Harry vs Halloween

We've been very busy this week, but it's hard to tell with what, exactly. One of those weeks. Uncle David and Aunty Barbara arrived from Canada to pick up Grandad for a holiday, so we've spent a nice couple of days catching up with them. Emily's been to football practice, yoga, tai chi and ballet as normal. She also went to play at Romy's on Wednesday afternoon, and today we've been into town to look for a new winter coat for her as she's grown so much since last winter. Absolutely zero luck in that department. Hardly anyone had any, and we didn't like any of the ones we did see.

Emily's "work" has been little and far between this week as we've been rushing around a lot. She did some more work on her magical creatures project and has done front covers for both her human body and her weather projects. And she's done a lot of baking.

Plans for the Halloween party are coming on well. I'm also being super-organised and have half a Harry Potter birthday party planned already. Everyone thinks I'm nuts since Emily's birthday isn't until 2nd Jan....but I just want to avoid a repeat of last year's last minute madness! Mind you, decorating the room as Hogwarts is proving slightly more tricky than last year when we just had to conjure up a Snow Queen's Grotto. Of course, with a birthday in the New Year, getting winter themed stuff was a sinch, especially once everyone started selling off Christmas decorations in the week between Xmas and New Year. I had thought that this would be a good time to buy for the HP party as I thought lots of Halloween stuff would be suitable. Actually, though, it isn't. Not really. Harry Potter's not really spooky. Magical, yes. Spooky, no.

After much thought, we have settled on a black and gold colour scheme and Emily found some fabulous gold serving platters in pound stretcher today, down to £1 each, so we snapped up some of those. We've also got some lovely black baubles and some gold partyware and various other bits and bobs. I've seen some of those scene setter rolls in starry sky and castle wall styles, so maybe they'll do too. I've also got my Mum and Dad roped into experimenting with black plant pots to add handles to and turn into cauldrons ;-) and Dad's going to make some wands with his lathe. I've got tons of stuff in my head for games and activities. So at least I won't be spending New Year's Day 2007 in a panic ;-)