Our Harry Potter Party

We have really enjoyed the Harry Potter book series and eagerly awaited the mail delivery Saturday, for the new book. To celebrate, we threw our own little Harry Potter party. Each family member invented a magic trick to perform and made witch hat cookies.
Gary went first. His trick was to pick up a piece of ice with a piece of "string" using salt. It was very scientific. Unfortunately, all we had was yarn. This trick works well with string, but not yarn. He came up with an alternate and performed again at the end.
I went next. I made a top hat out of construction paper and pulled a scarf from the empty hat.
Jimmy did a trick with his pocket. First he had Amelia check his pocket. There was nothing in there. Then we all closed our eyes and counted to 3. When we opened our eyes, she checked again and there was a K'Nex block there!
Amelia brought lots of parts to the magic show- the directions for her Doodle Bear, a barrette, sunglasses, and a small crab towel. Then she said "Mom how do I do the trick?" I had no idea what she was talking about, but quickly came up with the "magic disappearing towel trick." We spread out the items and put the towel over them. Then we said a magic word. Then I lifted off the towel, carefully holding one of the items underneath to make it disappear. She was amazed! She tried to do the trick herself. She was pretty frustrated until I showed her how.
Gary helped Jonathan do a trick. Everyone closed their eyes and counted to 3. When we opened our eyes, Jonathan was gone and Gary shirt had suddenly become very large and lumpy! We all got a big laugh out of that one.
Gary finished it up with a truly amazing card trick. It fooled us all.
We got out the witch hat treats and turned on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the kids and the grown ups read the newest book together.