Harry Potter Party 2014

Well guys it's that time of year again. If you have been following this blog for at least a year, then you know that every year around this time, we have a Harry Potter Party, and watch all of the movies. This year we are doing it a little differently, and not watching the movies one right after another, because that has always caused us to stay up to late, and that makes some of us grumpy... ... mainly our oldest son, who is not a morning person, and is even worse after staying up way to late.

This year we are doing one movie a night starting on October the 24th and ending on Halloween night with the last movie and a halloween party. I am also making a different snack for each movie. The snacks are all Harry Potter themed, and I tried to plain them so that way they would go with what ever movie we were going to be watching that night. I have also made up trivia questions for each movie, ones that can be answered as long as you watch the movie carefully.

I've had a few people tell me that they want to do the Harry Potter Party with us, meaning they want to start the movies on the same night as us, and make the same snacks, and get the trivia questions. Yes meaning that they will be watching it in their own house, which makes sense since most of my friends and family live far away, but if you also like to do a party as well, go for it. I'm already going to e-mail out the trivia questions on the appropriate night, so I can always add more to the list. If you would like to be on that list, just send me a message randi.legates@yahoo.com, or you can message me on Facebook if you would prefer.

Now for all of you taking notes and doing the party, this is how it's going to go...

Friday the 24th
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
- Snack is a birthday cake for Harry

A chocolate cake with pink icing with HAPPEE BIRTHDAE HARRY written on it in green (like the one Hagrid gives him).









Saturday the 25th
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
-Snack is mandrake flower pots

Chocolate cake or dirt dessert in little flower pots


Now for the mandrake, to me it looks like they took a small doll and added fake pine needles to the top of it's head, but if you don't want to do that, you could just add worms, or maybe nuts to it, saying that they were just panted.









Sunday the 26th
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Snack is chocolate frogs and Jelly beans (like Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans)

The frog trays you can buy off of amazon, and all you need to do is fill them with melted chocolate (we like to put peanut butter is ours as well). You can buy either chocolate chips or melting chocolate, and heat it up in the microwave (yes it is that simple).

As for the jelly beans, I'm just going to buy a couple bags of assorted jelly belly's, but if you want Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans I have seen them at mall candy stores.






Monday the 27th
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Snack is potion jello and chocolate wands

The potion jello is just going to be green jello

The chocolate wands (which I made last year) are pretty easy. You just take big pretzels, dip them in chocolate, then roll them in sprinkles (because that makes them magical).







Tuesday the 28th
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Snack will be Luna Lovegood pudding

     I'm just making banana pudding with sprinkles and nalla wafers in it





Wednesday the 29th
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Snack will be butter beer owl cupcakes like these

     Thank you Nerdy Nummies





Thursday the 30th
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows : Part 1
- Snack is Cauldron cake pops like these

     Once again thank you Nerdy Nummies





Friday the 31st (YAY HALLOWEEN)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows : Part 2
- Snack is going to be Deathly Hallows cookies

We are going to be making peanut butter cookies and snicker doodles and frosting them like that (or as best as we can).










Thank you everyone for reading, once again if you would like to have your own Harry Potter Party and want some trivia questions, just e-mail me, and I will get them to you.

Mom's day out, Rose City Comic Con, and Arms don't bend that way

I've got a three in one post here for you guys, to catch everyone up on what has happened to us this past weekend, and this week.


Mom's day out

I'm happy to report that saturday I got half a day off from being a mom, and I went out with my friend Katie. I have known Katie since I was a teen. We both went to church together (back in Maryland), and she lives about an hour away from me. We have met up twice before (twice since the move here), but it was just a small hi's and hugs, because the meetings were in busy places, and we didn't have much time. I wanted to catch up and find out everything that had been going on in the last 12 or so years of her life, so my husband suggested that I take her out to lunch, and I loved that idea.

We decided to meet up in Gig Harbor, and eat at Applebee's. It was a wonderful lunch. We talked so much, that I completely forgot about my BLTA that was sitting in front of me, and I maybe only ate half of it. Katie is a wonderful person, and I love the way she sees the world, and how she's very open about her faith.

I didn't want our time to end. We prolonged it though by going to get coffee, doing a little shopping, and going for a walk at the harbor. It was just really great to talk to an old friend, and be able to talk freely about God and how things are going. Oh and she also gives the best hugs.

When I got home, I was welcomed by a clean house. Jeremy and the boys had been busy. That was also wonderful, as I'm sure you can imagine. Yes my husband can handle the kids, and clean the house at the same time (I'm very lucky).

Rose City Comic Con

The decision to go to this Comic Con was kind of last minute. A few weeks ago I got an email from the Emerald City Comic Con (that's the one in Seattle, that happens in March) saying that their tickets were going to go on sale soon. This surprised me, because it seemed a little soon, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to go or not. So to make up my mind I went to the web site to see which celebrity guest were going to be there. I have always wanted to meet Will Wheaton. My thoughts were "well if you are going to meet someone from Star Trek make it Will Wheaton." Why? Well he's a nerd just like us, and he's a nice guys as well, also he's my favorite actor, and that's really the best reason. But to my dismay he wasn't on the list of celebrity guest, in fact there was only two listed. I figured it was because it was to early, and that the list would grow, but that didn't help me, the person who was apparently deciding right now weather she was going to go or not. So I went to Wil Wheaton's web site, and click on appearances and I got both excited and sad all in the same instant, because he was going to be at the Rose City Comic Con in Porland, and Porland is only three hours away. Then I noticed the date. It was only two weeks away, and I thought there was no way we would get tickets. I thought it was like Seattle's Con, where you need to get tickets months out if you want to go at all. Needless to say I was a little sad for the rest of the day. I told Jeremy once he got home, and he did the smart thing and actually looked to see if they still had tickets. I'm sure you figured it out by now, but yes they did.

A week later my husband tells me that he knows what he wants to wear to the con, and I loved the idea so much that I made shirts for everyone.

Yes we were the Wesley Crushers. The shirts are a re-make from an episode of the Big Bang Theory, but what makes them even more awesome is their reference to Star Trek as well, and since we love both shows, it was perfect.

Making the shirts was so quick and inexpensive that it was almost embarrassing. When we went to Michaels to buy the shirts, they were having a sale, and each shirt was half off, so $2 each. We already had the iron on transfers, so all I had to do was find the image, reverse it, and print. So all in all the cost was about $13, and yes that was for all 6 of us.

We got a lot of attention at the Con. Quite a few people wanted photos of us. Yes just random people. 

Right after we arrived which was a little after noon, we got in line to get Wil Wheaton's autograph. We were blown away when he asked if he could get a picture and post it on Twitter.

Do I look surprised it that picture? Yeah I was really surprised. I also got him to sign this...

When I was 10 I had a huge crush on Wesley Crusher, and I think for my birthday that year I ended up getting a few of these. I opened all of them, and played with all of them (so it was okay), but now that I'm an adult, I think it's cool to finally have a signed unopened Wesley Crusher doll. :)

Later that day we got pictures taken with him.

We had to spit up because of the rules about how many could be in each photo, but we really didn't mind, and it was well worth the wait.

My youngest son Nathaniel (top photo), was over the moon about Wil Wheaton putting his arm around him (Wesley Crusher is his favorite character from Star Trek as well). That really make his day and make the 6 hour round trip worth it.

I also enjoyed this Con more. It was smaller, but not to small, and it wasn't as crowded, so you could move around and actually look at things.

Arms Don't Bend That Way

Monday night my husband and I were both snuggled on the couch watching the premiere of the Big Bang Theory, while the kids played down stairs in the basement. Right when the credits started to roll our second son Zachary comes running upstairs all out of breath saying "Darien's arm broke." My first thought was "no, he probably just hurt it, and only thinks it broke." Also at this point I could hear no crying. We went down stairs to really just make sure everything was okay. Well yes needless to say he did brake his arm, and it was quite obvious that the arm was broken, by just looking at it.

Ummm.... Yeah....

Apparently the kids were playing a game of "The Floor Is Lava" and the floor won.

So Jeremy took him to the emergency room, and from what my husband says he was a real trooper. He didn't cry once, and he was very polite to everyone there, despite all of the pain he was in. He's Wesley Crusher shirt had to be cut off though, so I may have to make him a new one.

He's okay though, and is at the doctors right now with his dad, getting a cast put on

School work has been interesting though. So my job as Homeschooling mom is going to be a little harder, since he can't write right now. Yesterday I ended up writing everything for him, while he verbalized it. I really didn't mind to much. Darien has always done really well with his work, so it wasn't to bad.

Well that is all right now. Thank you for reading, and I'll let you know how the whole cast thing goes.

So I donated my .........

Hair :)


So it was almost 3 years ago, back in Nov. of 2011 that I decided that I was going to grow out my hair in order to donate it. Here's a before picture...

In theory it should have only taken two years. Hair grows at an average of half an inch per month, and since you need at least 10 inches to donate it to Locks Of Love (yes that is who I donated to), then yes it should have only taken two years. ... ... ... Well I guess I can make up the excuse that we did have to move across country two years ago, and the stress of that could have slowed down the growth of my hair for a period of time. ... ... ... Yeah I'm going to go with that. I did end up trimming my hair every 3 to 4 months, but that was just to keep the dead ends at bay.

After about 6 months of growing it out, it was awesome, I finally had my hair long enough to do some of the fun braids that I had been wanting to try out on my own hair. At that point I was wondering when I would donate, because I wanted to be left with some hair in the end.

After a year I could do almost any style, that I couldn't do before due to my lack of length. I remember wondering at this point if I still wanted to donate at all, because I really enjoyed my hair just like this, but I continued to grow it. I wasn't going to just give up at this point.

At the two year point my feelings were mostly the same as they were at the one year point. I loved it, and the only problem I was having with it was dryness. I would wake up on most days with the Hermione look. That's when I would throw some curl cream in it, braid it, then call it a day. If I wanted to leave it down however, it would take some washing or curling with an iron for it to look normal.

But it was a few months ago, (at about the two and a half year point), that the hair started to drive me nuts. There was hair everywhere. All over my shower, and my bed. I was finding my hair in the most strange places. Also showers were no longer fun and refreshing. I looked and felt like a drowned rat afterwards. It would take so long for my hair to dry, and it almost wasn't worth washing my hair. I got in to the habit of just braiding it right out of the shower. It was at this point that I realized that having chin length hair would be nice again, but I put it off so I could get it a little longer, and maybe give them a little more hair.

But it was Sunday night, that I had just had enough. I put it into a low pony and had Jeremy measure it. 13 inches... WOW... 13 inches from the elastic to the ends. Yup it was time alright. Once I made the first snip I began to feel relieved. Olivia saw the ponytail right after I had cut it, and she said "Oh no mommy your hair broke." Heehee. I told her it was okay, and that I didn't need it anymore, and that I was giving it to someone who did.

So here I am, two days after, felling relieved and only a little sad. The good news is it will grown back, and as crazy as it sounds, I think I would like to do it all over again. So here I go back to the beginning, starting to grow out my hair, to donate it. :)

:)