Hotel Transylvania Dinner Movie Night

This movie is completely under appreciated.  I laughed uncontrollably at several points in the movie and think it is adorable. My girls are strange and are OBSESSED with Halloween.  So, I wasn't too concerned with a couple scary parts because for some reason they are terrified of their own shadow but mummies and vampires evoke no emotion...  There are a plethora of kiddo Halloween foodie options so I just picked a few that I already had stuff on hand.

The ghosts are bananas with chocolate chip faces.  I peeled oranges to make "pumpkins" with a gummy candy stem.  The guacamole and chips were monster toenails and fungus (mmmm... yum... I love fungus).  The hot dog mummies are made out of hot dog wrapped in crescent rolls with mustard eyes.   Lastly, cheeseburger jack-o-lanterns.  My kids are picky and don't like their cheese melted.  Otherwise I would have melted these pumpkin faces a little over the hamburger.  This was one of my favorite themed nights yet!

101 Dalmatians Dinner Movie Night

This weeks viewing was 101 Dalmatians.  I had pinned this cute hot dog "dog" a while ago and couldn't wait to find an excuse to try it out.  I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here.  She has a great video tutorial on how to make them.  Work smart not hard... The peas I have no idea how they tie in I just couldn't come up with a creative veggie to go.  The mash potatoes are the snow and the Oreos are black and white Cruella Deville cookies.

Any thoughts on themed veggies?

Elsie's Big Numero Uno Monster Bash

Go big or go home, right?  Everyone has an area in their life this applies to.  Mine just happens to drive my husband crazy and exhilarate my toddlers to no end... parties.  I LOVE planning kiddo parties.   Starting months in advance, gathering ideas, making lists, hounding deals to get the most bang for my buck, crafting, thinking outside the box on how I can make what's going on in my head a reality on a tiny budget.  The latest extravaganza was my sweet baby Elsie's big number one.  My three year old Adelyn insisted on being my planning assistant and decided Our Little Monster must be the theme!  This time around I really encouraged my big girls to get involved and they helped pick out the menu,  make decor and come up with games.  We did nothing but dream and talk about monsters for months and we loved it.  Here's some pics...

 Watermelon monster

 Orange Dream Monster Cake Pops

 Candied Monster Mouth Favors

 Birthday Girl's Personal Monster Cake

 Monster Cupcakes

 Ham, Turkey and Cheese Monster Sandwiches

Monster Bones

 Monster Toenails and Dip

 Monster Cutlery Holder made out of a tissue box

 Girls Monster Art and Handmade Birthday Sign

 Sign for our bounce house

 Pin the Eye on the Monster.  The girls and I made the eye magnets

 Monster Puzzles I found at Michaels on clearance

 Make Your Own Monster Station with pre-cut eyes and teeth.  This was Adelyn's idea :)

The favors.  Clearance monster masks, bath toys for babies and notebook for our older kids.

 First Year Birthday Banner

 This guy was the girls favorite.  Made him out of foam board and acrylic paints.  They named him Gobie (see the nametag...) and the kiddos took pics with their face in his mouth.

Don't you just want to eat her up?!?!?!?!

However, our outdoor party was quickly thwarted the night before to Missouri Bipolar weather.  We had to quickly improvise to an indoor venue (which included garage space because of our lengthy guest list) and Daddy surprised the girls with a Little Tykes Bounce House that could fit inside since our big rental was going to be a no go.  They were ecstatic and since we are practically a daycare center I figured it was going to be a great investment on those rainy/cold days that have me daydreaming of being shipwrecked on an island completely isolated and loving it... 

 

It's blurry because they refused to stop bouncing for a photo op...

The garage, however, really bothered me.  I couldn't have my guests eating in a garage after all this careful planning!  So I spent four hours with 150 balloons, ribbon and thumbtacks.  All hung from the ceiling to disguise where we really were.  A wave of color.  Bright table cloths, corresponding galvanized tins with hand sanitizer, napkins and cutlery as center pieces.  It was awesome and I have no pictures of it... You heard me.  There are very few things that make me want to cry anymore and the fact that the party came and went and not one single pic was taken of that space makes me want to hurl...  So if you attended and happened to snap a photo I will sing your praises forever.  Until then I will have to fervently hold onto the memory and you will just have to trust me on it's awesomeness...

Land Before Time Dinner Movie Night

This weeks movie of choice was...

 Land Before Time.  An oldie but a goodie.  Perfect for my dinosaur obsessed girls right now!  Pretty simple meal.  Tyson dino chicken nuggets, salad for palm tree leaves and grass, carrot for the trunk, cheese sandwich stegosaurus with carrot legs.

Adelyn said this was her favorite one because she got to eat scary stuff.  I guess that's important to a 3 year old.  You know control, dominance, I'm in charge...

Rise of the Guardians Dinner Movie Night

This past weeks movie was...

Rise of the Guardians.  Very cute movie enjoyed by all :)  For those of you who are not familiar with it Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Jack Frost and the Sandman all have to defeat "fear" and "unbelieving" from taking over the world.  So here is what we made.

 Tooth Fairy teeth made out of apple slices, peanut butter and mini marshmallows.

Carrots and ranch in honor of the Easter Bunny.

Santa Claus pancakes made out of multigrain pancakes for the head, whip cream for the beard and hair, strawberries for the hat and nose, bananas and chocolate chips for the eyes.


and not pictured was ice cream for Jack Frost with ground graham cracker topping for the sandman.

Girls loved it.  Nailed it.

Wreck It Ralph Dinner Movie Night

Last week for our Friday night ritual we watched one of the hubs and I's fastly approaching favorites, Wreck It Ralph.  This movie cracks me up.  Maybe because I grew up with a lot of the games in the movie or I have the mentality of a five year old.  That's still up for debate.  Anyways...

The girls and I started by making our candy cars (The characters in the movie make a candy car).  Of course this went over famously.  The only problem was keeping them from eating their car before it was finished.  I just used graham crackers, marshmallows, frosting and leftover Easter candy I had laying around the house.

What do you mean I can't just eat straight icing?!?!?!

Then we snacked on "Fix it Felix's hammers" (pretzels and cheese cubes).

The main course was Felix's favorite meal, pie... Mommy twist, pot pie.  Not as fun but thematic.
(Didn't take a pic cause well... it was just a pot pie)
Dessert was their cars and our "Hero Medals" made from cookies and nerds licorice.

There you have it! Ton of fun.  This week Winnie the Pooh...

Arrrrrr Pirates Friday Movie Night

We have started a new tradition in our house, Friday Night Movie Night.  It actually has sinister ulterior motives.  To our girls it's a fun themed treat night.  For Daddy and I, it is motivation to not spend money going out to eat, an excuse to sit down and secretly enjoy watching kids movies and a reward/incentive for the girls to be on their best all week.  The hubby and I choose a movie of the week before I go to the grocery store so I can plan accordingly :)  Our first choice was The Pirates movie.

Our girls have had this weird "boy-like" obsession with pirates because of their infatuation with Peter Pan.  So, we figured a new pirates movie would be a good fit.  I whipped up a pirate themed dinner to eat while we watched and the girls LOVED it.  The plus was that it really was easy to make, wasn't expensive and our house was SILENT for 1 1/2 hours with stuffed mouths and zoned out movie PEACE :)  Here was the menu...

~ Hot dog octopus:  Just slice the bottom 3/4 of the hot dog into "tentacles"
~ Raman noodle ocean: Raman noodles (minus the rediculous sodium flavor pack) with blue food   
   coloring
~ Blueberry canonballs
~ Hard boiled egg pirates ship:  Hard boiled egg cut in half.  The sail is made out of a pretzel and
   triangular shaped cheese slice
~ Ocean jello dessert:  Blue jello with Swedish fish

This week is Wreck-it Ralph!  Post and pics to come soon.