Harry Potter 6

The movie came out today and, much to my Emily's and Peter's delight (Laura was out on a date with Ba and Nana Gail), we went and saw the first showing this morning.


We bought our tickets a few days ago online and arrived 30 minutes before the movie started. We were very lucky to find 4 seats all together in the second to last row, otherwise we would have had to sit in one of the first 3 rows (which would have killed my neck). I had originally just wanted Shad to take Emily and Peter, because I am never happy with how much of the book gets left out of the movie. Shad insisted that I had to go, so I did. The movie was fine, but during the entire drive home the four of us listed scenes that had been left out of the movie. 

Apparently we have a strange family tradition

Emily has a friend over and they're watching The Princess Bride.

It's family tradition to quote the movie while watching it. 

Emily's friend kept looking at us funny when we'd quote a line. 

I said, "Doesn't your family quote this movie while you watch it?" 

She informed me that they do not! 

I guess we're a little weird.

Millions

Shad and I just finished watching Millions. I had read about it on someone's blog and put it on our Netflix queue. It's about a boy who finds a bag full of pounds right before the UK is going to switch over to the euro. He and his brother have to decide how to spend the money. He wants to give it away to the poor while his brother wants to spend it all.

Here's the trailer if you're interested. We really liked it!

Twilight movie trailer

Well, you can tell just from the preview that they've changed things from how they were in the book. Every time I've watched a movie after I've already read the book, I'm disappointed in the movie. We'll have to see if the trend continues.

Kids' Choice Night

Emily got to choose dinner and a movie Friday.

She chose the dish she tried on her 

"mini-mission" to Louisiana - Jambalaya.

Now I have never even eaten Jambalaya myself, let alone cooked it, so I was very grateful that Emily's "mission president" gave me her recipe which centered upon getting one of these babies:

I followed the directions on the box, used a pound of 

Hillshire Farms low fat smoke sausage

 and voila:

Since I have extremely wimpy taste buds, I did follow the suggestion on the side of the box to reduce the spicyness (is that a word?) of the dish by adding an extra 1/2 cup of rice and 3/4 cup of water.  It was still spicy enough to get my nose running a little.

Emily enjoyed her meal choice.

Peter was a little leery, to say the least.

Laura enjoyed the sausage.

Emily recently finished reading all 13 of The Series of Unfortunate Events books by Lemony Snicket (it  only took her 5 weeks), so for her movie she chose this:

We managed to borrow a copy from the library on Thursday. Emily was so excited that we just HAD to watch it Thursday night. The kids liked it so much that they convinced me to let them watch it again on Friday night. It was a fun movie, but definitely for kids who are a little older. It scared Laura (almost 5 years old) the first time through. There's one point where a huge snake jumps at the screen -

we all jumped at that one!

Kids' Choice Night

Tonight was Laura's turn to pick dinner and a movie.   

She chose one of her favorites - tacos.

Here's a picture of Emily's taco.

Laura's idea of a taco is a flour tortilla slathered with sour cream and sprinkled with cheddar cheese. I took some pictures of the kids eating, but they turned out horribly, so I'm not going to post them.

For her movie, I managed to steer Laura away from a Barbie movie (what she usually picks) and towards a Disney/Pixar flick we haven't seen in ages.

The kids particularly enjoyed the out-takes during the credits.

Kids' Choice Night

Tonight it was Peter's turn to choose dinner and a movie.

Remarkably, he did not try to choose breakfast for dinner. (I only let him choose breakfast for dinner every other time.) I didn't even have to remind him that he had to pick "real" food for tonight. 

Peter's choice was a rather complex meal - rotisserie chicken! In case you've never served rotisserie chicken, here's what you do. Make sure to follow each step exactly as this is a rather complex recipe!

Photo courtesy of flickr.com - for those times when you forget to take a picture of your own!

1. Hop in your car.
   
2. Drive to Sam's Club or CostCo. Do not even bother with those baby chickens they sell at Smith's or Albertsons at such outrageous prices.
   
3. Walk to the butcher department, to the section where they roast chickens for you to buy.
4. Pick out the chicken whose time stamp is the most recent to ensure you get the freshest chicken.
   
5. Wait in a long line to pay. 
   
6. Return to your car and drive home.
   
7. Place the chicken on the dining room table, along with some fixings (Peter chose french fries). 
8. Decide which of your 3 children you like the least that day - he or she does NOT get a chicken leg. 
   
9. Pull all the skin off the chicken the kids will be eating.
10. Place skin on Shad's plate. (Schedule appointment with his cardiologist.)
11. Try to cut chicken as quickly as your children wolf it down.
12. Snag some breast meat for yourself when the children's mouths are too full for them to ask for more.
13. When the meal is finished, immediately remove the chicken from the table before the dog jumps up on the table and starts to eat the carcass. (Yes, that happened once.)

If you followed this complex procedure precisely, this is what you should end up with:

I wanted to take a picture of us eating the chicken, but Shad had the camera in his car. 

Man - I need my own camera again. How can any decent woman be expected to maintain her blog's quality under these conditions!

I wanted Peter to select something new for our movie, so I pulled up Redbox online and pointed out a few family-friendly choices. He picked Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. It was a cute movie - definitely worth the $1.07 it cost to rent it for tonight. It was also rather short (an hour and a half) so we actually got to finish it tonight. 

***Do you have a fun family tradition/activity?***

To Please My Oldest and Sweetest Daughter

Emily keeps reminding me that I have not posted information about the past TWO Kids' Choice Nights. (She also changed the title of this post. Originally it just said "To Please My Oldest.") So, to please her, here is an update.

Two Fridays ago, it was Laura's choice night. Because Shad and I would be on our 24-hour date, I made her meal ahead of time. Laura chose egg salad (funny choice for a 4-year old, in my opinion). Laura likes to eat her egg salad with a fork (so does Peter), but I think it belongs on bread. So Thursday night I made homemade bread. My mom watched the kids Friday night, so she got to feed them the egg salad, homemade bread, Pringles (regular flavor!), and baby carrots.

Laura chose Disney's live-action version of 101 Dalmatians
(which is really cute).

Emily made homemade caramel popcorn to eat while they watched the movie.

This caramel popcorn recipe is so easy, I let my 10-year old make it. And it's perfect for those of us who don't actually own an air popper. That's right - I don't have an air popper and I still consider myself civilized!

Caramel Microwave Popcorn

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 cup marshmallows (any size)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 bag microwave popcorn

Pop the bag of popcorn in the microwave. In small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar, then add marshmallows. When mixture is smooth, pour the popcorn into a bowl and pour the caramel over the popcorn. Stir and serve. YUMMY!!!


Last Friday was Emily's Choice Night. Peter was off at a birthday party and my mom was in Houston visiting my 2 1/2 month-old niece, so it was just me and the girls. Emily chose Quesadillas with chicken. Nothing fancy, just chop up a grilled chicken breast (that had been marinated in Italian dressing) and spread it on a tortilla with a smidge of salsa and lots of cheese. Heat it in a frying pan and when the cheese is all melted, slide it onto your plate. Add a dollop of sour cream and you're done.

Emily chose The Empire Strikes Back as her movie.

Laura was fine with the movie for a while, but half way through she decided she'd had enough and she wanted to play Chutes and Ladders.


So, I played the game with Laura to keep her happy while Emily enjoyed her movie. I have to say that the game was very frustrating. We kept landing on the chutes and having to slide further away from the end space on the board. I think it took us 20 minutes to get past the bottom half of the board. It didn't help that Laura kept running back and forth between the movie and the game.

And now that I'm all caught up, I'm off to try and finish Angle of Repose for Book Club on Wednesday.

** A disclaimer: the food photos are from flickr.com I wasn't here egg salad Friday and was lazy quesadilla Friday, but I know people prefer posts with photos so I threw some in to please everybody. My goodness - I do seem to have a thing about pleasing people! **

Kids' Choice Night

Tonight was Peter's Choice Night. Since he actually chose a real dinner meal last time, this time he got to choose breakfast food - FRENCH TOAST. 

I don't have a special recipe for French toast; I just use the recipe out of the Betty Crocker cookbook I got for my wedding. What makes French toast special at our house is the bread. Usually I just buy the fresh French bread at whatever grocery store I happen to be at, but the last time Peter picked French toast, I found cinnamon bread in the bakery section of Smith's (aka Kroger's in other parts of the country). It makes such delicious French toast! I would have taken a picture, but, alas, my camera is dead and I still haven't gotten the courage to try Shad's Nikon D50. 

Peter wanted to pick Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace for his movie, but our dvd is scratched beyond belief, so that was out. I convinced him to pick Star Wars IV, instead.

Star Wars came out when I was 3 years old, but it's a classic. My mom even joined us to watch the movie which was a real treat for me because Laura sat on her lap for half of the movie (instead of on me)!

Kids' Choice Night

Tonight was Emily's turn to pick dinner and a movie. She chose calzones for dinner.
Here's a picture of her making her own calzone.

I just use homemade pizza dough and divide it into fourths to make 4 calzones. I put chopped up meatballs, some spaghetti sauce, Parmesan and mozzarella cheeses on one half of the pizza dough circle/rectangle. Then I fold the dough over the toppings, press the edges with a fork, and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Here's how the finished product looked.
(Too bad you can't post tastes and smells on your blog because this was yummy!)

For our family movie, Emily chose one of my favorites from when I was in junior high and high school:

I loved this movie as a teenager. My brother and sister and I would watch it over and over again. In fact, I'm surprised my videotape has held up so well considering how much we watched it and considering the fact that this movie is now 20 years old (gosh that makes me feel old)! At one time, we could quote most lines from the movie. I'm glad my kids can enjoy this classic and I think someone needs to get me the DVD copy for my birthday (hint, hint).

Friday Night -Kids' Choice Night

This past fall I started a new family tradition - Friday night kids' choice night. Each Friday one of my three kids gets to choose what we eat for dinner and gets to choose a movie for the entire family to watch. For example, tonight is Peter's Choice Night. He chose Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup and Jeni's rolls for dinner

and Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones for our movie. 

Shad seldom gets to enjoy our Friday night tradition as he has to work.  

Lately I've been wanting to "shake things up" a bit. The kids are choosing the same thing over and over again. Laura always picks tacos or chicken nuggets with mac and cheese. Peter always picks a breakfast food - waffles, pancakes, or French toast. The repetition of food I don't mind so much; it's watching the same movie every Friday that's driving me batty. I have now put our family on a Harry Potter hiatus.

Do you have any suggestions for great family movies?  

I'd love some new ideas!