Hogwarts Finale

Divination is a class taught by Professor Trelawny. It focuses on reading the stars, crystal ball gazing, the reading of tea leaves and predictions. But Mardi took over this class and tried to predict who brought which presents. (Tersa had been outside as the guests arrived to make sure that they knew how to get onto platform 9 3/4. She kept the gifts with her so that Mardi wouldn't see who brought what.) And that ended our "day".
We went outside to take some pictures and then the girls wanted to do some more potion making. We opened the garage and waited in there for parents to pick up the girls. All in all it was a fabulous party and Mardi quite enjoyed it. We had fun participating and planning too. Thank heaven it's over!!!


Thanks to everyone who participated. Especially the Professors! They got into their roles and it added to the fun.

Some more Hogwarts

Flying class, taught by Madam Hooch (Tersa) was after Care of Magical Creatures. She instructed them in the art of flying and taught them a bit about Quidditch. They ran a relay on brooms, holding a "quaffle." The Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff team won. They were awarded Berttie Botts Every Flavor Beans boxes we had made.

Professor McGonagall (me again. She is who does the sorting ceremony too.) substituted in Muggle Studies where we played Pin the Scar on Harry Potter. We know he's not a muggle but he had to live with some and knows quite a bit about them! Bree and Hannah were awfully close in that game and the poster I had made of Harry was given to Bree.

We headed back inside for Charms class. Professor Flitwick(Bishop Gates. Our old bishop who does magic tricks and is a Harry Potter fan also.) was all set up and with a high pitched, squeaky voice, began to show us some "spells." He pulled things out of a handkerchief, made ripped tissue paper fix itself and spell out Mardi's name in the process and did tricks with ripped money and a newspaper that mended themselves. He had the students participate with him on a couple of his charms and when they did not pull it off as he had, he told them they all failed. The students were captivated and impressed.

More Hogwarts

So, after potions the students took their concotions to the feast with them. The cake was Harry Potter glasses with one lense being a yellow cake and the other being chocolate. Troll nail (Rocky Road) ice cream was chosen to compliment the meal.
Classes resumed with History of Magic which is taught by Professor Binns, a ghost (me dressed all in white.) We played a game where one person has a name taped to their back and shows it to everyone else. Then they ask 10 questions to try to guess who the character is. Mardi chose characters that would be difficult to guess and we found that some of our guests are not quite the fans we are! But they enjoyed the process anyway. Next it was outside to attend Care of Magical Creatures with Professor Hagrid. (Justin Wilson who stands at 6'4" and could seem quite formidable standing amidst 9 & 10 year olds.) He proceeded to give some instruction on owls before conducting a game called Hooting Hedwig. (Hedwig is the name of Harry's pet owl.) The students stand in a circle with a blindfolded student in the middle. As the student in the middle is turned around, the ones in the circle pass around an empty bottle. When Hagrid said stop, whoever had the bottle had to blow into it and the one in the middle had to guess who was hooting. If they guessed correctly, the person blowing was then in the middle.

Hogwarts continued

After the sorting, the new students were supposed to attend the beginning of Term feast (cake and ice cream) but I mistakenly sent them to their first class...Potions... in the dungeons (garage.) Professor Snape had church obligations (!?) and could only be present for the first 45 min. of the party and I was so concerned to be done with him on time that I got this part out of order. But the girls didn't seem to even notice.
Professor Snape first expressed his disappointment at not having any Slytherins in the class with the "predisposition" for potions. Then he began his class by introducing the ingredients that were available. On the table in the dungeons were four liquids. Dragon's blood-red (kool-aid), crushed Mermaid tail- blue (gatorade), Essence of newt-pink (raspberry lemonade from concentrate) and pressed pixie wing-clear (7-up). Then there were grub worms (sour gummies), mandrakes (sour patch kids), exploding crystals (pop rocks) and dry ice.
The girls made their potions and when they were finished they took them to Professor Snape for dry ice. The first one bubbled and spilled over and Professor Snape gave comments and a C- grade. He then graded each of the students as they presented their potions.

Welcome to Hogwarts

An invitation to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry comes by owl in the form of an acceptance letter. Enclosed is a list of equipment that will be needed. Our guests letters were worded in it's traditional way and had the Hogwarts seal on the back.
To get to Hogwarts, one must go through the wall between platforms 9 & 10 at the train station in order to get to platform 9 3/4 where the Hogwarts Express awaits to transport the students. Once inside, the guests were given a quiz and played a jelly bean counting game and participated in a jelly bean tasting contest while they waited for other guests. Once the results of the quiz were tallied, we went to our sorting ceremony. Each guest came to the chair and had the sorting hat placed on their head. The other guests guessed which house they thought that person would be in and then the sorting hat revealed the houses they were in. Mardi was placed in Griffindor. Her friends divided into Hufflepuff and Griffindor with one friend being in Ravenclaw. It's good to know that we do not have to question any of Mardi's friendships because none of them ended up in Slytherin!! After their house was announced, we awarded them a wand and an official house badge to put on their "robes."
More later!

Mardi

Look how this baby's grown. We got Mardi's 10 year portraits done and she looked so long and big I just wanted to post a comparison.

The little girls have been sick since Sat. night so we haven't done much. They are on the mend now. Everyone is back in school (except Keddi, who will return today) and we're trying to get well and stay well for Mardi's party on Sat. I'll have lots of pictures to post from that I'm sure!

Barber Girls Wed

Yes it's true. Of course, it's not the first time. I don't remember pretending things like this when I was young. Most of my pretending happened out of doors, in trees and such. Anyway, an elaborate thing was orchestrated mostly by the older girls and carried out by the younger ones. (Who have never needed help in the past but it was much more involved this time.)

Mardi's birthday

We had your basic Ice Cream and Cake birthday with presents from Mom and Dad and the Wilsons to open. But this year Grandma Dory was in town. Mardi got the DVD of High School Musical and some tiny little dogs in a collection. A third present had been sold out (Christmas ya know!) and hoepfully can be purchased and included in the friend party that she will have later this month.

Happy Birthday Mardi

We now have another child in double digits!! A tenth birthday allows for a party with friends. That will come later in the month. It is a Hogwarts themed party and our plans have been fun to put together. When I have pictures of the event, I will elaborate. But we haven't celebrated with cake, ice cream and presents yet today so those pictures will get posted later too. So tune in next time!

New Years weekend

We love having visitors! This weekend Uncle Caleb and Aunt Marcie came down from Bountiful with Uncle Micah and Aunt Katy who live in Provo to spend New Years weekend with us. On Saturday we went to the park and played some frisbee golf. Afterward a game of tag started and then some piggy-back frisbee. The girls did quite well with their catching. Tersa and Caleb, imparticular, made some pretty fabulous catches . We had a weekend of board games and side splitting (almost literally) laughter. We enjoyed having our company and hope that they enjoyed themselves too.
Happy New Year to all!!