all great!

First Snow Storms this Year!

We finally got some snow this year. One day it was 55 degrees and we were at the park in our t-shirts and the next it snowed 6 inches! Then a week later another 8" but it has since warmed up, rained, and melted all away leaving a fun brown muddy mess :) The snow was fun while it lasted!



Brannon is an EXCELLENT shoveler. Both boys helped shovel the front walk then Colin got tired and went it. Brannon helped me for at least another 30 minutes as we did the back sidewalk and driveway. Such a huge help!

Hopefully we will get some more before spring. I think Grammy & Grandpa J. (in Seattle) have had more then us! They lost their power for a few days b/c of all the tree branches breaking from the weight of it. Crazy!

Colin

My wonderful grown up help! I will write more about him a bit after his Birthday that is tomorrow. I really can't believe he is turning 8! That is when most of my childhood memories begin and I remember feeling SO GROWN UP. He is truly a wonderful boy. He is a huge help and gives up a lot to help me and maintain peace with his brothers.

He babysat today for the first time! Well, kinda. Ben was home sleeping since he is on the night shift so if something really bad happened Colin would have help but Ben is really really hard to wake up. Anyway, I ran to the store which ended up taking an hour b/c I had to go to 3 stores to get what I needed but he did great! He played Bingo with Evrett and let him pick the movie to watch. I was proud of him.

He is doing good in school. He is very smart but doesn't really care about grades. He will bring tests home with a 80% b/c of silly mistakes. He goes way too fast through his work and it doesn't bother him. He was on the same math level for months when his teacher emailed me saying he needs to pass it and move on or else he won't qualify for the advanced program next year. She told me to practice the problems with him. I did for about 30 seconds before realizing he knows every single answer. He just gets bored in the test (of 100 questions) and thinks about fun things instead of finishing within the alloted time. SO I told him I'd give him $10 for every level he passed. He came home the next time with a 99% (the one he missed was a bad copy) and has moved on to the next level.

He just finished reading the first Harry Potter which is 4th grade reading level. His teacher told him to take the AR test for it but to not expect to do very good since he is only in 2nd grade. He got 15 out of 20 right...she was amazed. It makes me sad that teachers peg him for mis-behaving and attention problems when really it is their boring teaching methods and lack of challenge. She told him Harry Potter was too hard for him to read b/c it was above his tested reading lever...well since reading it his tested level has shot up much higher. He just needs a challenge!

Like I said, I will write more about him later :)

Brannon

Brannon is a huge help with Evrett....either that or they are WORST enemies and can fight like cats and dogs. But I have to give Brannon props for teaching Evrett to use the toilet for #2. He totally coached him through the whole thing and made Evrett think it was funny so he now goes all the time.



Brannon has also been a great student. He gets good grades, although he doesn't care. He forgets his homework and hasn't progressed in his AR reading level just because he forgets/doesn't want to take the computer tests. The program has him at a 1.0 reading level which is picture books with a sentence or two on a page, but then he comes home and reads easy chapter books at night before bed. He sas been on the Green (best) behavior level ALL YEAR except for one day when sub made him go on yellow but he didn't know why. He said he was putting his game away when she suddenly yelled to take his green out, so I told him that doesn't count :)

He has a HOT temper like his Uncle Cameron and I'm thinking a punching bag might be a good future investment.

His worst house chore is folding clothes. he hates it and it takes him HOURS to finish a dinkly little pile. He is great at cleaning up Evrett's room or making his bed, and washing/loading the dishes.

If asked for his favorites the only thing he can say is his favorite food -Donuts. Everything else (toy, movie, color, friend, dinner etc.) changes all the time...not because he gets sick of it but it's more like he just loves everything and can't decide. His current new favorite colors are "the dull ones like black, white, and grey"

He is still my best eater. He will try almost anything I make for dinner and half the time will finish it but eating fruit/veggies in his packed school lunch is hard for them...he says they get weird and taste funny.

Silly Kid

I think Evrett is our silliest kid yet. He loves to laugh and have a good time. The other day he asked me to take his picture and as I was getting the camera he got ready to pose by pulling his pajama pants way up high and sticking his finger in his nose. After I took the picture he just laughed and laughed at how funny he is.


Whenever we go outside and it's windy he panics and runs to me saying "I'm going to blow away mom! SAVE ME!"

He likes to tackle Brannon, stick his feet in his face and say "Smell my feet Brannon!"

Then one day the boys were bored and built a slide out of our folding table, which was cool! Until Evrett took his turn...AHHH!!!


He actually took quite well to the whole potty thing. He has only had a couple accidents One was with Ben at Walmart. Afterwards I couldn't figure out why Ben was so grumpy so I asked him what was wrong. He looked as if something HORRIBLE had happened and said Evrett peed his pants at the store and...gasp...Ben had to pick him up with wet pants! Totally ruined his whole afternoon :) On the outside I showed real empathy for such a disaster but on the inside I was cracking up because 1. for the past month he has been on trama and {literally} been up to his elbows in other peoples' blood and crap but his own sons pee it just too much and 2. thinking of all the times I've had our kids bodily fluids on me...so many that it doesn't even phase me anymore. However the other peoples' blood does really get to me and I won't go near him when he comes home until he has changed his clothes (which usually don't have blood on them b/c they were gowns) and we even had to throw out his Asics shoes b/c of it

He has also become quite the chatter box and LOVES to talk. But also loves to direct the conversation. He gets mad at me often for not responding to him with the right words. He HATES when I say "uh huh" or "yep" or "yes" or "yeah" He wants to me respond in complete sentences..."Yes, Evrett you are right. That toy is a dinosaur" Sometimes it drives me crazy.

For the last couple weeks we've been planning Colin's birthday party AND we've had 3 other parties to go to. So parties are really on Evrett's brain right now. Everytime he sees something he wants he says "Ok mom. I want dat at my burfday party." So far he is having an "Obi-Wan Kenobi, Thomas Train, Bob the builder, Wizard, popcorn, juicebox, HOT DOG Party" He is a funny funny kid.

His silliness must wear him out b/c he is still a good sleeper!


He shares his food with Toby Dog.


For a few weeks he insisted on wearing this silky b-ball jersey (that aunt ica bought Colin years ago) under all his clothes. One {very cold!} day we were shopping and he got HOT in all his layers. So while everyone else had on sweaters and coats he was in his sleeveless jersey eating sherbet.

http://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-death-of-pretty

Anniversary

Welcome to LegoLand in Johnsonville

The boys got tons and tons of legos from Christmas. Some from Grandpa & Grammy J and some from Santa. They built them within a couple days and did them all by themselves! Ben helped with the HUGE Star Wars one but that was it. Many were labeled for kids up to 14 so I was pretty proud of their lego building skills. I was also very proud of them for sharing their pieces and helping eachother out.

Another Baby Quilt

I finally finished the last baby quilt for Haylee & Lily. I bought the fabric from mom's friends fabric shop and worked on it for a few months. It is my first free motion quilt I have ever done and it was a lot of fun.