Harry Potter Day

Last Sunday we celebrated our 4th annual Harry Potter Day. As usual we had a magical time! Tyson whipped up some pumpkin juice (apple juice, pineapple juice, and canned pumpkin with whip cream on top) while I made the magic potion (clam chowder) and dished it into cauldrons (bread bowls.)  We also did our magic divination drinks this year and oddly enough each kid ended up with the same color of drink as last year. Maybe there really is something to this divination thing? Perhaps I'm more of a seer than even Professor Trelawney?!

Then, since it's our 4th year, we went with ideas from the fourth book, The Goblet of Fire, for our activities.  We held our own Triwizard tournament! Lexi was Fleur (though initially Zac drew Fleurs name from the cup, but he didn't want to be a girl!) Drake was Victor Krum, hence the warm winter hat.  I would have preferred a fur cap but I didn't have one handy.  Garrett got to be Harry Potter and I drew glasses on his face with halloween markers. Zac was Cedric Diggory.  It's a little more difficult to give Cedric a prop so he wore a nice shirt since Cedric is so handsome.

We played three games.....errrr....had three challenges to test each wizards magical abilities and courage.  First they had to spin in circles to wrap a whole roll of toilet paper around themselves without breaking it.  This was actually a lot easier than I had expected it to be.

Then we played Wizard Pong where you had to bounce ping pong balls into cups and the one with the highest score won that round.

We also did a ring toss game. That is not a party hat, it's a witch hat. What can I say? It's hard to find witch hats in August!

In the end, Fleur was a our big winner and earned the right to display the Goblet of Fire in her own room and to eat the treasure of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans found within.

We did something new this year and talked about a quote by Albus Dumbledore and discussed what it meant. I figured we might as well throw a little character development lesson in with all our fun.  

Then even those who didn't win the tournament were mollified by a trip to Honeydukes to stock up on some magical treats. Honeydukes appears to have expanded it's business since we visited last year! Sometimes this mom gets a little too excited about planning made up parties about fictional characters!

They all got to take their treats to eat while watching The Goblet of Fire.  I'd say every one had a really great Harry Potter Day!