Brew a Potion Day 2022

Wednesday, January 19, was Brew a Potion Day. We decided to do Family Home Evening that day since again we were so busy on Monday. Jr. Jr. was in charge of the treat so he wanted to make chocolate frogs. Then he and Lucky got really excited with the idea of making them the colors of poisonous frogs. I couldn't tell them No, not with that creativity.

I was a little concerned with the idea of them using food coloring on that particular holiday. See my blog post from January 19, 2013, to see why. I'm not actually superstitious and they did a good job making the chocolate frogs with the poisonous colors.

Jet did get a hold of the red food coloring while it was on the table. He is getting really good at getting things open. Luckily he only got a tiny bit on his hands and the floor... this time. Just Monday he found blue food coloring and got it on his hands and face. Talented kid.

When it was time to eat the frogs, there were some interesting things said.

Nichole: Pass me a paper towel and a frog.

Jr.: That's a scentence you don't hear everyday. "Pass me a paper towel and a frog."

The kids also got into a discussion about whether to eat the head or the feet first. If you eat the feet first, it can't run away. Potions call for eye of newt and toe of frog. Maybe you eat the head and leave the toes. This is not the first time we've had a discussion about what part of a chocolate animal to eat first. Remember those chocolate bunnies from my blog post on April 10, 2012?

Apparently Jr. Jr. and Lucky made a good choice in coloring these frogs they way they did. Lots of fun conversation.

Jr.: The legs are red and the body is blue and it's filled with a sort of whiteyish goo.

I did something else to celebrate Brew a Potion Day as well. I made instant pot caramel apple cider from Six Sisters' Stuff.

January 19 was also National Popcorn Day (the kids had some) and Jeremy informed me that it was Whisper "I Love You" Day. I hadn't heard of that one. He informed me right after he whispered, "I love you," to me. Then Jr. Jr. came up and whispered in my ear, "I love you, my precious." What is he? Gollum? And I'm the one ring?

We had some fun. And I'll have to remember Whisper "I Love You" Day for the future.

Quarantine!

And then we got sick. 

It's a good thing I didn't schedule anything for Fall Break after the Scarecrow Festival since I didn't feel up to doing anything for a few days and I stayed mostly in my room.

After Fall Break we all had to quarantine.

Here's Jeremy with his "Vaccinated" shirt. Notice it says "COVID-19" under the word, "vaccinated." He made sure to wear this shirt while he had Covid-19.

I got a video of Jeremy eating pineapple (he hates pineapple) because he lost his taste for about a day or two. He wondered what it would be like to lose that sense but after a day of it he was done with that experience and lucked out with it being such a short duration. He had no problem eating the pineapple. Normally he would be grimacing and wouldn't be able to handle it so we could definitely tell he'd lost his sense of taste and smell.

Jr. Jr.'s birthday was during our quarantine. Since we couldn't go shopping for items for his birthday dinner and cake and ice cream he wanted, we made do with what we had at home with the promise that we would do the dinner and cake and ice cream he wanted later. Jr. pointed out that meant he'd get two cakes, etc.

So Jr. Jr. picked ice cream out of our freezer that he wanted and a boxed cake from the pantry and I made frosting to go with it. The frosting was from thefoodnanny.com and it's my go-to chocolate frosting when I don't have store bought frosting because it's simple enough. I put sprinkles on the top.

We skipped the candles for obvious reasons but still sang, "Happy Birthday," to him and he still got to open cards and presents.

 

We didn't do a lot of celebrating other things during quarantine but we still got creative like we did with "quarantine" last year when everything shut down. There was also some cabin fever like with "quarantine" last year.

Six Sisters' Stuff put together a series of videos about if they actually listened to internet trolls. One comment they got was how some people hate casseroles so they should take their casseroles and go jump in a lake so one of the sisters took a casserole and jumped in a lake with it. Other people complained how they use cream of chicken soup too much, in practically every recipe, so one of the sisters showed herself making brownies and adding cream of chicken soup to it. Our family get a kick out of those videos so one day while Jr. was making brownies, he made this comment, "I didn't add any cream of chicken soup. Do you think it will be okay?" I love that kid. It was so funny, I put it on Instagram and Six Sisters' Stuff got a big kick out of it, too. I told you. Creativity.

October 24 was Mother-in-Law Day. I made a general announcement, "Happy Mother-in-Law Day." I don't know if my mother-in-law heard it or not.

We may or may not have celebrated Picasso's birthday on October 25 along with Greasy Food Day. We had spaghetti and meatballs with sweet mini peppers and some of us made the food into faces.

We did celebrate National Chocolate Day on October 28 by making chocolate frogs. We used green food coloring in white chocolate which is not actually chocolate but it's a generally accepted term so good enough. I'm sure there was some other chocolate eating in there as well. The boys did most of the work but I helped a bit and they turned out great.

 

October 29 was National Oatmeal Day. Guess what I had for breakfast?

So I guess we did some celebrating, mostly after I was feeling better.

While the kids were quarantining at home, they had school work they were able to work on. Some days were harder to get going than others, though, and everyone had to take turns with the computer which wasn't always easy when everyone decided they were ready to use it at the same time.

So that's how quarantine went. We were very fortunate not to get too sick. We can count our blessings for that.

Happy Birthday, Harry Potter

July 31 is Harry Potter's Birthday. The character turned 40 this year. Busy day for us.
I made bean dip for lunch. Oh, did I fail to mention July 31 is also National Avocado Day?

Nichole helped me figure out our menu plan and treats since she's a bigger Harry Potter fan than I and can think of more obscure references to food in the books.

Nichole: There are bananas, potato chips and sausages because in the 1st book at the island with the shack Uncle Vernon made them eat bananas and potato chips for dinner. Then Hagrid came and cooked sausages for Harry and gave him his birthday cake. In the 6th book, Ron and Harry are cutting vegetables, so we can have carrots. Butterbeer, jelly beans and chocolate frogs are pretty obvious in their reasoning. I can't remember a specific bread reference, but I like bread, so... Dobby shut his ears in the oven? Mrs. Weasley gave Harry lots of toast when he came to visit? Amos Diggory was given toast when his head appeared in the fire and he warned Mr. Weasley about Mad-Eye Moody.

Thanks, Nichole.

A few of us also made wands and we all participated in an online Harry Potter trivia game put on by Orem Public Library. They've been having Harry Potter activities all the month of July and this was the final on Harry Potter's birthday. The team we were playing for won.

We had fun putting on a big Harry Potter Birthday Party for Nichole back in 2017.
This July, my sister's family put on a big Harry Potter party (with social distancing) for my nephew. See what they did on her blog, Finding Time to Create. It's pretty awesome.

What We Did for Our Daughter's Birthday

This year Nichole got a big birthday party where she got to invite friends and have lots of fun.
She wanted a Harry Potter theme so we went with it.  We had more planned than we had time for but I'll let you know what we did get to.

The kids got to make their own wands.  Jeremy prepared pieces of dowels.  The kids could then use hot glue guns (we figured this age group could be safe with hot glue- we wouldn't do this with 4-year olds) to create the handle, then paint the wand, add embellishments if they wanted (stick-on jewels), and later when it was dried they could wipe it with a shiny varnish.

We had Quibbler Mad Libs for the kids to fill out.

Jeremy set up a quidditch pitch with goals and the kids were able to play quidditch on brooms.

Of course there was birthday cake.  Jeremy baked it 'imself, words and all.

When he picked up candles at the store, he didn't realize they were the relighting kind.  It was pretty windy while we were trying to light the candles so we were having a really hard time getting them to stay lit in the first place.  Once Nichole blew them out, however, they wouldn't stay out.

Besides cake, we also had a potion to drink (dry ice root beer)

and after presents,

the kids ate Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and got to open their chocolate frogs and look at their wizard cards (homemade).

It was a good birthday party.