Whirlwind Weekend

I've been spending all my nap time and night time sewing sewing sewing.  In addition to Christmas presents that I need to finish, we've had the business of the Christmas season AND I threw a surprise Harry Potter party for a friend because it was her 40th birthday and it HAD to be done.  With that done, I've got more sewing to do this week and then Christmas is practically here!!

We decorated right after Thanksgiving -- I love our house for Christmas!  Chopper and I (although mostly I) painted the entire house in the month of November.  It has a fresh clean look to it and is a lot lighter and brighter.  I love it!

The Harry Potter party.  Oh my.  This was sooo much fun and the decorations turned out fantastically!!  The big impact areas were the floating candles in the "Great Hall" and the entry. 

My flash lit the room so you just can't see how cool this was but the lights were very dim and we hung 2 types of candles using thread and pushpins from the ceiling.  I found single, battery-operated candles at the Dollar Tree that had gold bases that popped right off.  I'm actually going to go back this week and buy more -- even though the party is over -- because I think they would be so useful for all kinds of events!!  The rest I made using toilet paper rolls, hot glue for dripping wax, white paint, and a tea light glued in the top.  It was very cool looking!! 

Chopper went as Professor Quirrell and ran through the house at the beginning of the party yelling, "there's a troll in the dungeons!"

We had a table of owl post for birthday notes and Chopper and Megan drew owls on the balloons.

My sorting hat!!!  It's actually made of paper and I think it turned out pretty good!

One of the games was to earn house points.  We sorted everyone when the party started and then they could earn points by coming in costume, speaking in a British accent, writing owl post, and finding a golden snitch -- Lindor truffles.  I had colored stones to put in tall vases (the Dollar Tree made SOOOO much money off of me this month) and borrowed the House shields from a friend.

My brick wall at the entry way was a sheet painted with a sponge dipped in brick red paint and slit up the middle.  It turned out really well!!  And then William's train from Halloween.  It actually does say Hogwarts Express on the front but it's starting to get pretty beat up so I think this was it's final outing.

 Bathroom

 I only took pictures of these few foods because they turned out really good.  I got the recipe for pumpkin pasties from an Unofficial Harry Potter cookbook and they literally tasted like mini pumpkin pies.  They were really good!!  A friend of mine gave me the idea for the Mandrake cupcakes by gluing greenery onto little babies.

We've all learned by now that I am NOT a cake decorator.  Thank goodness Hagrid isn't either!!!  And my friend Anna loved that it was like Harry's cake!

That's Anna getting sorted.

I dressed up as Dobby the elf, mainly because by the time the party happened, I felt like a house elf.

That was Friday night.  Saturday morning I ran the Frisco Frosty 5K and did really well!!

I've really been trying to keep up with my running since September but I am not super motivated so I decided it was time for another race.  I've been taking short runs while William is in speech therapy twice a week (which has been really nice!) and my goal was to break 30 minutes.  I came in at 27:23 which I was VERY happy about.  It's my fastest race time to date.  What was really impressive though is that there was a 75-year old woman who came in at 29 minutes.  I've decided that's the main reason I need to keep this up.  I want to be old and moving like that!!!

Saturday afternoon we went out to Aaron's grave.  We were blessed to have some friends there earlier in the day working as part of the group who place wreaths on the graves.  They just take the wreaths that people have donated for and place them pretty randomly, but they grabbed one and placed it specifically for Aaron.  We got up there later and took a family picture. 

Chopper took this picture of Megan but she moved from the position that he was trying to get.  When he asked her what she was doing, she responded that she was talking to Aaron.  I love that this is a normal thing for our children to have him a regular part of our lives.  Or as regular as it can be!  I think that someday that will make our bond as a family stronger. 

I forgot about this from November.  We were flocked!!!  There's a band fundraiser where they flock your yard with flamingoes and you have to pay to have them removed.  The kids thought it was fantastic.

And put them in their beds before we went to church.  The band member who flocked us almost didn't get their flamingoes back . . .  

Oh and a sweet picture of our boy and his dog.  No, it's not our dog.  It's our neighbors that we see very day after school when we pick up the girls.  Dakota is the sweetest dog I think I've ever met and William loves her.  It still doesn't really make me want to have one ourselves though.  But we can enjoy loving others.