Confessions Of A Scrapaholic

Family Movie Night Recap, Part One

I can't believe I haven't posted our Family Movie Nights since March! Geez, what a slacker. I am breaking this up into a few posts because I need to edit pictures from a few movies. My sweet husband had my monitors professionally calibrated for our anniversary and there is most definitely a difference between my laptop and external monitor. All of the photos that I "corrected" on my laptop this year kept looking dark and/or over-saturated and now I know why. What a difference a calibrated monitor makes. The annoying part is that I *did* calibrate my laptop. Many times. Ugh. The entire process makes me nuts, hence the professional. I digress...

This seems very untimely now, but first up is The Story of St. Patrick! This darling little movie is included on the Veggie Tales: Sumo of the Opera DVD. Planning treats and accessories for this movie was a snap since we watched it right before St. Patrick's Day.

I was quite proud of the treats for our next movie. I actually found our treats first and then planned a movie around them. Astronaut ice cream anyone? Thankfully there seemed to be a plethora of space movies coming out lately so Space Chimps was an easy choice. In keeping with the freeze-dried theme, we also had a freeze-dried dinner of lasagna and macaroni and cheese, both of which were actually good! We reused our astronaut outfits from Space Buddies and we were all set.

You have to guess which movie we watched next. Here is your clue: Nerds on a Rope and 3.14 pieces of pie. (Get it? Hehehehe.)

If you said Baby Geniuses you would be correct. No clever outfits for this one, but Zoë and I did wear our glasses so that we would look extra smart. ;) A heads up for other parents, the babies are actually quite sassy in this movie and say quite a few inappropriate things! I was shocked! Thankfully it all seemed to go over Zoë's head.

To Infinity and Beyond! No wait, that's not right...

I completely forgot to post about our Family Movie Night from two weeks ago! Geez! Look at the pictures and try to guess what we watched. One clue, it wasn't Toy Story.

If you guessed Space Buddies, you would be correct. We saw a commercial for it a few weeks back and I immediately went to the movie store to rent it. (I am trying to broaden Zoë's movie horizons to include non-animated features. I can only watch so many cartoons, you know?) For treats we had "dog food" in dog bowls (new dog bowls) and drinks in our Denny's rocket cups. That was the easy part. The costumes took some work, but it was totally worth it. I made helmets out of white buckets I found at Lowe's. I used the Skil saw to cut out the face holes. (I was pretty impressed with myself after that one.) We dressed all in white to make sure we looked like astronauts. I also found a NASA logo online and put in on a storage bin to make a rocket. It was definitely a hit and you can bet we will be reusing those helmets. I already have two other movies all picked out. I did break out the power tools after all.

Now for some scrapbooking. I've had these layouts finished for quite a while now, but my computer time has been spent in Quicken lately. However, I am happy to report that I am finally done. Whew! Every penny is accounted for and categorized. That makes me happy. Sometimes I wonder though, does a person really need to know how much they spent on lattes the previous year? Or scrapbooking supplies?

Back to the layouts... Have you seen Gina Miller's quick pages? They are gorgeous. I have quite the collection and I fully intend on using them all this weekend. Here are two for now.

Credits: Quick Page by Gina Miller, Ribbon Heart by Michelle Godin (Spring Fling Colab with Kate Hadfield)

Credits: Quick Page by Gina Miller

And I also finished a few baby layouts. The first is of Zoë. I re-did her new baby page. I couldn't handle the cheesy paper layout any more. It had to go. It is identical to the one I made for Eden, but I changed the accent color to lavender. Love it.

Credits: Quick Fill #73 by Heather Ann

And some of my very favorite photos from the day Eden was born. Love, love, love them. I am actually kind of torn about where to put this in my Library of Memories. Eden's baby book? "All About Us: Zoë" album? (Since it is about her being a great big sister.) My "All About Us: Just the Girls" album? Thoughts?

Credits: Baby Word Art by Ali Edwards (Designer Digitals)

The Return of Family Movie Night

We kind of slacked off on Family Movie Night after Eden was born, but no more. It has become such a fun tradition at our house and we missed it!

Wall-E turned into much more than just one night of fun. It became Zoë's favorite movie the moment she saw it. We've seen it at least twenty times, if not more. Probably more. Zoë listens to "Down to Earth" by Peter Gabriel each night before going to bed. She even drew him some Wall-E pictures to say thank you for writing the song. Such a sweet kid... I found some great printables and masks here if you are considering watching Wall-E at your house. Oh, and the treats were "garbage" blocks made out of cocoa krispies. I was pretty impressed with myself when I came up with that one. LOL!

Next up, The Apple Dumpling Gang. Kelly's choice. Honestly, I don't think it was terribly appropriate for children. I know that children have been watching it for decades now, but come on! It was full of smoking, drinking, gambling, bar fights, gun fights... Not anything I want my daughter watching. On that same note, I have also banned Tom & Jerry from our house. Again, another cartoon that has been around for decades, but when I saw Zoë watching the "Cartoon in a Box" episode which included a box with Tom + Jerry + a package of cigarettes + a gun + a bat + a cup of coffee, I put a stop to that real quick. Back to the movie, it really wasn't that funny either. I wouldn't recommend it. For treats we had apple pies and apple juice boxes. Do you like how I lined them up in the picture to make them look fancier than they really are? One other funny tidbit, you can't really see it in the pictures but the yellow shirt Eden is wearing was Kelly's when he was a baby. Pretty funny. And check out Zoë's 'tude in her picture. She was not pleased that we turned off her cartoon to watch a movie. She is clearly abused.

And tonight, Ratatouille. I had planned on Chocolate Croissants for our treats, but as it turns out, they have to rise overnight before baking them. Poo. Instead we had plain croissants sprinkled with powdered sugar. Not nearly so fancy, but still yummy. And now we have Chocolate Croissants sitting in the freezer for a special breakfast one morning. Maybe Valentine's Day?

And So It Begins...

Last night was the first night that Eden slept in her bassinet for the entire night. I fully acknowledge that that little tidbit shouldn't actually be blog worthy, but she has slept exclusively in her vibrating massage chair for about a month so I am one happy momma. (Evidence below. Say it with me.... Awwwww.)

She has been struggling with terrible gas for about a month and no remedy has been terribly effective. Mylecon drops, gripe water, Dr. Brown's bottles... nothing really helped, except sitting upright in the chair. Thankfully the horrible gas pains seems to have let up, but she was good an addicted to sleeping in the chair. Laying flat simply would not do. Until yesterday.

Yesterday Victoria, my WSM, came to visit us and meet her new grand baby. While I was putting Zoë to bed she put Eden to bed. In her bassinet. And she stayed asleep! The secret was snuggling her up on her side with Kelly's shirt. Voila. The scent of her Daddy is very soothing for her. I can't believe I didn't try that! Victoria was the one who got Zoë sleeping in her bassinet doing the exact same thing. It's like she has some sort of magic sleeping baby power.

Tonight we are starting to train Eden to self soothe. Not something I am looking forward to, but it really does make life easier in the long run. Instead of moving Eden into her nursery (across the hall from Zoë) we moved the bassinet into the guest bedroom, just until she learns to self soothe at night. I don't want her screaming for half an hour and waking up Zoë. Hopefully she will adjust as quickly as Zoë did. We only had to let her cry for two nights and she was able to put herself back to sleep. Now don't get me wrong, we are still getting up to feed and change her, but after that is done she is going back to bed. No more hanging out for an hour at 3am. Mommy don't play that.

OK, enough baby talk. How about Family Movie Night? Since it is almost Halloween we decided on Bedknobs and Broomsticks last weekend. I forgot how cute that movie was. Zoë loves to sing the chorus of "Bobbing Along" while she is in the bath tub. We went all out this time and dressed up as witches for the movie. We also made witchy cupcakes which we enjoyed before watching the movie in bed. It was BEDknobs and Broomsticks after all. Now Zoë wants a bed with knobs so that she can fly. :)

What else? I have to buy all new shoes. I have heard of feet getting larger after pregnancy, or during pregnancy I should say, but I never thought it would happen to me. It didn't with Zoë. The only shoes I can wear right now are my sneakers and my Crocs. It is freezing outside so I have been wearing my sneakers...all the time. Not exactly the look I am going for. Now I need to go buy some new shoes. Too bad...

Summer Movie Recap

With all of the moving/baby craziness this summer, I forgot to post about our Family Movie Nights! Granted, they weren't as elaborate as they have been in the past, but were still very fun.

I had such grand plans for Flushed Away movie night. It was scheduled to play at sunset on the beach at Lake Washington. Personally, I think that is even cooler than a drive-in (although I am looking for one of those too.) As luck would have it, after a gorgeous week of almost 90 degree weather, the day Flushed Away was scheduled to play it decided to downpour rain. Grrrrr. I was holding out hope until the last minute, but as cool as a beach movie sounded, sitting on wet sand in a drizzle sounded worse. So, we watched Flushed Away at home with Kelly's Dad. The impromptu treat? Gummy worms. Kind of sewer like, right? Although if you ever do plan to watch this for FMN at your house, I would recommend some slug like dessert. There are lots of slugs in the movie. Hilarious slugs. LOL!

I know what you are thinking. Why are we dressed like pirates to watch Jonah and the Whale? That is because I got Zoë all excited to watch The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, and as it turns out, the movie wasn't being released to DVD until October. BUT the pirates are also main characters in Jonah so I think it worked out. Some gold wrapped chocolates as treats and we were set, although  when we watched The Pirates in October our treat will definitely be Cheetos Puffs (the pirates LOVE rootbeer and cheese curls.) We had to watch the movie upstairs in the playroom where our portable A/C unit was running. It was cooling the room to a balmy 85 degrees instead of the 90+ degrees in the rest of the house. Bleck.

Cars (or Movie Cars as my nephew Harry calls it) was our last FMN with just the three of us. It doesn't look terribly fancy but it was quite the special night. Kelly went to Matt's Gourmet Hotdogs (Zoë's very favorite restaurant) and picked up dinner for the movie...which she got to eat IN the family room. Hotdogs are definitely not my thing, but Kelly and Zoë were very happy campers. Add a racing flag and some race car tires (mini chocolate doughnuts) and you have one fun night. Seriously though, that movie is FOREVER long. Have you noticed that? It kept Zoë's attention but the end really drags on.

Last up (from last weekend) Nim's Island. Eden's first FMN. She was clearly enthralled with the movie as you can see. LOL! It took a bit of convincing to get Zoë to watch it, but we all liked the movie. I am actually going to go buy the DVD this weekend. It is darling. Of course, I am a bit neurotic when it comes to germs so Jody Foster's character was beyond funny to me. The treats? Little islands. :) I used dessert cakes as the base, tinted some Cool Whip blue, piped it around the island (using a ziploc bag) and reused the trees from our Madagascar FMN treats as a finishing touch. Those were definitely a big hit. 

There you have it! I am racking up quite the collection of FMN photos. I am itching to start scrapping them but I haven't quite decided on the format. I am leaning towards the same layout for each movie to create a coordinated look. Then there is the problem of a different number of photos for each movie. Hmmmm. If you are having FMN at your house, what are you planning to do with your photos?

Family Movie Night, Room Service Style

Things were so crazy last week that I completely forgot to tell you about our exodus to the hotel last weekend. It was so flipping hot in Seattle (90 degrees inside and out) that we checked into a hotel down the street. Our home away from home when it gets too hot or we are having renovations done. We suffered through on Saturday, but Sunday we threw in the towel. We went to the annual Strawberry Festival in the morning and it was already smokin' hot (our car said it was 87 degrees in the shade at 11:30am.) We dressed Zoë in her swimming suit so that she could enjoy the new water park at the festival, but it was malfunctioning and the water was coming out as a trickle. It was pitiful seeing 50+ kids in their suits all standing around the one water feature that was drizzling water. Zoë wasn't too bothered though because the festival had all sorts of bouncy houses. Her favorite was actually the balls. She used up most of her tickets there. Can you see how red her face already is from the heat? It was only 10:30am!

When we got home from the Strawberry Festival I booked a hotel room for us and we spent the rest of the day playing in the pool and enjoying their air conditioning. We got lucky and Horton Hears a Who was showing in the room, so we had spontaneous family movie night. Family Movie Night room service style if you will. It doesn't exactly coordinate with the movie per say, but it was really fun. And look, I figured out how to use the timer on our little Elph to take this family photo. Zoë's not exactly smiling, but I am just happy we are all in the shot. LOL!

When we got home on Monday I did some more maternity shopping. Two reasons: Capri pants are just not cool enough when it is 90 degrees outside, even when paired with a tank top. Two: Kel and I went on a date last Friday and I don't have anything even remotely dressy to wear. Did I tell you about our date nights? About two months ago Kelly decided that we should have a date night every other week until the baby arrives because we won't have much adult time once she arrives. Isn't that sweet?! So I needed something that would be date night appropriate and tummy friendly. I found some really cute items (thanks to my friend Gina who is also pregnant, just a week behind me). These dresses should be comfy and cool and I can dress them up with the necklaces and some cute shoes. I also bought some tank tops but that isn't nearly as interesting, you know?

I also updated my pregnancy journal today (two weeks in a row!) so click on over. We finally decided on a name for this sweet little baby girl. Speaking of which, here is another layout of the wee one using a page from the Twirl Piece-of-Cake Album.

Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting...

I completely forgot to post about our Family Movie Matinee last weekend! We changed up FMN a little bit and went to the theater to see Kung Fu Panda. It was super cute. Zoë sat through most of the movie, only insisting that she sit on my lap when "the mean kitty" was on the screen. Our accessories (the karate head band thingys and black outfits) are apparently not the kung fu style, more the karate kid style. There was not a single one worn in the movie. Oops. Who knew? And to answer your question, why yes, we did wear them to the theater. That's just the way we roll. LOL!

Sing with Me! "I Like to Move It, Move It. I Like to Move It, Move It. I Like to Move It, Move It. I Like to MOVE IT!"

We had a Madagascar themed family movie night on Saturday. We've had this movie forever, but Zoë has never really sat down and watched it, so viola! I have decided that unless there is a fantastic movie coming out, we are going to watch the DVDs from our collection for FMN. We have a ridiculous amount of DVDs at our house. I didn't realize quite how many until I put them all in the binders a couple weeks ago. I am also putting a freeze on DVD purchases. I can't even tell you how many movies we own that we have only watched one time. Ridiculous!

We all loved the movie. Zoë sat through 95% of the movie which is huge for her. She was more interested scootering around the house with her new Madagascar toys towards the end, but that's OK. Props included safari hats from the local party supply store and the toys from our fancy cupcakes.

I've got to say, they look cooler than most cupcakes I make, but mine definitely taste better. Of course, I have never been a fan of most grocery store bakery frosting (Costco being the exception.) The little characters have been Zoë's constant companions ever since watching the movie. They bathe with her, have come to IHOP with us, and they sleep with her. And all I had to do was pick it up at the store on Saturday afternoon. Twelve dollars well spent.

Did you know that Madagascar 2 is coming out this fall? I didn't until I was searching for a movie link for this post. It looks pretty cute. We may have to go see that in the theaters. I think next weekend we are going to go see this movie for family movie night. Kelly has been wanting to see it ever since we saw the trailer six months ago, and it will be Father's Day weekend after all...

I'll be back with more scrapbooking goodness later. Miss Zoë is waking up from her nap and there are some chocolate cupcakes on the counter that will be disappearing if I don't get upstairs fast. LOL!

Can You Guess?

What movie did we watch for Family Movie Night this week? Here's a hint.

Any guesses? How about one more clue.

If you said Finding Nemo, you would be correct. Zoë's new favorite evening activity is playing Go Fish with her Finding Nemo Go Fish Card Game. (Super fun if you have little ones. She plays with her cards facing up on the table so that we can help her.) Honestly, she watched about twenty minutes of the movie then wanted to go play her game, but that was fine with me. It was a Nemo themed evening...it's all good. And yes, we absolutely had fish sticks for dinner. Hehehe.

Do you like the cupcakes? They turned out so cute! (Truthfully though, the cupcake in the photograph is the only one with the seaweed. The fruit roll-ups were a huge pain to attach to the cupcakes.) I have a few tips for those of you that want to make these in the future. One: Buy the Betty Crocker Black Decorating Gel for the eyes of the fish and the White Decorating Gel for the bubbles. I used the gel for the eyes and it looked and worked 100x better than squeezing white frosting bubbles out of the ziplock bag like the book suggests.

I also wanted to share this handy little tidbit with you. Check with your local grocery store bakery about decorating cupcakes for you. I got the idea while Zoë and I were flipping through their book last week looking for princess birthday cakes. They have cakes for TONS of movies...Madagascar, Harry Potter, Cars. I asked the baker if they would be willing to decorate 6 theme cupcakes for me instead of creating a big cake and they said YES! So for $12.00 and with 24 hours notice they will whip up Family Movie Night treats for me. I consider it a bargain. I spend way more than that every time I go all out to make fancy cupcakes. And Zoë will have the little figurines to play with during and after the movie. Treats and props for $12.00?! You can't beat that.

* * * * *

Now for some scrapping talk. First, I used Dani Mogstad's new Deep Blue Sea kit to decorate my blog post above. If you buy the kit before June 6th you will also receive the coordinating accordion album FREE! I also picked up the Lil Grad kit by Melissa Bennet this weekend which I thought would be cute for Zoë's "School of Life" album that I am working on. It comes with a FREE coordinating album as well as long as you purchase the kit by June 6th. Can you say perfect preschool teacher gift?

I have gotten quite a few emails about the products I used in my Library of Memories. Here are the specifics...

• The albums that I use are "We R Memory Keepers" D-Ring 12x12 leather albums.
• I found the coordinating polka dot ribbon at Michael's and JoAnn's. They are a mix and match of different brands. The ribbon is tied directly to the metal label holder.
  
• I used 1 1/4" Avery metal rim tags for the spines and the interior section dividers (pictures coming soon.)
• I used a 1" circle punch to punch out the photos/labels for the inside of the metal tags, which I adhered with this awesome liquid glue (perfect for hybrid projects.)
• I attached the metal rim tags to the album spines with 1/8" thick foam dots

I think that is about it. If you come up with any other questions feel free to post a comment or send me an email. Before I go I have to share another layout. This one of Zoë's first time sledding. That was a fun day, not that it made me want to live in a place that snowed...

Credits coming soon

Two Incredible Movie Nights

Movie nights have become a big deal around our house. We look forward to them every Saturday. This week we tweaked the plans a bit and had movie night on Friday AND Sunday. Are we wild and crazy or what? (That would be sarcasm.) We are going to be in Spokane for Bloomsday next weekend, and California the following weekend, so we will be missing a few installments. Best make up for it now, right?

First up was Chicken Little. This movie happens to be a family favorite, but who says we have to watch new movies anyway? I think it is easier to plan movie night with movies that you have actually already seen. That is how I knew to buy glow sticks for everyone to wear. The pieces of sky cookies were a pretty obvious choice as treats and I had to throw in some chicken nuggets for dinner. My sense of humor is twisted like that. It's just the way I roll. Hehehe. My brother-in-law and his best friend were in town for the weekend and got to enjoy the festivities with us. I think I can safely say that they have never experienced movie night the way we do it at our house.

Next up, The Incredibles. This one was a spur of the moment decision on Sunday. It was kind of gloomy and rainy and I thought that would be an incredible way to spend the evening. (Oooh, I am clever!) I impressed myself actually. I came up with the accessories and treats in about five minutes. Not bad. I ordered a pepperoni pizza and asked them to put the pepperoni around the edges and make a lower case i in the center. They were pretty amused, and happily agreed to my request. While we waited for the pizza I made the masks and super hero emblems. Zoë had an absolute blast. She kept calling me Super Hero Mommy and Kel, Super Hero Daddy. She insisted that she be called Violet. It was just too cute. For dessert we had Super Hero Parfaits. Yummy! I thought that The Incredibles might be a bit too scary for Zoë (and there were parts that were) but she really enjoyed the movie.