Movie Night: Freebirds

I feel like my finger is hovering on the trigger of a cannon of all things Christmas.  I'm almost ready to unleash the most wonderful time of the year at my house, but first a little Thanksgiving fun!

Freebirds is a really cute little movie that's perfect for November.  It offers plenty of laughs for both kids and adults.  Read about its content here.

I was tickled to spot these turkeys and they inspired my whole look for the table.  I LOVE the touches of pink!  I look forward to putting them out year after year.

Also, let's talk about how much mileage I'm getting out of these pumpkins.  They work September through November!

I added these dinner napkins and put these under the glasses.  When I buy a pack of fun napkins for movie night I always use the extras throughout the following week for dinner and packing lunches for the kids.

The place cards are just the cutest. 

For dinner, we are having enchiladas.  Because we just are.  If you wanted to play off the theme, you could do a toned-down thanksgiving-type meal or turkey/cranberry/dressing/cream cheese sandwiches.  The main character in this movie, Reggie, is a turkey who learns how to order pizza so you could do that too!

If you haven't already, give this silly little movie a try!

Movie Night: Red Riding Hood

Happy Halloween!  

This movie night is inspired by our Halloween costumes.  My husband and I usually don't dress up, but this year we got a wild hair and joined the kids. We all play a role in our first true family theme, which is Little Red Riding Hood. 

I thought this made such a cute theme.  I made a point to only use things we had on hand.  The red gingham tablecloth is round and normally goes on our outdoor table, so I did the old scrunch trick.  The round tree slices (not sure what to call them!) are from my daughter's first birthday party.  The little basket is part of her costume.

The red plates are from my wedding registry and the white plates are part of some catering-type dishes I have from World Market.  I ordered this pretty pop-up book to commemoriate our costumes and frankly to brush up on the story.  Ha!

You have to love that when I asked my husband if he had a small ax I could use for the table he offered me three choices.  He also dug into the Christmas decorations for me to get the little tree.

The wolf is my kids' from Great Wolf Lodge.

Ok let's talk about the movie itself.  I honestly didn't know if such a movie existed.  A search on Amazon gave me a few options, each with reviews that said, "Not for kids!"  I figure I'm probably not any more lenient than a random Amazon reviewer.  Who knows.  So I chose this version from 1988.  Y'all it was OLD and WEIRD.  Oh and it's a musical.  Plus Craig T. Nelson plays his own evil twin.  So there's that.

The Big Bad Wolf is more like the Big Bad German Shepherd.  It was certainly not a cinematic masterpiece, but we are happy to expose our kids to things that are old-fashioned and not the latest and greatest.  To me it beats the "not for kids!" version any day.  We enjoyed it for what it was.

For dinner I pulled out one of my old tried-and-true Halloween tricks:  a Jack-o-lantern pizza from Papa Murphy's.  This says "I'm a fun mom" when really you are just a tired mom.  I added a salad.

Dessert was pumpkin cheesecake from Trader Joe's.  TJ's is the secret to my success.

I loved this movie night and my family did too.

I hope you enjoy lots of treats and maybe even a few tricks today!

Movie Night: Hotel Transylvania

It's movie night and we are checking into the Hotel Transylvania!  We always get a kick out of this one and you can read about its content here.  For the table you'll see I rounded up Halloween decorations from around the house.

The dessert plates are a Homegoods find and I think they are fun and whimsical.

I was determined to make the green blob guy from the movie out of jello.

After looking around my kitchen for something to use my husband came up with a good plan.  He picked up these collapsible camping cups at Walmart and they were perfect. 

I filled them with lime jello, added candy eyes, and the result got the intended amount of delight and laughter from my kids.  They loved these!

We had brisket tacos for dinner.  For dessert I spent the week thinking grand thoughts and pinning all kinds of creative ideas.  Then I realized that between soccer practice, prepping for the cousin party, and my unfortunate lacking of a personal chef (ha) I wasn't sure who I thought would be making those things.  So, I grabbed red velvet cupcakes from the grocery and added a gummy eyeball to each.  So easy and everyone laughed and was grossed out and enjoyed them just the same.

It really only takes one or two creative touches to make a movie night extra special.  Hotel Transylvania would be a perfect one to pop in for your fam this weekend!