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movie night- rio.

My friend at Church keeps requesting that I update my family movie nights, and since I’m pretty fond of her and her friendship I thought I’d better give the people what they want.

We started out this movie night by painting some dollar store birdhouses. Grey is getting to the point where he wants to participate, but still doesn’t quite get the concept.

While the kids painted, I prepared our treats for the evening.

Little cups filled with “bird food”. Seeds, clodhoppers, nuts, chocolate covered peanuts and of course worms.

Some brightly colored rainbow chip cookies.

Every time I take pictures of the kids, they always insist on holding things up to their faces. So strange.

The kids were laughing the whole movie, it was super cute!

Remember how I talked about participation, but not quite getting it yet? I’m not sure what’s more disgusting in this picture, the floaters in his drink or his soggy diaper.

yogi bear {movie night}

This was one of the quickest movie night preparations I have ever done, and quite possibly one of the sweetest. A picnic basket filled with some goodies to eat, and you’re ready for a Jellystone adventure.

In our basket we had crunchy French bread.

Bear Paw cookies.

And a jar full of gummy bears.

I bought the basket at the second hand store for a dollar. Love it.

And the “table cloth” checkered fabric from Fabric Land for a dollar too.

Ava took the scraps and made herself a sweet head scarf.

Hunter was home sick that day, but still managed to stay awake for the movie.

And Grey, well he was just being Grey.

After he scattered 387 gummy bears all over the carpet, I decided to play a fun game with them. I told the kids if they could cross the whole carpet with their eyes closed and not step on one single gummy bear I would give them a dollar.

Guess who won?

Nobody. Apparently I’m raising a bunch of cheaters.

Eyes closed. Pffft. Yah right.

tangled. {movie night}

I didn’t get the chance to watch this one with the kids, for the simple reason that my Mom has good timing when it comes to calling me, and she’s really chatty too. ;)

I did however have a lot of fun planning it.I’m usually trying to do these things last minute, so I love when they come together super easy. It seems to be getting harder to keep these movies a secret from the kids. I guess when they find me hiding in the closet upstairs braiding 8 foot lengths of yellow yarn, they figured out it must be Tangled. Smart kids I tell ya.

(Before I go on, I must apologize. these pictures are horrid. The kids were so antsy, and Grey was, and I quote “wrecking my life” (said Hunter) it was dark and stormy outside, cliché but true, so anyways poor light = poor pictures, that’s my excuse… continuing on)

So, yes indeed, I tried to replicate Rapunzel's hair. And I must say I thought it looked adorable!

And easy too! I bought yellow yarn from Wal-Mart (less than $3) cut it to the right length (any length you choose of course) and braided it. I tied one end on the inside of our lampshade and the other just dangled around the TV and cabinet. The kids loved it. The girls have been fighting over the big braided “skipping rope” for 2 days now.

As for treats, we had yellow licorice Twizzlers, like Rapunzel's hair.

And cupcakes (of course) with big yellow fake flowers on them. (the yellow flower is what gives Rapunzel her magic)

I served the cupcakes in a frying pan because, well I just did okay. Watch the movie and it will make sense, I promise.

We also had blue “Pascal” punch to drink.

And lastly, I re-used a paper lantern from Grey’s birthday party to hang in representation of the floating paper lanterns talked about in the movie.

This whole movie night cost me about $5. Much cheaper than going to the theater, and more fun too!!

Check back tomorrow, I’ve got a whole week of blog posts coming your way!

megamind. {movie night}

I loved this one. Darren and I watched it before the kids, so I had the chance to really prepare some fun stuff for them.

The movie is basically about two babies sent from space and one grows up to be bad and the other grows up to be good.

I started by making little spaceship cupcakes, like the ones they came to earth in.

I used little plastic cups from a party store (I think they might be shot cups?? They have little plastic snap lids that go with them. I use them for veggie dip for the kids school lunches) Anyways, frosting and Smarties (Canadian Smarties… LOL!) for the lights on the sides.

Some superhero juice. Using Titan’s mask as decoration.

Some Megamind super watches.

And for decorations I strung some colored papers from the ceiling using fishing line. It’s mostly recycled paper and Darren’s old school exams. I’m sure it makes no sense to you, but if you’ve seen the movie, you’d understand. ;)

And last but not least, I found a link on the HP website to make some Megamind masks for the kids. I printed the minion masks and used elastic around the back. (Titan’s mask from the juice is from the HP website as well)

And that’s our super simple movie night. Sorry to be so quick, but Finn is really sick and crying this super wimpy little cry that’s breaking my heart.

Have a great weekend!

secretariat {movie night}

I had a Secretariat movie night all planned and ready to go for last weekend, but it was a UFC night, and Darren always goes over to his BFF’s house to wrestle and eat snacks all night while they watch other guys wrestle and bleed. Sounds fun, right.

Well, there is a point to this, since I was home alone and had nothing else to do, I decided to watch Secretariat and I’m really glad I did. It is a beautiful movie and I’ll admit I cried, but it would have been way over my children’s level of comprehension. Definitely made for an older tween/teen crowd. BUT, since I’d already planned everything out for the night, I figured I would still share my ideas here, just in case you were thinking of doing this with your own family.

I’ll admit this one stumped me. I didn’t want to make horse cupcakes and really there isn’t much on the internet by way of horse ideas, so I really had to stretch my imagination, and here’s what I came up with.

Horses eat hay, grass and oats, so what better to serve than chewy oatmeal cookies.

photo credit

And of course horses love apples, but kids, maybe not so much. But I’m pretty sure if you dipped it in some caramel they’d be screaming for more.

photo credit

Carrots and sugar cubes are a good option too. (Just kidding, please don’t feed your kids sugar cubes, unless they’re at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, then feel free to give them cotton candy and pop too.)

Now, the horse’s name in the movie is really Big Red (Secretariat was his racing name) So any play on the words big, or red would work awesome too. My last idea was to have some red pull and peel licorice “horse reins”. I even thought about getting all fancy and printing some paper horses with the licorice poking through as the reins, but sometimes simpler is better. (ie. lazy is better)

And there you have it. This is one of those feel good movies about setting goals and succeeding no matter what the struggles life may have for you. A must see for sure. I know I’ll be dusting off the box in a few years and letting my kids watch it when they can understand it a bit better.

Hope you have a great day! ♥

beverly hills chihuahua 2 {movie night}

I had so much fun doing this movie night, and I actually like how it ended up being simple and sweet. A cupcake treat and fizzy pop… my kids were in heaven.

A homemade chocolate cupcake base with white buttercream frosting. I wanted each of the cupcakes to have something different that was dog related. I ended up keeping 3 of my original ideas (time issues, as usual LOL)

So we ended up with; doggy collars, made from marshmallow fondant and studded with silver eatable beads (we are in Beverly Hills after all)

And dog food cupcakes. (corn pops cereal. Reese Pieces cereal looks eerily like dog food, but we’re all out)

And last, puppy hair cupcakes. (chocolate jimmies) Those darn dogs shedding all over the place. Gross huh. But guess what… kids love disgusting things like that. ;)

Since our movie takes place in Beverly Hills, I decided to reconstruct the Hollywood sign, on a much, much smaller scale.

I used white letter stickers, backed them on black cardstock and cut them out. My “hillside” is a box covered in ruffled green grass fabric.

To stick the letters into the hill, I hot glued a pin to the back of each letter. Poked it into the box and done.

The kids are laughing hysterically downstairs, and Grey keeps jumping up at the TV screen saying, Puppy, Puppy? So I’m pretty sure this one is a keeper.

(Scratch above statement, movie is over and the kids are HYPER!! Running, jumping and going crazy, thank goodness I’m upstairs on the computer and Darren’s down there, with the crazies.)

Have a great weekend! Don’t forget to check out my 365 Blog. ♥

nanny mcphee {movie night}

I absolutely adored the first Nanny McPhee movie. It’s one of my all time favorites, so when I heard they were doing a sequel, I was beside myself with excitement!! And of course it was just as good as the first, except I cried… darn movie writers breaking down my cold bitter heart. ;)

I couldn’t wait to see it, so I actually watched it before the kids, which always ends up being great, because then I can really personalize the movie night… and this is what I came up with.

I started by filling some mason jars with chocolate pudding. I bought some white plastic garden markers from the dollar store and added some stickers to make mud tags.

I took the labels off some tubes of mini m&m’s and added more stickers to spell out magic. I used ribbon to tie each tube to the neck of the mason jar.

The kids were able to “sprinkle” Nanny McPhee’s magic into the yucky mud.

They were very engrossed the whole time, pausing only to let me take some pictures.

Lily’s mudstache.

A fantastic movie as usual, and a super easy treat to go with it.

(I wanted to add that there’s a long story behind why my kids are wearing summer tank tops and dresses, and if it wouldn’t get me arrested I would tell you why. ;)

milk and cookies.

I’m off to a very slow start this year with all the Christmas festivities at our house, but last night we managed to squeeze in a very fun milk and cookies party.

I had spent the day making various batches of cookies for the kids to sample, along with 3 different kinds of milk.

And who, might you say were we taste testing for…?

Well, Santa of course.

The cookies…

Rainbow sprinkle cookies, homemade chocolate chip, chocolate peanut butter and mini dunkers (store bought).

And the milk…

I made little tags to go on each of the mini jug handles- 2% milk, Chocolate milk and Eggnog. (the tag got cut off the pic, sorry)

The cups that they drank the milk out of had Oreo cookie straws, which I will admit are super yummy!!

We had little shooter glasses of milk with mini cookie chasers. (Don’t worry, they were cute, I am not teaching my kids how to be early alcoholics☺)

The kids each got to choose which of the milk and cookies were their favorite to leave for Santa on Christmas Eve. I don’t have to tell you which was their favorite drink…

And the cookie that won…

Well, I guess nothing can top Mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies.

We also watched this movie along with our milk and cookie snack.

A-dorable!!!

how to train your dragon. {movie night}

My oldest child (Darren) has been dying to see this movie since his brother told him it was so good. Well, we finally got the chance to see it this weekend, and it didn’t disappoint, he loved it. (Darren)

Oh, the kids liked it too. LOL!

To keep this one simple, I started off by making some paper labels to cover little bottles of red pop, which we called dragon fire.

Some yummy dragon ‘fire rings’.  (bbq corn chips)

And a sweet little (harmless) Dragon to eat.

I made him with some homemade Oreo's. (You could use the real deal Oreo cakester cookies if you want) But these ones are so much more yummier!

After stacking your cookies in the shape of a dragon, cut 2 cookies in half for his back and head.

I used gum paste to make his tongue and the little blue spikes that poke out of his head and body. But finding some sort of candy replacement would be simple.

And that’s it, the perfect little movie night combo!

Here’s our troops watching the show…

The little guys were sleeping!

Hope you had a great weekend! Oh, and if you feel like seeing another movie night from me… check out www.howdoesshe.com

Guest Post by Moi!

camp rock. {movie night}

Our movie night turned out to be more than just a little crazy, including me running to 2 different stores an hour before the show started. Darn those last minute things you forget.

So anyways, the pictures are dark, I didn’t do step by step instructions, but I’m hoping you can get the idea by the few I did manage to snap.

For decorations, I had gone to the OEYC. (you can read all about it here, but if you don’t want to, basically it’s a program put on by the Ontario government that allows parents/teachers to come and use art supplies, papers, die cutting machines etc. for school or home projects all for FREE!!)

Anyways, I had gone earlier in the week and cut out some fun foam stars. I started by tying them onto strings and hanging them from our ceiling.

Using the same colors of fun foam I cut out a '”Welcome to Camp Rock” banner. Originally it was going to hang outside, on our front porch but it was a yucky rainy day, and so inside it went hastily taped to the wall. (It still bothers me how uneven and not perfect looking it is, but alas the show must go on… it would have been cuter outside. LOL!)

And last but not least for our ‘decorations’ we grabbed the kids sleeping bags from the basement and I made campfire tags to stick to each bag. They were all propped up on the couch waiting for them to snuggle down and watch the movie. They loved that part!

Alright, the long awaited snacks. I think these might be my favorite to date…

Since we were inside and couldn’t have a real campfire, we decided to make one out of our most favorite thing… chocolate!!

The bottom is a brownie baked in a round 8x8 pan. I spread chocolate frosting around the edge and dipped it in crushed graham crackers. And simply start building your fire.

Twix bar ‘tree logs’, peanut m&m’s in red, yellow and orange for the ‘hot coals’ and a small bit of tissue paper for our flames.

Too cute hey!!

As for the drinks, we had to have something to do with s’mores. When you’re camping, that’s about the most important food to bring.

We had ours in liquid form instead.

I dipped the rim of the glass in chocolate frosting, and rolled it in fine ground graham cracker crumbs. I desperately searched everywhere for white hot chocolate powder, but it mustn’t be close enough to Christmas, because nobody sold it. But vanilla flavored milk was a great last minute substitution.

Roasted marshmallows on lollypop sticks (browned to perfection by Darren on our gas stove top)

Made for a super yummy stir stick.

I love seeing their little faces when they’re allowed to come downstairs and see the set up. It makes it all worthwhile. (Yes, we keep the movie, treats and decorations a complete surprise until we’re ready to start… it helps build anticipation and excitement)

Grey doing what he does best… being a little turkey.

Ava showing her newly lost tooth gap…

While the movie was playing, I was busy cleaning like a crazy mad woman. Darren was convinced I was going to have the baby that night, because I simply could not stop. About 5 hours later I finally took myself off to bed… and well, I’m still pregnant, so clearly it didn’t work. LOL!

But besides all of that, the kids loved the movie! Hunter and Ava were up dancing and singing along to the songs, I may have even seen Darren tapping his foot along a couple times. I found it funny to see so many Disney stars crammed onto one big screen. (I haven’t seen the Camp Rock movies and really didn’t understand the story line at all… LOL)

Anyways, it was a cute night, the treats were yummy and the time spent as a family was worth every minute putting it together.

PS. I also thought you could make individual campfires using mini Twix bars. They’re usually really easy to find at this time because of Halloween. ;)

ETA: Because someone is going to ask… probably Amanda… LOL! Yes, I do love my other 2 children, but thanks to a couple of handstanding couch jumpers, 2 of our portraits have been knocked off the wall. (star pictures above) We’re planning on hanging them with something a bit stronger. ;)