Katia's Harry Potter Birthday Party

Phew! I feel like I am JUST catching my breath, after this very involved and detailed party that we had for our girl. Katia decided a few weeks ago, after attending the annual Berwick Library Harry Potter party, that she would like her birthday party to be a H.P. Party as well. So right away I got to work!
To begin with, each child walked through our platform 9 3/4 brick wall, to enter into Harry's Land. In the living room, I had created the illusion of letters coming out of the fire place. I used some old stationary I had lying around and fishing line.
Upon entering the living room, each child was sorted into their houses. We had a sorting hat, and our Harry (Noah) reached into a basket to award each child their house patch (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slitherin).
We then went into the Great Hall (with floating candles- thanks IKEA), to make our wands. We used wooden chopsticks and twisted hot glue around them to look spindly. The kids painted them. We put the wands aside to dry and moved onto our potions class (crushed bones, unicorn tears and lizard snot - baking soda, vinegar and green dish soap). They also decorated a paper bag, that would later be used for a scavenger hunt . All the kids enjoyed these simple activities.
After this, we took a break for butterbeer (yum!), snacks and cake!
 After the cake was our scavenger hunt. I had hidden 5 owls around the house that had scrolls at their feet (just used stuffies and some of my owl decorations). Each scroll had a visual clue to the next owl. The final owl led them to Honey Dukes, the candy shop! I had emptied our board game cupboard and put white lights inside. Each kid was allowed to fill a bag at the candy shop.

And that was the party! I gave the short abbreviated version here, but as you can see, it was a lot of work! As my friend Leanne said, "you can't half ass a Harry Potter party".
In the end, I'm glad I agreed to do this party. Over the years, I have learned to tone down my parties (I used to go crazy for every party and stress myself out while doing it), but for this one, I reverted to my old ways and went all out. I feel sentimental towards parties that involve children's books. I know that this time is fleeting and we wont have these years for much longer.

November wrap up and beyond!

There's so much to catch up on, a month's worth of moments, memories, revelations, lessons.
November came and went quite quickly (as it always seems to do).
We had a short visit over to PEI to see my mom, and that went .... well as expected.
My relationship, history and everything is complicated with my mom. To simplify the whole story, I usually tell people that ask, "my mom has never had very good mental health", but the truth is, there is so much ore to it, and things that I am still uncovering.
It's complicated when I go to visit her, but I do it. I do it for her. I do it for the kids to have some memory of her. I do it for myself too, I suppose. Still, it's not easy.

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November also brought the first round of illness to our family.  It was a good 2 weeks of the kids taking turns at staying home from school, and myself feeling utterly horrid. Two words, sinus infection. Ouch! Glad that's over.

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And the end of November brought us one very special girl's birthday. Katia turned 6. Although I said this to her, you've always seemed much older than you are. When you were 2, you acted like a 4 year old... so to me, it was always strange calling her 5, because she acts so grown up and independent.
This year for Katia's birthday party, we held a pretend sleepover party. This meant, everyone wore pyjamas. We had pizza. Did fun "sleep over" games like, Broken Telephone and the Question Ball. We had our teenage babysitter and her friend come to our house and do the girl's nails, and of course we watched a movie and had popcorn. It was the most fun and easiest party we've ever held.
For Katia's actual birthday, we got her a special gift - her own fish! When Noah turned 6, he got a fish tank in his room, and Katia would not let us forget that it was her turn for a fish! So meet her new fish Teal. Her favourite colour!

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And so that brings us up to December! Wow, I can't believe the holidays are here in front of us.
I am trying to finish up the last of my 2017 photo sessions and then will madly be making some Christmas gifts (note to self, start in the summer next year!).
I'll be honest, at first, the thought of Christmas started to make me feel anxious and unhappy. I was worried that feelings of loneliness and sadness would start to take over. For many reasons, the holidays are not always easy for me. But then, after taking some time to really address some of the reasons I feel this way, I started to look at the holidays differently.
Instead of trying to supress and push away those feelings of sadness, I decided to face them- head on. I wanted to know where they were coming from, and how I could deal with it.
I also decided that for years, I had put a lot of pressure on myself to make the holidays "perfect" (which we all know, does NOT exist). In years past, I would busy myself with crafts and baking and high expectations. I think I thought that if I tried hard enough, the happy and perfect memories would become real. Instead, this lead me to anxiety and stress.
So this year I am giving myself permission to do as much or as little as I want. I am also really asking myself, if what I am doing serves me (not just the kids). There's no use in having a stressed out mom at Christmas. It's just not fun.
So here we are, into December, and choosing only to do the activities that I really enjoy.
So far, we've done: decorate your own gingerbread houses (aka, graham crackers), organizing a caroling party,