Cars... 9 weeks!

It's officially summer! No more school for any of us (at least for a little bit)!

We welcomed summer to the Lyons Den this week with a road trip to Radiator Springs for the classic Pixar pic, Cars.

I drew a lot of inspiration from The Purple Patch's Cars themed movie night. She is very creative and I've borrowed some ideas from her before. She had these awesome drink labels available for free and they fit perfectly around our containers. In case you can't tell, the Dinoco Oil was chocolate milk and the Organic Fuel was Gold Peak sweet ice tea.

Chick Hicks "Sticks" and "Mack" and cheese (unpictured- whoops!) made for a very easy menu. I'm obsessed with the crunchy chicken tenders from Target that I used a few weeks ago for Treasure Planet- I was so happy to be able to use them again! Full disclosure- the "Mack" and cheese was a box of Frozen shaped macaroni and cheese- it was a few weeks too late LOL.

The kids had fun making the traffic lights. This was a snack idea that we use in the preschool program I work with during transportation week. Cubby sorted out the red, yellow, and green M&Ms first. Bizarrely, there were JUST enough red ones for our little project, but about a gazillion green ones. Weird. Anyway, I gave everyone the choice of Nutella or peanut butter as the base on the graham cracker and everyone went with peanut butter.

Luigi's Tire Shop is "famous" for their leaning tower of tires, so Cubby stacked the "tires" to see how many he could stack before they leaned and fell over. I think his record was 7.

I popped the popcorn on the stove again (see Treasure Planet for recipe). We put salt and melted butter on it for an easy movie snack. I saw in the comments of the recipe that adding a little bit of oil to the melted butter would help keep the butter from shriveling up the popcorn. It worked and gave the popcorn a little bit of a movie theater taste. I used orange construction paper and made Cozy Cones (a la Sally's hotel in the movie) to hold our popcorn.

The secret fun of these movie nights has also been noticing things in the movies that I've never noticed before. We have been making sure that we put our phones away for the night, which means that I'm watching the movies, some for the first time, without the distraction of my phone pulling my attention and causing me to miss little details. Like the clouds that look like tire tracks... or the flies that are shaped like cars. It's amazing what we can see when we step away from the technology (she says on her blog).

I was up and ready to go for the FastPass reservations a few days ago. We got almost everything that we wanted, with the exception of the Flight of Passage ride in Pandora in Animal Kingdom. It was the first thing I went for, but there were no reservations left! I was shocked, and a little disappointed, but it is what it is. I'll keep checking back to see if something opens up. That's already happened with our dining reservations, so we'll keep our fingers crossed. Everything else was available and so we are all set. I also made an appointment for Lady A to get her first haircut at the Harmony Barber Shop our first day at the Magic Kingdom! I can't believe we're within the FastPass window- time is flying!

Next week we head back to 2D animation and princesses with The Princess & the Frog.
9 more weeks to go! 🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

Big Hero 6... 10 weeks!

This is movie night number 7 and I was super psyched for this one! We went all the way to San Fransokyo for...

Here's why I was excited for this week's movie night.
1) I love this movie. The first time I saw it, honestly, I said "Eh." But the more we watch it, the more I adore it. Rumor is that they are making a sequel and I'm not thrilled with the premise because I love this one so much. If I could just have a Baymax that lived in my house that could come and be my healthcare companion, life would be so much easier and I swear that I would always be satisfied with my care.
2) We were having sushi. Duh. So, no cooking for mommy! It will probably go down in our record books as the most expensive Disney movie night of all, but it was well worth it!
Note: If we were to do this one again at some point, I would change the menu to make Aunt Cass' face-melting wings. #missedopportunity (or not... cuz... SUSHI)

The Cubster has been eating eel avocado rolls for years, ever since we asked him what he wanted to eat for dinner one night and he said he wanted to eat eel. It was during an ocean animal phase and, what can I say, it was an excellent excuse to get sushi. So he's big in to it, but this was Lady A's first experience. I got her an avocado cucumber roll and she basically picked the avocado out and left the rest on her plate. (We ultimately made her chicken nuggets.) Cubby was obsessed with us eating Wasabi with our sushi, which I would not do, but Husband always does, so Cubby was satisfied.

A quick google search found me a recipe for Honey Lemon(ade). Easy peasy.

When we decided on this movie, Cubby said we should have marshmallows for Baymax. I loved that idea and thought let's actually make Baymax out of marshmallows! My little engineer did an excellent job of creating Baymax out of regular and mini marshmallows. A black food marker with the assist for the face and- voila.

I wanted to keep things a little fresher this week. The last few weeks have been heavy on the sugar and crazy desserts! In the movie, Wasabi slices an apple using his plasma rays. So I cut a couple of apples as thin as I could by hand. Cubby felt that I didn't do as good of a job as Wasabi. I said, "Sorry I don't have a plasma ray" (5 year olds, amirite?).

We were unexpectedly joined by my sister for the evening. She currently lives in a nearby city, but lived for many many years 11 hours away (by car), so the fact that she can pop by when she has a day off is still super cool even after 2 years to get used to it. She had never seen Big Hero 6 and she definitely dug it! The concern on her face as the fire hit the university after the tech convention was too much- I had to steal a picture of her watching.

We're about to get in to single digits for the countdown and I'm so excited! This also means that we pick our FastPass reservations this week- ahhh the pressure! I'm getting our game plan ready to go so when that 60 day date hits, we'll be set.

Next week is our last CG animation for a bit... we'll be taking a trip down Rt 66
10 weeks!! 🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

Zootopia... 11 weeks!

We finally made it to Zootopia!

Sidebar before we begin: I was uber proud of this menu poster. I felt like I nailed the color match of the logo for my header and the countdown banner. Thank everything for Canva helping me let the creative juices flow a bit! OK back to the regularly scheduled programming...

We usually do our movie nights on Friday or Saturday so that we can let the kids stay up a little later if necessary and we don't have to worry about school the next day. This weekend was another crazy one with baseball games, basketball practice, and a planned campout in a friend's backyard. The campout ended up cancelled due to weather, but we still went to their place to hang out and had so much fun that we didn't get home until late anyway. My anxiety would have kicked in to super high gear if we'd planned to do the movie that same day! We took the day to enjoy ourselves and held our movie night on Sunday instead.

Cubby helping with the pawpsicles

The later date worked out since we were able to spread out our preparations throughout the day. Lady A had a rough night Saturday night so I was barely functioning and completely forgot about the craft I had planned! We were going to make Zootopia Police Department hats and badges, but, like I said, that got scrapped. As the school year ends, I hope to include more crafts for our summertime movie nights. I did manage to remember the thing that I was looking forward to the most: Homemade Pawpsicles like Nick and Finnick make! I googled cherry popsicles and we made these with sugar, frozen cherries, and some fresh squeezed lemon juice. They were delicious. And totally worth purchasing the molds!

I would have made sausages (savage/sausage- get it?), but since no one likes them but Husband, I went with hot dogs instead. The rest of the menu essentially wrote itself: We had to have blueberries and carrots from Hopps' Farm and, of course, Night Howler serum so that we didn't go savage! My blue food coloring has been getting a workout the past few weeks.

Of course, I had to include donuts from- where else?- The Big Donut.

Seriously, if you've never seen this movie, you have to watch it. It is unbelievably clever and well-made. I remember seeing it in the theater with Cubby when it came out and the way that the audience reacted to it- the ADULT audience, mind you- was incredible. It was just so timely and teaches such an important lesson of tolerance and peace between people no matter their differences. And it's also FUNNY. The part at the DMV? Oh. My. Goodness. So much funnier since Husband used to work at the DMV, so we just die laughing every time!

Flash Flash 100-Yard Dash

We'll be sticking with Pixar for a couple more weeks, so next up is one of my modern favorites: Big Hero 6!

11 more weeks to go! 🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

Treasure Planet... 12 weeks!

Wait... what? Treasure Planet? But Jenna, last week you said you were going to watch Zootopia! Yes, yes I did. That was the plan. Right until Thursday before the weekend when my husband talked to his brother and we found out that he and his family couldn't come over. Cubby is dead set on spending that particular movie night with his cousins, so when they cancelled, he asked if we could switch to something different. Luckily, I got the text from the local library that Treasure Planet was being held for me, soooo...

Truth be told, we've never seen the movie and I had absolutely ZERO idea what to do with this one. We really wanted to have movies on the list that we've never seen, but it definitely presents a challenge when it comes to planning! Even a Google search didn't help much. Treasure Planet just isn't popular enough, I guess. Thankfully, the Purple Patch was a great resource. I was so excited to be able to point out the things we had that matched up with what was in the movie!

Dinner was simple: chicken strips (dippers), fries, and salad. Not super thematic! "Purp Juice" for drink. We love Sparkling Ice and I happened to find Grape Raspberry flavor at Target. I felt better about that than serving grape soda again!

Cubby had an idea to get gold coin chocolates ("Mommy, Treasure Planet! We have to get them!"), but for the life of me I couldn't find them! I searched Target and Walmart to no avail. We stood in the candy aisle at Walmart trying to find a viable alternative. He wanted to get jelly beans and pick out all the yellow ones (the 5 year old mind is a beautiful thing). I thought a Hershey Gold bar would be a great compromise. We ended up with both... aaaand then I forgot to put out the Gold bar LOL. The rest? Dr. Doppler's dog biscuits and Zorellian jelly worms.

Let's discuss the caramel popcorn. Because it was AH-mazing. It was super easy to make, too. I also followed their recipe for making the popcorn on the stove. Honestly, I may never go back to using our air-popper! The caramel sauce was just the right amount of buttery and gooey, without feeling like I was going to break a tooth. Just make sure to let it cool for long enough: I didn't and our hands ended up a little buttery! Nothing a couple of napkins couldn't fix LOL.

I upped my prop game a bit for this one and got some slime stuff from Walmart. I made sure to grab the last pink one they had so that Cubby could have his own personal Morph. That little fella was a very cute part of the movie and Cubby loved playing with the goo for a bit. Luckily, Lady A could have cared less about it since it's not made for someone her age.

We all enjoyed the movie. It's part of Disney's so-called "second dark ages" or "lost years" and not a movie that anyone I know has even seen. I don't know why though! Maybe because it was around the same time that Pixar started making movies and the hand-drawn animation was on it's way out the door. Watching Treasure Planet, you can see where they were starting to use the CG animation and trying to blend it with the 2D that we were so familiar with. It was a fun movie! Plus, it has a song by the Goo Goo Dolls as it's theme. Yeah, I'm a sucker for anything 90s. I got a little teary when Silver gives Jim that little pep talk at the end "You're going to rattle the stars, you are." I just loved that.

Next up... well, we'll see. It should be Zootopia if I can convince Cubby to get over the whole cousins bit. Stay tuned!

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

Frozen... 13 weeks!

Happy Memorial Day weekend!

It was a very busy weekend here in the Lyons Den. We had baseball, our own Memorial Day BBQ, and a birthday party that took away any options for a true movie night. Monday, the actual Memorial Day, was the only day that we were going to be home for long enough; but with school the next day, I figured it would be better to have more of a luncheon. Which led us to....

Frozen!

This is a movie we know very well. Lady A loves it. She frequently asks to watch "HoHo." I think she associates anything snow/snowman related with Santa Claus, hence, Frozen became "HoHo." We plan to get a FastPass for the Anna and Elsa meet and greet in Epcot. I can't wait to see her face when she meets them!

Picking the food was kind of a no-brainer considering it was a luncheon. In the song, "Love Is an Open Door," Hans and Anna sing "We finish each other's sandwiches," so we hit up the WaWa around the corner and got our favorite subs. Carrots are Sven's favorites and a perfect side dish. (The chips are just because, well, what else do you eat with subs??)

I'm learning that you can basically use any dry treats and make a bar treat out of them with melted butter and marshmallows. Essentially it's a Rice Krispie treat without the Rice Krispie. Popcorn snowballs were the perfect color and easily shaped in to balls. I went back to my trick of using cooking spray on my hands to help with the shaping of the treats. The blue sprinkles added a little sparkle and kept Elsa's color scheme going, too.

You can see on our menu poster that I had two options for drinks planned. The weather here had been so atrocious in the week leading up to Memorial Day weekend that I honestly didn't know if we would rather have something hot or cold (hello?! Where is summer?!). It ended up being nice enough for us to enjoy Snowball Punch (lemonade, food coloring, scoop of vanilla ice cream), but I love the idea for this Olaf's Warm Hug Hot Vanilla. Maybe this winter I'll find a reason to modify this recipe for another movie night!

Probably should have had some chocolate represented- they mention it a lot! Chocolate fondue, stuffing chocolates in our face, or even a chocolate candle ("What is that amazing smell? Chocolate!"). Eh- next time! Props are something I need to get better at #goals.

Next week we are hoping to expand our movie night to include my nieces and nephew. Cubby really wants to watch Zootopia with them, so that's the plan!

13 more weeks to go!!
🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾

The Little Mermaid... 14 weeks!

This week we went back to "old-school" Disney and went Under the Sea for The Little Mermaid!

I love this movie and always have. I was maybe 9 or 10 when it came out and there was something about embarking on that tween era that rang true with Ariel wanting to be part of another world. Also, Prince Eric is super dreamy, amirite? 

It was important for me to get Lady A exposure to some of the characters that I know we are going to see in Disney. We have reservations for lunch at Askerhaus, which is a character lunch with a variety of princesses. So I knew that I would have to include at least a few of those characters in our movie night countdown. Ariel was our first. My luck, the girl won't even be at the character lunch!

Anyway... if we're going Under the Sea, we have to eat seafood, right?  I ❤ crab cakes and will never pass up an opportunity to have them at a restaurant, but usually the frozen or store-bought ones are usually more bread than crab. These we got from BJ's and, I have to say, they were pretty good. Husband has been steadfast against fishsticks being brought in to the house- apparently he had a negative experience with them as a child LOL- but he allowed them for the night and Lady A was All. About. Them. Mac-and-cheese three cheese variety are shell shaped, plus salad that I just called "seaweed." One of my co-workers joked with me that it was wrong that we ate Sebastian and Flounder. I made sure not to label them that way on the menu and luckily Cubby didn't make the connection!

We kept our movie-watching snacks pretty simple: popcorn, sweet goldfish (S'mores flavor), and swedish fish.

I forgot to take a whole family picture, so I tried for a selfie with Cubby. He's in a stage where he refuses to smile ever- ugh! For this particular picture, he wanted to show us his food. I guess see-food goes with the theme, too. *sigh*

I'm happy to say that Lady A was a fan of the movie, particularly Max the dog. Here she is clapping everytime he was on screen ("Woof!")

I guess we'll have to wait and see if she's as happy to see Ariel and the others in 14 weeks!

🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾🐾