End of term feast!

On Wednesday, we finished the last chapter of the fifth book of the Harry Potter series, The Order of the Phoenix.  As has become our tradition, as a family we celebrated this ending with an end of term feast using Harry Potter inspired recipes, this time, from Alivya's Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook. 

We also spent the week creating our very own edition of the wizarding magazine The Quibbler.  Read it here. 

Alivya (with the help of the other kids), Jon and I wrote the articles.  The magazine features photos from all of our other Harry Potter adventures.  Every time we finish a book, it is another challenge to try to come up with unique and fun activities inspired by the book.  This idea was suggested by Alivya.  I couldn't be more proud.  I love that they get excited about reading the books, they are thinking about what we can do to celebrate, and they get excited about the feast.  And, at least this time, they all tried the new foods.  So overall, I really think that it is completely worth all the fuss and work we put into these "feasts".

On the Menu:

Shepherds Pie

Brussel Sprouts

Hot Rolls

Rhubarb Crumble

Honeydukes (Peep) Popcorn

Hot rolls are rising!

After the feast, we sat down with our sweet colored popcorn and, per tradition, watched the movie.  I love the anticipation that the kids get towards the parts of the books they enjoyed.  I love how they start to understand things from the book that they didn't quite get from the reading... like Grimmauld place.  I also enjoyed, very much, Westli falling asleep on me half way through.  I know that those moments are limited, so as much as I wanted to move... and as hot has he made me, I tried to love it up.

After waiting a really... really... really long time for dinner!

"But Dad, I don't know how to read!?"

Family fun

I got an email at exactly 3pm yesterday congratulating me on my new credentials. I passed my state board exam and now I am a registered nurse! 

Yikes!

:) I spent the evening forgetting about studying and learning and all that stuff I have been so occupied with for so long. I hung out with Wes in Ava's bed singing and being silly. Then we read a really long chapter in Harry Potter, and topped it off by watching an episode from the new season of Sherlock Holmes. I am excited about my new career, but I'm way more excited about getting back to this family and fitting into their routine again!

Maid?

I need one, two maybe...

While Jon was out doing the shopping, I was dragging around, loading, unloading, and folding laundry. I also motivated the children to pick up their toys, swept, and "dusted". (In quotes because what I did would never qualify as dusting in my mother's house!) 

Of course all work and no play... Well you know what they say. JZ came for a visit in the afternoon, and the kids wore him out with his own game of Zombies. Zombies, created again by JZ himself, is a tag-like game where in my children race around my house with their arms raised chanting "zombie, zombie, zombie want brains! Brains, brains, brains!" And so forth. It usually starts with the tallest as the Zombie, until uncle JZ tags all of them effectively turning them all to Zombies. Then they cycle through until everyone has had the pleasure of head Zombie-hood. 

After dinner (accompanied with some much deserved wine) we read our chapter in our current book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This reading featured Alivya as Harry, yours truly as narrator, and Jon and JZ as all other characters. JZ's performance included a very robust Hermionie, a drunken Ginny, a perfectly stern and British Mrs Weasley, an often feminine sounding Mr Weasley, and the most southern and burly African Kingsley Shacklebolt! The performance also featured a fine dialogue between Fred and George, both of whom were played by Jon. So fun!