A Little Hobbit

A few months before Max turned 9 I read him The Hobbit. It was just the right level for him, with the right amount of action and adventure, so that he was immediately taken with it and all things Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. He pestered me non-stop to be allowed to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It has been about 20 years since I last read it and I remembered it as enjoyable but so very long and thought it'd probably be quite difficult for a 9-year-old, but decided to let him have a go, expecting him to give up pretty quickly. I also started reading the books again at the same time, so he could ask me questions and talk about them with me. I have really enjoyed them, but am only just now nearing the end of the second book, when Max finished the third several weeks ago! It's amazing how being passionate about something is such a great motivator! 

For his birthday we took him to Hobbiton, where the village scenes in The Hobbit were filmed. That was a magical place - even hubby who is not a Hobbit/LOTR fan enjoyed the tour. Needless to say, Max LOVED it!

Drinks at the Green Dragon. Beer and ginger beer brewed on-site.

For his birthday I even made him a Hobbit hole cake :)

A Harry Potter Birthday

For me, one of the greatest joys of having children is observing their imaginative play and encouraging them to wonder and consider all possibilities. I love that my two still believe in magic, despite so much evidence to the contrary. In spite of innumerable fruitless efforts of conjuring with a wand, of trying but failing to see the tooth fairy, and never stopping to question how their toys wrote on their blackboard, they still believe. They want to believe, so they do.

I love reading to my boys at night - watching their huge, emotional reactions to stories, even those we have read hundreds of times. We have recently started reading the Harry Potter series. We are up to Book 3, The Prisoner of Azkaban, but will leave it there for a few years, as the subsequent books become a lot darker and scarier for youngsters. They have loved the books, as do I. They imagine a world where magic is real, where good triumphs over evil, where baddies always get what is coming to them, where kids can be heroes. Naturally this has spilled over into their play and it has been lovely to watch.

Yesterday Max turned 8 (EIGHT!).  As it was his turn to have a party this year - we decided several years ago that a party every year was too much, so the boys take turns- Max decided on a Harry Potter theme and I was happy to oblige. It is such a magical (ha!) theme and there are so many amazing ideas on the interweb and Pinterest, that I ran with it.

THE INVITATIONS:
Hogwarts letters, train tickets enclosed, were sealed with a crest and sent via Owl.

THE DECORATIONS:
We had spiders, House posters, a daily timetable, potions ready for a class, an Owlery, and Platform 9 3/4 just inside the front door.

THE FOOD: 

We had frankfurter wands, treacle tart, fruit kebabs, mini cheese and pretzel broomsticks, rice krispies, sweet and sour meatballs, chips, buns, and jelly beans. 

The crowd pleaser by far was the Polyjuice Potion, which I forgot to photograph until it was nearly all gone - lemonade (as in Sprite) with lime icecream.

Half of my food ideas and labels came from Just Sweet and Simple. 

THE GOLDEN SNITCH CAKE:

I finally settled on a Golden Snitch cake and procured a hemisphere cake tin. I decided to do a vanilla flavour on the top and my favourite chocolate cake on the bottom and to cover the two halves separately with ganache, joining them together with a buttercream.

I don't have a cake turntable, but after watching YouTube videos on cake decorating, thought they looked particularly useful, so fashioned myself a makeshift one out of Lego, a chopping board and edible glue. It worked really well and I found it a lot easier to work with one, so will buy myself a proper one before the next cake.

I'm still relatively inexperienced with fondant, so the thought of a spherical fondant cake was rather daunting, to say the least. After practicing several times on a large polystyrene ball, I felt confident enough to give it a go. I used a ton of edible gold spray paint and the cake turned out really well, even if the wings ended up drooping under their own weight.

THE ACTIVITIES

After all the guests had arrived we took them on a quick trip to Diagon Alley to visit Madame Malkin's to pick up some robes (PVC tablecloths cut and taped in place, link here) and a wand from Ollivanders. The wands were wrapped in brown paper, because, as we all know, the wand chooses the wizard (less disappointment that way, too!) They also picked up their school supplies (goody bag with all the things they needed for the party).

The kids were sorted into houses in a Sorting Ceremony - a baby monitor was hidden on a shelf behind the child, so it appeared to be the Sorting Hat speaking - it was a lot of fun!

Once they were all in their houses, they decorated their blank ties with felt stripes in their house colours and then had a Charms class, where they learned the pronunciation and wand movements for a few basic spells. They practiced wingardium leviosa by incanting it and using their wands to collectively keep a balloon afloat.

The next class was Care of Magical Creatures: 10 of Hagrid's animals had escaped overnight, so they had to hunt for them outside in the "Forbidden Forest". This took them quite a while and gave us time to get the afternoon tea ready for them to eat.

After the refreshments it was time for the Potions class on the outdoor table. I had 3 experiments prepared, but we only had time for 2. We used small yogurt pottles as cauldrons and iceblock sticks to stir. The kids really enjoyed this class.

I found some neat labels online somewhere and added the names I needed in Photoshop. I used a modified version of the recipes at Mrs Nespy's World.

Basilisk Venom was a solution of dishwashing liquid and water, Dandelion Root was baking soda and food colouring, Leprechaun Tears were red, blue and yellow solutions of food colouring and water, Crushed Dragon Bones was baking soda, Unicorn Milk was normal milk, Spider Eggs were peppercorns, Acromantula Venom Powder was cornflour, Fish Brains were boiled tapioca pearls and Volatile Solution was white vinegar.

Lastly, the young witches and wizards went to Quality Quidditch Supplies, picked out a broomstick and played a haphazard game of Quidditch. I had found a good version of a real-life game, but they weren't so interested in playing by the rules - they loved running around chasing each other and for a good part of the time used the broomsticks as hockey sticks.

I managed to make 12 broomsticks out of 2 fan-shaped straw-brush brooms from the $2 shop, reusing the original tape to tie the broomsticks together.

THE GOODY BAGS

The kids picked up the start of their goody bags early on in Diagon Alley. In it they got their Magic Spells Book, a feather quill to write with, a blank tie ready to decorate, a small card with their house on it (they didn't see it until after the Sorting Ceremony), and an activity book of HP colouring, wordfinds and puzzles (in case it rained and we couldn't do our outside activities). They also got to take home their wand, broomstick and robe.

The quills were craft feathers with the ends of ballpoint pens stuck in them and the wands I made out of quality wooden chopsticks, hot glue and beads of different sizes, painted in different colours.

 All-in-all, it was a lot of work, but worth it, as a fabulous, magical time was had by all!

The 30-Second Ninja Costume All Parents Need to Know About!

My boys are obsessed with Lego, and in particular, currently, Lego Ninjago. I contemplated sewing them hoods in the 4 Ninjago colours, but a quick Google revealed the easiest Ninja costume ever - and all it takes is 30 seconds and a long sleeve t-shirt!

Slide the t-shirt on over the head normally, but stopping when the neckline is on the nose. Grab the back bottom of the t-shirt and pull it up and over the head, until it sits just above the eyes. Pull the sleeves around to the back, adjusting to get the appropriate folds around the mouth and tie sleeves together behind the head.

30 seconds! Now go and create some Ninjas!

And just like that it's nearly Christmas again!

I'm pretty sure that time is speeding up, like seriously. I cannot fathom that it is actually December again. I still feel like I'm in March, or maybe June at the latest. 

But December it is and with it comes the joy of Christmas! 

We have a rule in our house that we don't discuss anything Christmassy until Dec 1st, as Finney has his birthday at the end of November. This year he turned 5 - FIVE!! - so we had almost a full week of celebrations, with the kindy farewell, his birthday, his first day of school and a birthday party on the weekend. This hasn't left me much time over the past few weeks, but I managed to churn out the wee lads' Advent Calendars last night and this morning while they were at school. Phew. Just in time. To be honest, though, it doesn't actually matter when I start something, I always end up finishing at the last minute. Tax returns, school reports, promotional materials for the business. Always just in the nick of time. I think I actually work better under pressure. Just a bit more stressful! Anyway, that aside, their calendars are done and I am happy with them.

I have been becoming increasingly concerned that my kids are becoming too materialistic and are so busy dreaming about what they want next to appreciate what they already have. We have had lists for Santa since February this year. They pore over the Lego catalogues and painstakingly copy each set name and number down for him. They have an expectation of gifts. They aren't pleasantly surprised by or grateful for presents, but expect them. So this year, instead of our traditional gift advent calendars (Lego one here and others here), I have designed an activity one. Some Christmassy, some acts of service, some fun activities. See the list below for details. 



My design this year was taken from Willoday's simple, stylised trees, with some glittery Christmas bling. I rolled up the printed activities, taped with sparkly tape and popped them inside the trees.

 And the activities (in the super fun Budmo Jiggler font):

To Halloween or not to Halloween

Halloween. Growing up in New Zealand, this was never a big deal. In my neighbourhood it was viewed as a foreign (American) celebration. We never learned the history behind it and we never went trick-or-treating or did anything at all to mark it.

These days, however, as soon as Father's Day has passed, The Warehouse, the numerous Two Dollar shops and even the supermarkets push a plethora of plastic orange junk, hideous and often inappropriate costumes and "candy" (they're "lollies", for goodness sake!). We are bombarded with images of Halloween for almost two months, so that every little kid begins to pester their parents for costumes and to go trick-or-treating. Call me uptight, but I don't really like the idea at all. We teach our kids not to take stuff from strangers, but it's ok for them to knock on people's doors and ask for it? I'm also not a fan of the bucketfull of lollies that the kidlets end up with. Sugar, or worse, aspartame, food colouring galore, budget lollies made god knows where with god knows what. I just don't like it.

So this year, as the wee lads were so set on doing something for Halloween, we had a Halloween party with our friends from across the road. Freaky food and ghoulish games. It was fun.

We had fingers in buns, Jack-o-Lanterns (mandarins), apple and almond teeth, banana and white chocolate ghosts, choc dipped strawberries and spider mini pizzas. 

Donut Munch Game (a good replacement for Apple Bobbing) was hilarious!

And of course, a Jack-o-Lantern! The kids were busy for ages doing designs on paper, before getting their hands on the pumpkin.

Of Wings, pt ii

So we finally had occasion to wear The Wings out for the first time. Finney had a party to go to where he had to dress as his favourite animal. So we made a mask to go with them.