Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl - April 28, 2013

Chris was the lucky one who got to pick out the movie for today's Disney Family Fun Day and he chose one of his favorite Disney movies, Pirates of the Caribbean.  The majority of our family hadn't seen this one yet so it was a great choice.  Some of us were a little nervous that it might be a bit too intense for Reecie-Boy, but he loved it!

We decided to dress like pirates this time -- I'm sure we were quite the sight walking from the car to the house in pirate gear and hopefully the neighbors didn't think we finally lost it, but it was a lot of fun! 

Steve and Dianne -- loved the hook!!



Bruce, Melissa, and Ryan -- Bruce wasn't really into the who pirate outfit thing, but did it anyway.  What a sport!  The socks that Melissa's mother in law gave her for Christmas really came in handy here and Ryan's kind of looking like a cross between a pirate and Billy Madison/Happy Gilmore - haha!

Jess and Reece -- loved the towel pirate outfit that Reece is rocking and the "marker" around his eyes!

And last but definitely not least -- the best dressed pirates, Chris and Ashley!  I love how they went all out -- they looked great!!

During the movie we enjoyed a snack of "Fish and Chips" which were Goldfish crackers, pickle chips (yummo), and Sunchips.  We all must have been hungry because the snacks didn't last too long (or maybe Uncle Bruce just ate them all - he was shingling the garage before Disney Day and didn't have time to eat so he was starving!)

During the movie we had a couple of sleepy pirates -- now it is a well known fact and long running joke that Steve falls asleep during movies.  I think we all remember going to see Home Alone in the movie theater and Steve falling asleep.  When he woke up about 1/3 of the way through the movie he was laughing, but he had no idea what he was supposed to be laughing about -- I guess he just heard the rest of the theater laughing at that movie and joined in!  LOL!!  Anyway, back to our sleepy pirates...

After the movie (and nap for some of us) we ate a delicious pirate themed meal:

Fruit Swords

Caribbean Coleslaw

Pirates Brew

Pirates Teeth

Pirate Ship Pizza (we each made our own French bread pizza -- delicious!!)

Pirate Ship Cake complete with gummy bears walking the plank and one with a peg leg -- Melissa used Rolos for the cannons, Whoppers for the cannonballs, and Rootbeer Barrels for the kegs.

After our delicious meal we had a scavenger/treasure hunt.  We hid the clues around the house while everyone was getting there and waiting to start the movie.  To make the clues we did up a "map" of Grandpa and Grandma's living room and wrote the last clue on the same side as the room layout.  Once that was done the "map" was cut into ten pieces and the other clues were written on the backs of each piece.

Here's Ryan, Grandpa, and Reece looking for a clue in the garage...

 Ryan reading the next clue...

Once all of the clues were found, Ryan and Reece had to put them together to form the map and to get the last clue

The last clue took them to the window seat to find the "buried treasure"

The buried treasure was a wooden treasure chest we found at Michael's craft store and painted.  Inside was filled with gold chocolate coins, jolly rancher candys (for the gems), and some fruity gummies

Here are the clues we used on our scavenger hunt

1. Eleven clues will help you find the way, To the buried treasure you will find today.  The clues won't be very hard - they should really be a snap, Ten of them will be put together to give you the final and a map!  This is the very first clue to start you on your caper, In the mornings you look in here to find the daily newspaper. (answer: mailbox)

2. Auntie Melissa had terrible horrible luck, Falling down these things and sometimes falling up! (answer: stairs)

3. In the mornings when they're tired Grandpa and Grandma grab a cup, Of liquid brewed in this machine which helps to wake them up! (answer: coffeemaker)

4. After a long hard day of working when you're so tired you could scream, Lay yourself upon this place to fall asleep and dream! (answer: bed)

5. Cars are parked in here and snowmobiles too, Grandpa keeps his tools here -- would he borrow one to you? (answer: toolbox -- and no if your name is Adam, hahaha!)

6. Dirty shirts, muddy pants filled with grass stains galore, Are made clean once again using this - but it's still a chore! (answer: washing machine)

7. When the wind outside is howling and the ground is covered with snow, Curl up with a blanket and a book by the warmth of this things glow. (answer: fireplace)

8. There's a rumbly in your tummy and you're looking for something good, Take a look in here - there's cereal, treats, and lots of other food. (answer: pantry)

9. When you're feeling less than fresh there's just one place to go, To wash and get all squeaky clean from your head down to your toes. (answer: shower)

10. Mirror, Mirror on the wall, It's where we hang our coats so they won't fall. (answer: mirrored coat hanger by door)

Once the ten clues were put together they formed the map and the 11th clue

11. Roxy likes to hop up on here, lay in the sun, and get hot.  If you look under the cushion, X marks the spot (answer: bay window seat -- there was a red X that was taped to the lid of the storage area and the treasure chest was in that area)

We had a blast with the Pirates of the Caribbean movie night!  We all look forward to spending such a fun time with each other and can hardly wait until next time.  Speaking of next time, Liam got to choose the movie for next time (with the help of his dad) and chose Monsters, Inc.  Our minds are already filling up with all the fun possibilities!  Now to just nail down a date -- May is incredibly busy!!

Until next time remember "It all started with a mouse"!





Beauty and the Beast - April 14, 2013

Ashley got to choose the movie for today's Disney Movie Night and she decided to go with Beauty and the Beast.  I love this movie -- a classic fairy tale which shows us that it isn't what is on the outside that matters, but it is what is on the inside that counts.  This movie has always been a favorite of mine so I was very excited for today.

I make up invitations and tickets for each of our Disney Family Fun Days, but usually forget to take a picture of them....not today!

Last night Dianne and I spent some time creating some enchanted friends to welcome everyone to our Disney Family Fun Day -- we had so much fun. 

We had Babette the Feather Duster French Maid.  I found this idea on kimskandykreations.blogspot.com.  She has so many cute ideas and provided the printables for a couple of our enchanted friends!  Thanks!!

 

We also had Lumiere -- he is one of my favorite characters partly because the late, great Jerry Orbach was the voice and I love Jerry Orbach.  Putting Lumiere was frustrating, but also a lot of fun -- especially with Bruce yelling at Lumiere to "Stand like a man!" when he kept falling over -- yes a "few" adult beverages were consumed during our arts and crafts prep night.  Hahaha!

You can't have Lumiere without Cogsworth....again thank you to kimskandykreations.blogspot.com.  I had to do some modifying to her Cogsworth since she had an actual clock to use for Cogsworth's head, but I think he turned out really cute!

We were also able to find Ashley's Chip cup from when she was a little girl -- I wonder how old this cup is?!  He is still just a cute as the day we got him!

And finally we had the Enchanted Rose.  Bruce was a great source of laughter when we were making this.  Between not cutting the rose short enough, Melissa mistakenly cutting the line completely off the rose, and Bruce not quite getting the height right several, several (hahahaha) times, it is amazing how well this turned out.  I love it!!

For our meal we decided that we were going to use some French phrases to say "Please", "Thank you", "Please pass the ____", "You're Welcome", and "Excuse Me".  It was fun to try to incorporate the phrases into our meal, although we did forget a time or two and probably butchered the pronunciations terribly.

For our menu we really tried to stick close to the foods mentioned in "Be Our Guest" and had a delicious meal of:

Beef Ragout

Cheese Souffle

Gray Stuff (cookie and crème mousse)

Gaston's Eggs

Beauty and the Beast Bordeaux (sparkling red grape juice)

Like I said it was delicious.  Poor Ryan slept through our meal however.  He had just returned home from his trip to Florida and was dealing with a terrible sunburn (blisters, swelling, peeling) so we let him sleep during the meal.  When he woke up we made him a plate...

 

His poor face is peeling terribly!

After dinner we watched the movie.  Reece was really into the movie and there were a couple of times when Reece, Jess, and Dianne jumped.  We watched the extended version which included the song "Human Again" which I enjoyed.  I'm not sure there is anything about this movie that I don't love!

Once the movie was over we made our "stained glass window" craft.  I goofed up and forgot to bring the construction papers for the windows so we improvised and just made the "stained glass".  It took a lot of crayon shavings (great way to get rid of old crayons), but was fun.  Apparently I forgot to take pictures, but Dianne was still working on her project so I was at least able to get one.

Once our craft was done we made our dessert...Cogsworth Cupcakes.  They were a lot of fun to make and were delicious

We had to kind of rush through making our Cogsworth Cupcakes because of the weather -- I can't believe that two weeks ago we were ushering in Spring with A Bug's Life and this weekend we are dealing with a winter storm.  Come on Mother Nature -- we are sick of winter!!

We decided to do our next Disney Family Fun Day in two weeks since we are having so much fun with them and the weather isn't really cooperating to do anything else.  Chris had the pleasure of choosing the movie for next time and he decided on Pirates of the Caribbean!  I can't wait to get started on the planning!

Until next time remember "It all started with a mouse"!

A Bug's Life - March 30, 2013

Ryan got to choose the movie for today's Disney Movie Night and he decided to go with A Bug's Life.  What a perfect choice to usher in Spring!  This is such a cuite movie and I love the message that by working together you can overcome anything!  Pretty much everyone was able to join us at one point or another for today's festivities.  Even Liam was welcomed back from movie exile -- haha!

While we were waiting for everyone to get here, we decided to make some leaves from construction paper to hang from the light fixture above the table.  Some of the leaves were good (Ashley and Sarah) and some were not so good (Melissa).  I really think the decor added to the ambiance and is something we will definitely do from now on.

We also made some bug masks before the movie which was a lot of fun.  I actually found the prinouts on the Terminix website.  There were three different masks to choose from, a couple of antennae, and some accessories for your mask.  Most of us ended up using pipe cleaners for antennae and we found that we had to glue our masks onto construction paper to make them a bit sturdier.  I think if I had printed them out on card stock we would have been okay.

Here is Marlene's bug mask -- love the curly antennae!

Liam wasn't a fan of getting his picture taken with the bug mask his mom, Sarah, made for him.  This was the best picture out of about 6 or 7 I tried to take.

Melissa chose to stay true to the Terminix options and used the antennae provided.  Cute flower!

Chris had to work for most of the day, but when he did make it he decided to make a bug mask -- I think his bug had super hero powers, too!

Here is most of us with our bug masks.  We lost Marlene, Sarah, and Liam along the way.  Here is Chris, Ashley, Melissa, and Dianne.

Our timing got out of whack so we decided to have our meal before the movie since the kids were getting hungry -- okay the adults were hungry too!  Our delicious meal consisted of:

Francis Bites made from halved strawberries with black candy piping for the bodies and blackberries for the heads.

Heimlich Kebobs which were grapes on a bamboo skewer with white and black candy piping for the face.

Ants on a Log -- we made these Reece friendly since he has a peanut allergy.  We used celery, cottage cheese, and raisins.  Yummo!

Leaves which was a salad greens and spinach mix

The Offering of course!  We used dried cranberries and almonds to represent the food the ants were gatehring for the grasshoppers.

Rock Salad - Dianne's super delicious potato salad was a great Rock Salad!

Bug Juice

Poo Poo Platter which is from Ashley's favorite part of the movie.  Steve and Bruce grilled some yummy burgers....mmmmm!

Dirt Cups for dessert -- each cup had chocolate pudding, crushed oreos, and 1 1/2 gummy worms.  When Melissa was making these Bruce just couldn't help himself and ate some of the gummy worms -- hence 1 1/2 gummy worms each!

Here is the table set with the food -- with the exception of the Poo Poo Platter burgers -- they were still on the grill.  The table cloth was an extra from our Lady and the Tramp night (notice the hearts at the bottom) but the red and white checkered top worked great for a picnic theme.  We also used paper plates and plastic silverware to go with our picnic theme -- and easy cleanup.

After our meal we watched A Bug's Life and enjoyed a snack of PT Flea's Circus Mix which was popcorn, pretzel sticks, and candy corn.

After the movie Dianne brought Sarah and Liam home as he was tuckered out from playing all day.  We had a lot of fun having both Sarah and Liam over and will definitely invite them again -- well at least until Liam is exiled from movie night again :)  Marlene decided she was tuckered out too so she made her way home as well.

The rest of us made our caterpillar/butterfly craft.  We started out gluing pompoms onto a wooden clothespin.  We tried using Elmer's glue and that did work, but it took a while to dry and we are an impatient bunch so out came the hot glue gun!  We decided that Bruce should probably be banned from using the hot glue gun because I swear every time he used it we would hear "Ow that's hot!" coming from that area!

Here is Ryan, Steve, Jess, and Reece working on building their caterpillars....soon they will be beautiful butterflies!

For the butterfly wings we used washable markers to color designs on a sheet of paper towel. 

Here Ashley is finishing her caterpillar, Jess and Reece are working on their wings, and Bruce is....well I'm not too sure what Bruce is doing here!

Bruce finally decided to start coloring his wings -- pretty Vikings design Bruce!

When we were done coloring our designs on the paper towel we used a spray bottle to lightly mist water onto the paper towel which made the colors bleed together.  We were definitely glad we still had the table cloth on as the colors also bled onto the table cloth.

Here are Steve's wings after being misted with water.

To speed up the drying time (like I said we are an impatient bunch) we brought out the hair dryer.  The trick to not making your wings fly around the table was to dry them from straight up above.  We found that the paper towel actually separated into two pieces while it was drying which was no big deal as we just used the top sheet for our wings -- I think it actually fit into the clothes pins better too!

Steve is demonstrating how to blow dry your wings with help from Ashley.

Finally our wings were dry and we could turn our caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly.  You just scrunch the middle of the top and bottom toward the center and place that inside the clothespin.  Some of us put magnets on the back of our clothespin so we could hang them on the fridge.  Others hung their butterfly from the leaves we had hung up earlier.  We decided that with all of the butterflies hanging above the table it reminded us of Easter Morning church services at Hawley Lutheran Church as they also hang butterflies from the ceiling.  How fitting since we had our Disney Movie Night on the day before Easter.

Ashley and her butterfly -- love the little pompoms on the body!

Steve and his butterfly.  He was the only one to use little pompoms for the eyes instead of googly eyes.  I think it turned out really cool as his eyes seem to glow against the black head.

Ashley showing off her bug mask and butterfly -- cute!

Bruce, Melissa, and Ryan's butterflies on the fridge.  By this point we realized we should use the pipecleaners for the antennae as well.

Jess's butterfly hanging from the leaf decor - pretty colors!

Steve's butterfly -- the green and yellow are NOT for the Green Bay Packers!  They were for Steve's high school colors - hahaha!

Reece's cute butterfly.  He had a lot of fun coloring the wings -- it turned out really good!

Ashley's super bright butterfly reminds me of Spring!  I love it!!

Ryan, Bruce, and Melissa with their butterfly creations.

We also celebrated Jess's 33rd birthday.  Technically she doesn't turn 33 until April 1st, but Jess and Reece are going to Minneapolis for the Twins home opener baseball game.  Dianne made a yummy banana cream pie and lined it with Peeps.  When all 33 candles were lit there were some concerns that the Peeps would go up in flames, but that catastrophe was avoided -- I think the fire department was on call though!  Hahaha!

This was another successful Disney Movie Night!  We are having such a blast getting together to watch the Disney movies and to make such wonderful memories with each other.  Ashley had the pleasure of picking out the movie for next month.  After much deliberation (much, much deliberation) she decided on Beauty and the Beast.  I love, love, love that movie and cannot wait to see what we come up with for our meal and crafts!

On a side note lucky Ryan is leaving for a high school band and choir trip to Florida this Friday -- what a fitting send off to have the Disney Movie Night the weekend before he leaves.  The band and choir is taking a charter bus to Florida and they will perform at the Disney Village.  They will spend one day in each park and a day at Cocoa Beach before heading back.  Maybe I can sneak into his suitcase :)

Until next time remember "It all started with a mouse"!