My head is spinning. I wouldn't be surprised if it were literally spinning. Right off my neck.

The number of changes we have gone through in this family in the last couple of years is, frankly, unbelievable.  These past seven months or so have been pretty crazy.

In June, I was happily finishing our plans for a summer study of our state, and gearing up to do lesson plans for the coming school year.

In July, I was working full time outside the home and enrolling both boys in the local public school again.

In September, the memories of why we had started homeschooling in the first place came back to haunt us as the reality of life as a public school family slapped us in the face.

In October, I quit my job and attempted to figure out how to manage making money and educating my older child.

In November, older child was back home with me.

In December, younger child, who did not want to be at school if his brother didn't have to go, was back home with us.

It's February now, and my husband's workplace of 27 years has gone through dramatic changes.  I'm working part time with him to try to help the firm through some of these changes.  I'm also embarking on an awesome education/business venture with some very smart ladies.  Oh yeah, and attempting to educate the children, too.

Needless to say, I'm a little overwhelmed at times.

Thank heavens I had already chosen curriculum for the year!  I took some time to make lesson plans.  They're not as fancy schmancy as my normal lesson plans, but they're working for now.

So, I basically decided to disregard whatever it was that the kids had been doing at public school, since it didn't correspond to what we have been doing for the past three years, and they really hadn't learned anything new.  I tried to get my husband to take charge of all things public school, but he just couldn't do it.  Part of the problem I had with the school (among many other things) was that I just wasn't down with their philosophy of education.  I feel like a half year of our lives was wasted, but I'm not going to look back.  Just going to move on.

We started afresh in January with Cycle 1/Ancients in our four year classical model plan.  We are studying Ancient History and Life Sciences.  We are continuing to use our preferred language arts program- MCT Language Arts.  We're continuing with Minimus 2 for Latin and Math U See Epsilon for a study of fractions this year.  I'm excited about our new writing program, about which I just wrote a post for the classical homeschooling blog my friends and I are working on. It should be published in March.  We have a new science curriculum, too:  R. E. A. L. Science Odyssey Biology 2.  It is chock full of really cool experiments and microscope labs.

Making Mayan inspired reliefs out of salt dough

Making a slide to look at cork cells under the microscope

Getting ready to watch the movie they made for their class at the Microsoft store

I've told the boys we'll school through summer, at least until our beloved Anja and her mom come all the way from Germany to visit us for the last weeks of summer!  I'm so looking forward to that.  We need a peaceful, fun summer.

A Very Harry Christmas

It all started with a Halloween desk decorating contest at work.  I got the brilliant idea to make my desk look like Harry Potter's desk at Hogwarts.  I was amused by it, even though most of the people I worked with had no idea what any of it was.  Then, I quit my job before the contest even ended, so it was all for naught, anyway.  

I put a lot of thought and preparation into this desk. It sure made being in a call center a lot more fun.

This would have been my costume for the contest had I remained employed, so I just wore it to pass out candy to the trick or treaters.  The teens who came to the door were especially impressed.

So, I packed up my desk and took all my HP goodies home.  I was gazing at the box of wizardy goodness, when suddenly, I thought, "Why not have a Harry Potter themed Christmas?"  I informed the hubby (who grunted and gave me a 'whatever' look) and the kids.  The kids were fairly excited about it.


The first thing I did, of course, was to scan Pinterest for Harry Potter Christmas ideas, and there were plenty!  I made a board for ideas, and got to work almost immediately.  My first craft project was to paint mini HP character ornaments.  These turned out to be my favorite ornaments out of everything I made:

Then I found these awesome, sparkly quills in a clearance bin at Michaels and thought they would be a perfect addition to a wizard tree.

I shopped the Halloween sales for things that would work, like a giant Aragog and a Crookshanks.

Clear glass ornaments went on sale next, so I snatched up a whole bunch of them and went to work filling them up with all kinds of magical mixtures.

Red mesh ribbon made for great Remembralls

Green glitter for Floo Powder

Black glitter for Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder

No HP event would be complete without Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans.

I even was daring and filled some of them with liquid potions.

Polyjuice potion

Veritaserum

Love Potions from Weasley Wizard Wheezes

Harry, Ron, & Hermione's school trunks

Felix Felicis

Harry's glasses

Hogwarts school books

S.P.E.W. Button and bulbs with lines from the books in them

The Mirror of Erised

And, of course, the Golden Snitch

We had a couple of specialty ornaments, like Hedwig 

and the original Visitor's Entrance to the Ministry of Magic.

We also had some mini-themed areas on the tree. This area represented the end of Book 1 where Harry, Ron, and Hermione get through the enchantments guarding the Philosopher's Stone.  Here, the trio is trapped in the Devil's Snare. We also had Fluffy, winged keys, Snape's potions, wizard chess pieces and a Mirror of Erised.

This section represented Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.  There were kissing concoctions and Pygmy Puffs.

In addition to all the unique and hand made ornaments on the tree, I also added traditional round Christmas bulb ornaments in the colors of all four Hogwarts houses.  Below you see the blue and bronze of Ravenclaw and the crimson and gold of Gryffindor.  I made paper chains in each house's colors, as well.  You can see Hufflepuff's yellow and black chain and Slytherin's green and silver chain in the bottom picture.

The Sorting Hat as the tree topper was absolutely perfect.  A few snowflakes, candy canes, and plastic icicles made the whole tree look magical.  

After completing the tree, it was time to add some decorations to the rest of the living room.

Here we had some quills, wizard candy and potions bottles.

These were to represent the 12 trees that are traditionally placed in the  Great Hall at Hogwarts each year.

Hedwig sat perched above the living room, ready to carry our invitations to all our guests.

The Monster Book of Monsters, the Triwizard Cup, a snitch, Harry's glasses, the Marauder's Map, the Elder Wand, and a roll of parchment decorated the coffee table.

I ordered these adorable House stockings from this etsy shop.  A couple of brooms and a cauldron that was missing its floo powder completed the decor.

Our little Gryffindor couldn't resist flying on the Firebolt, and he even managed to catch a snitch.

I rearranged a couple of rooms in my house and made my dining room into the Gryffindor Common Room.

Then, I turned my living room into the Great Hall.  I had to find a way to enchant the ceiling to look like the night sky for the feast.  Then, thanks to my friend Holly's suggestion, I managed to get some floating candles to levitate around the ceiling.

We mailed out invitations to our guests for our Christmas Feast in the Great Hall. Each invitation was personally addressed to highlight the recipient's location.  Then they were sealed with a Hogwarts crest stamp, and marked for Owl Post.

We also sent out our family holiday cards in similar fashion.  Here was the photo we used for our cards.  Notice how my husband looks like I used the Imperious curse on him to get him to pose for this picture.

Once the decorations and invitations were out of the way, I started baking and never stopped until Christmas Eve!  I started with the cookies:

Then I made a replica of Hogwarts Castle entirely out of Rice Krispie Treats, ice cream cones, and frosting.  By the time Christmas came, it wasn't quite edible anymore, but it did look cool.

Hagrid's hut was my favorite part of the grounds.

Then, we had Harry's favorite Hogwarts dessert- treacle tarts.

Couldn't forget the pumpkin pasties.

Cauldron cakes with swirling potion.

And just because every magical Christmas needs one- a yule log cake with meringue mushrooms.

Here is Honeyduke's Sweet Shop being prepped for set up.   We had chocolate frogs, licorice wands, ton tongue toffee, jelly slugs, crystallized pineapple (Slughorn's favorite), crystallized ginger, sugar hexes, and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

I even made  two Hogwart's Express Cakes to be centerpieces for the tables.

I really don't think Hogwarts has ever had a better feast!

 On Christmas Day, we prepared the appetizers:

Monster Book of Monster sandwiches

Cheese tray with Cheese Snitch (thanks to my other friend, Kel!)

Oh, Pinterest! What would I do without you?

The table was all set for the Christmas Feast in the Great Hall.  Everyone was sorted into his or her respective houses and each place had Wizard Crackers to pop.

The kids were impressed with the roiling cauldron, and everybody liked the butter beer!

Professor Sprout (a.k.a. Grandma) was ready for the feast.

 We all sat down for a feast of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, peas, corn, cranberry sauce, and dinner rolls. I think even Ron would have found enough to eat at this table!

Christmas Day was lovely. I have about 8 million pictures of the kids opening their gifts, but I'll save those for the lucky devils who get to look at my IRL scrapbooks.  However, I did want to share my two favorite gifts here, because they are related to the theme.

My sister made me this totally fabulous HP charm bracelet.  I cannot tell you how deliriously happy it makes me to wear this.

My cousin's daughter is a very talented young artist, and she made this caricature of our family's Christmas card.  I framed and hung it almost immediately!  I laughed myself silly at it when I first opened it.  I adore this!

Following the Christmas Day festivities, our family had its 3rd annual Harrathon.  That's where we watch all eight Harry Potter movies in a row.  With breaks to eat, sleep, and do Harry related activities, it takes us about 3 days to get through all the movies.

For some reason, on the first day of the Harrathon, all of Harry's Hogwarts letters ended up coming out of our fireplace.  Some Ministry owl had a lot of explaining to do!

Here are hubby and the boys, all ready to watch the first film.  Note, they are all wearing HP t-shirts.  We have  Undesirable No. 1 on the left, Dumbledore's Army in the middle, and the Hogwarts crest on the right.

Here I am holding a mini Hedwig and wearing my "You have the emotional range of a teaspoon." shirt.

My god daughter joins us for the Harrathon, and she's wearing her Ravenclaw shirt, so I don't know why she has a Dark Mark.

Grandma's wearing her Hufflepuff scarf, Andrew has his Gryffindor scarf.  God daughter is eating a cauldron cake.

Selfie in my Gryffindor robes on Day 3.  I think I'm just about Harry'ed out at this point.

We did have a penseive this year, but I don't seem to have a photo of anyone sticking their face in it, although I know some people did.  I do have a few snaps of our wizard duels, though.

I don't know that I'll ever have the energy to do something like this again, but it was totally worth it.  We all enjoyed it and it will be a memory my kids (and god daughter) will never forget.  I think we got about as close as any Muggles can to Christmas at Hogwarts.