Having a Family Movie night is a regular thing around our house – {what can I say? We are homebodies for sure!}- SO I love taking something totally ordinary and making it a bit more fun for our little family, all the while we can make a great memory along the way! My kids are BIG fans of spaghetti (the husband not so much), so I wanted to do something to make spaghetti dinner a bit more fun – and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs came into my mind! We were able to do super simple things to make this little family party a big success!
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I was brainstorming and prepping things and my daughter asked what I was doing and if she could help. I hate to admit it, but I hurt her feelings telling her that I was planning and prepping on my own. That night while thinking in bed (and feeling horrible), the idea came to me how she could help- she LOVES to draw (and is pretty darn good at it – she didn’t get that gene from me – I can barely draw stick figures!) so the next morning I told her my idea – I wanted her to draw some food that we would then copy and upload for everyone to print and color for their own bunting decor – and this is what she came up with {I just love how it turned out!}
We have cheeseburgers, pizza, gummy bears, and doughnuts! {Click on each link to download and print from Dropbox. It will ask you to create an account but you DO NOT have to. Just click “no thanks” and it will take you right to the printable}
SIDE NOTE: My daughter wanted everyone to know one of the pizza slices is blank so you can draw in your favorite toppings!
So the day of the party we all hung out at the kitchen table, cranked up some tunes from the SING soundtrack and colored our food. Each kid wanted their own page of each food item, so we had A LOT of food for our bunting. It was fun to sing along, color, and chat together.
We then played a taste test game with Gummy Bears and Jelly Bellys. Some of us were better at guessing flavors than others – okay, I was horrible at it! Go figure! I may have added a few unmerited points to my name 🙂 We used a scarf for a blindfold and handed the person a few flavors and they had to guess. Simple yet super fun game to play as a family! My preschooler was too funny – he refused to play the Jelly Belly game, I guess giving the kids the Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans kinda scarred him – he kept asking me where the stinky socks flavor was to give to his sister 🙂
While the noodles and meatballs were cooking, we cut out all our food and strung it up on the string for our bunting.
We ate spaghetti and meatballs (I love saving time by just buying frozen meatballs), one of our most favorite salads- Spinach Mandarin Poppy Seed Salad, garlic bread, and orange jello (which goes along with a silly and fun part from the movie).
Quick tip: My kids love to have jello cut into squares. I omit 1/2 cup of cold water so that the jello sets a bit more and is easy to cut and hold.
Then we decided to read the old school book that I grew up reading. After we read it we chatted a bit about the differences in the movie vs the book and how the gentleman who created the movie used their imaginations to create the fun movie that it is.
After reading the book, we sat down and watched the film. I have to say I enjoyed both the first and the second film, you can’t go wrong! Both are funny and entertaining and teach good messages, a few I thought of were:
BE YOURSELF. Don’t dumb yourself down, or lie about what you like to make others like you.
Be genuine
Support others in their dreams
Trying to please everyone can lead to trouble
Our failures can help us in the end
Don’t be greedy
For a quick dessert (if all the other food wasn’t enough), we had an ice cream cone to go along with the scene when they wake up to ice cream.
After things were said and done my kids said “Thanks for the fun party Mom” along with a hug, so I would say it was a success! We had fun, laughed, ate, and made some fun memories out of an ordinary night!
What is a favorite meal your family loves to eat?
What a good mom you are. This movie night sounds like so much fun. Tell B that she did an amazing job drawing the food for the bunting.
Thanks! Its nice to do something out of the ordinary and make a fun memory. I will tell her what she said – pretty proud of her!