Harry Potter Party!

OK…it’s not really a party.  It’s just me and my boys.  Tonight we went to see the final Harry Potter movie and we LOVED it!  I cried like a baby through the whole thing!

We left the girls with a babysitter, and took the boys out to dinner and to see the movie.  After visiting Hogwarts/Hogsmeade last week, we are REALLY head over heels in HP mode at the moment!  The boys brought their wands to the theater and had a blast!

After the movie we came home and I surprised the boys with the 2000+ piece Diagon Alley Lego's set.  They were just a tiny bit excited.

And we decided to make our own butterbeer!  It was really easy and turned out great.  I thought I would share the recipe for any other Harry Potter geeks out there who want to try it.  I found several recipes online, and sort of combined them to make what I think tastes closest to what we had at the park (which was approved by JK Rowling herself).  Many recipes I came across were complicated and involved boiling brown sugar, adding rum extract…yikes!  So here is a super simple version:

First, make your “froth” for the top.  Don’t cheat with whipped cream…it needs to be the real stuff!

1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream

1/3 cup, plus 1 Tablespoon sugar

3 Tablespoons powdered sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla

Whip with high speed mixer until nice and thick.

In your glass (or stein!) pour in 1 cup of IBC Cream Soda

Add about 1/4 cup of butterscotch syrup (ice cream topping) and stir until completely mixed.  You can add a little more or less according to taste.  I like a little less...the boys liked about 1/3 cup of the butterscotch.

 Spoon your yummy cream onto the top and enjoy!

I added some shaved ice from our snow cone maker because the cream soda wasn't cold.  It made it a bit like the frozen version.  I can't wait to try it steaming warm in the winter!

I remember reading the first four books (censoring the end of Goblet of Fire) to Aiden when he was four years old.  We wanted to instill a love of Potter at an early age :)  Apparently it worked.  He finished the "darker" books on his own when he got older, and turned in to an HP geek like his parents.

Butterbeer, the final HP movie, and the coolest HP lego set ever.  Oh, and the babysitter had the girls in bed when we got home.  It's a good night!  We just sat around talking about the movie, how it was different from the book, and our favorite parts.  Love those boys!

Did anyone else do anything fun to celebrate the last Harry Potter flick?