Lord of the Rings Marathon Date

Okay, I admit it.  My husband and I LOVE The Lord of the Rings.  My husband has read the books many times.  And, as you all know, the Hobbit is coming to theaters this week, on December 14!  I am so excited (squeal)!

So for our fun date this week I wanted to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy to get ready for the opening day of The Hobbit.

I crafted a date card that read...

"My precious, 

Tonight we shall see if you can answer my riddles.  

If you pass the test, then we will watch these together!"

{Click here for your own free 4 x 6" LOTR date card}

Then I taped it to the movies and left it out where my husband would see it.

In the story The Hobbit, Bilbo is lost in the dark tunnels of the goblins.  That is where he meets Gollum.  Gollum does not know that Bilbo has found his lost ring--his "precious"--Bilbo needs help getting out of the tunnels.  So they play a game of riddles.  Whoever cannot guess the riddle loses and the winner gets what he wants.

So I thought it would be fun to play a game of riddles together with my husband.  Online I found this page with lots of riddles.  I typed up only the riddles (so we couldn't cheat) and then we took turns asking each other and guessing.  Then we looked up the answers on the website.

Here are a couple of examples of riddles with their answers.

1. It is greater than God and more evil than the devil.  The poor have it, the rich need it and if you eat it you'll die.  What is it? 
          NOTHING.  nothing is greater than God, nothing is more evil than the devil, the poor have nothing, the rich need nothing and if you eat nothing you will die.

2.  I am the beginning and the end, and the end of time and space.  I am essential to creation, and I surround every place.  What am I?
        The letter E. End, timE, spacE, Every placE.

Clever, right! Did you guess the correct answers??  I didn't,  I had to cheat.  ;)  

So pick a few riddles that look fun to you and have fun playing a game. Then snuggle up and relax as you enjoy The Lord of the Rings!

{10 Days of Halloween} Pumpkin Family Night

For this activity we went to a local pumpkin patch and everyone got to pick their perfect pumpkin to carve.I wanted to make it special, so I made this invite for my family and posted it on the front door for everyone to see as we left in the morning for work and school.

{click here to print your own Pumpkin Family Night invite} 

After we went to the pumpkin patch, we took our pumpkins home and had fun carving them.

It is a little slimy digging out all those seeds but that is the fun part right?  We didn't throw them all away so that we could use them as part our treat for later.

The kids had fun helping to design the pumpkin faces and the older ones even got to help do some carving this year.

Some turned out more scary or goofy.

But each one was a little different.

After the pumpkins were carved we placed a candle inside each one--they looked so good!

Then we washed off the seeds and set them out on a cookie sheet.  We covered the seeds with a little butter and salt them put them in the oven until they were roasted brown.  Mmm, so yummy!

We decided to eat our pumpkin seeds while we watched Charlie Brown a the Great Pumpkin.  What a fun night! By the time the movie was over, we were all ready for bed.

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Day eight of

 

{10 Days of Halloween} Ghostly Marshmallows

This is a fun, quick treat to eat while watching Ghost Busters (or your favorite Halloween movie).

I bought the giant marshmallows for this--seriously, they're huge.  They looked so fun to eat!

We dipped the end of a skewer into some chocolate syrup and used that to draw ghost faces on the marshmallows.  Then we put the ghostly marshmallows in the microwave for about 15 seconds and watched our ghosts get VERY large and puffy as they cooked. 

However, the marshmallows don't stay puffy, they end up looking all distorted like this when you take them out of the microwave.

We had our ghost trap ready when the ghosts were done and caught them and squished them between our graham crackers--just like they the Ghost Busters.  Once our gooey ghost treat was ready we watched the Ghost Busters together.

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Day six of

{10 Days of Halloween} Monster Movie Night

Welcome to day two of...

Last night we went to see the movie Hotel Transylvania as a family.  It is a cute Halloween movie, and a simple way to get in the spirit of Halloween.

Because Hotel Transylvania is all about monsters, it would be fun to play the Monster Drawing Game while you're waiting in the theater for the movie.  All you will need to play the game is a pencil and paper and your imagination, of course!

To play the game, fold your paper into thirds.

On the top section, one person draws a monster head.  When the head is finished, the person folds the paper over so the next draw-er cannot see it.  Then, without looking at what was drawn before, the next person draws a neck, body, and arms (if any).

Again, the draw-er folds the paper so only the last blank section is showing.  Then the last person draws the legs and tail (if any).  When everyone is finished drawing, unfold your paper and see the funny monsters you created!

You could have several drawings all going at the same time as they get passed around.  Then you don't have to wait while only one person is drawing.

When you are done with the monsters, you'll be ready to sit back and enjoy the movie.

If you don't want to venture out to the movie theater, you can always do this same activity with a favorite Halloween movie of your choice.  One of my favorites for Halloween is Ghost Busters. It's an oldie...but still fun to watch about once a year. :)

What is your favorite Halloween movie?

Rewarding Summer Homework

This summer I had the kids doing homework so they did not get too far behind for school in fall by forgetting everything they had been learning.  I didn't assign a lot of homework.  The math, reading, and handwriting worksheets only took them about 30 minutes to complete.  But it was still good to keep them in learning mode.

For the math portion, I used the Khanacademy.com website which is a great online resource for learning and practicing math skills because the problems progressively get a little harder as you improve.  This website also provides hints and solutions to make sure that your kids understand the answers.  It is also a great way for your school kids to practice their computer skills.  Just click on "Practice" at the top of the page and you'll lots of different math topics to choose from.  I also included my own timed math tests as part of the homework.

For reading, I had my kids choose a book and read it out loud with me.  Then to practice their handwriting, they had lined paper to practice.  We're working on cursive letters, so I gave them a writing sample they had to copy to have them practice the different letters.

As an incentive for completing all of their summer homework, my kids earned a tickets.  

I made my own tickets by putting stickers on some small rectangular pieces of card stock.  You can also purchase a large amount of tickets at Michaels or other general store.

Then the weekend before school started they were able to "cash in" their tickets at our own homemade movie theater.  I simple displayed some movies that we already had (because, let's me honest, we have quite a few that we don't watch very often).  I also made a "Show Times" schedule to make our movie theater more realistic.

I had a small concession stand available where they could use their to purchase Pizza, candy, popcorn, drinks, and cotton candy.  I made sure to get my kids' favorite treats and drinks for them to buy at the concession stand.

You can decide how many tickets each movie or treat is worth, you can see my "prices" for the concessions in the picture above. 

Even though school has just started for many school-aged kids, you can still reward them for a summer of hard work.  Or, now as they complete their real homework, this could be a good reward/incentive to work towards--a fun movie night with the family!

Rapunzel Mystery Dinner: Tangled Web We Weave

This is a very simplified version of the mystery dinners you can buy, and my kids all loved it!  To do a mystery dinner with kids, they just need something simple and straight forward with a few mysteries and puzzles to figure out.

Here's how I created our own Rapunzel Mystery Dinner.

{Invitation} Give everyone an invitation with an assigned role of who they will be at dinner that night (like the maid, queen, king, princess, prince, butler, etc.).  Leave the invitation in a place where each person will find it.  I put the invitations in plain sight on everyone's beds.  The invitation should also include the date and time of the dinner and any other mystery dinner instructions (like if they should dress-up, etc.).

{Click here to print your own Mystery Dinner invitations.}

{Rapunzel Mystery Plot} The princess, Rapunzel, has been taken from the castle.  She needs to be found....HURRY!! 

{To start it off} Just before dinner a "mysterious" person rings the door bell and leaves a clue.  The kids run to the door to answer it and find the clue on the door step.  Everyone gathers around to read the clue together.

                  {Clue #1} If you ever want to see your Rapunzel again, you will need to do something for me first!  To find the next clue go to the Snuggly Duckling.
    Signed, Lady Gothel

{The Snuggly Duckling}

{Sunggly Duckling} Before you start the mystery, hang a sign for the Snuggly Duckling in the dining area and decorate it like the thieves hideout.  After reading the first clue, go to the "Snuggly Duckling" (or the dining room).  Everyone's dinner should be served and ready to eat.  Sit down and start eating dinner together.  In the center of the table there is a yellow flower (real or fake) with another clue next to it, only slightly hidden so that the kids will find it while eating dinner.  Read the clue #2 together.
         
                {Clue  #2} Bring me back what once was mine!  It must go back to where it came from.  When you return it, you will find the third clue.

But first you must sing the healing song like an opera singer:

"Flower gleam and glow
Let your power shine
Let the clock reverse
Bring back what once was mine
What once was mine."

Once you do this, I will begin to feel stronger. Now go and follow ALL of the instructions!
Signed, Lady Gothel

{Clue #2 & flower garden puzzle}

{Healing Song} Follow the instructions and sing the healing song in opera-style.  This is sure to include a lot of giggling and silliness if your family is like mine!

      {Puzzle} Along with clue #2, include a puzzle of where you need to return the flower.  I took a picture of our flower garden and then cut into puzzle pieces.  Put the puzzle pieces back together to learn where Rapunzel's flower (sitting in the middle of the table) needs to be returned to.

* To add more "mystery," have the power go out and finish eating dinner by lantern light.  Also, it is fun to include magnifying glasses, flashlights, etc. so that everyone can feel like they are doing real detective work while figuring out where the princess could be and what to do with clue #2.

{Flower garden} When you finish with dinner, remember that part of the clue was to,  "Bring back what once was mine."  Take the yellow flower from the table and plant it in the flower garden.  Then look for clue #3 and read it together.

{Clue #3} This is where you will find your Rapunzel!
Signed, Lady Gothel

{Clue #3 & close-up picture puzzles}

{Close-up Pictures} With clue #3, include two different close-up pictures of where Rapunzel is hiding.

{Rapunzel's tower}

We have a swing set, so I decorated it to look like "Rapunzel's tower" with a few vines and flowers and took close-up pictures of that.  The kids have to figure out what location the pictures are from and then go there to look for Rapunzel.

{Find Rapunzel} When the kids have figured out the close-up pictures, that is where they need to go to find Rapunzel.  You can use a doll to represent Rapunzel, or print a coloring page from Tangled.

If you use a swing set, have the kids climb the ladder to find the Princess Rapunzel.  Once they have found Rapunzel they need to hurry to safety (by sliding down the slide) and carrying the princess all the way back to the "castle" (or the house).  

{Celebration} Now that the princess has been safely returned home, you can all celebrate by sharing a yummy dessert together! :)

You may also want to end the night by watching a movie together, like Tangled, of course!

* If you decide to host your own Rapunzel Mystery Dinner, please leave a comment and let us know!! We would love your feedback and to hear your own great ideas. Also, we recently added the invitation as a printable. If there is anything else we can include that would make this activity easier for you, please let us know!

Sherlock Holmes Date Night

I saw this "Clue Mystery Puzzle" and thought it would make a fun activity for my husband and I when the kids went to bed.  Like a "date". :)

The puzzle comes with a mystery scenario that you read.  When you complete the puzzle, you try and figure out what happened and solve the mystery.

While we put the puzzle together, we watched episodes of the new BBC Sherlock Holmes series (what do you think of the series?).  You could also watch either of the recent Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr, both are fun mysteries. 

Trip to Hawaii

If you remember last week my daughter and I "flew" to Scotland.  You can read all about it here.  Well, my daughter liked it so much that she wanted us to fly somewhere else.  So this week we are going to Hawaii as a family.

 
Similar to our Scotland trip, I printed boarding passes for the flight and set up the living room like an airplane.  We boarded the plane and watched video clips of hula dancing and listened to Hawaiian music.  When our plane "landed" we put on our flower leis and headed off to "Honolulu" to go shopping, of course!

In case you've never been, there's a big outdoor market/swap meet held frequently near Honolulu city.  In our town they were having an outdoor arts festival for local artists and craftsman to sell their merchandise, so that's where we went shopping.  It was fun to have our own little "outdoor market and swap meet" nearby.  Be sure to check out any upcoming arts festivals in your community, they are so much fun!

We enjoyed our shopping trip and made some fun purchases.  We relaxed and watched the music performances.  When it was time for dinner, we headed back home for a Hawaiian meal of Teriyaki  chicken, Kailua pig, macaroni salad, and sticky rice with soy sauce.  We also made tropical smoothies with fresh mango's, banana's, pineapple, and nectarines.

While we ate dinner we enjoyed watching Lilo and Stitch together.  What a wonderful day we had in Hawaii!

If you want to take your own "trip to Hawaii" but don't want to go shopping, another fun alternative would be to set a swimming pool or sprinklers in your own backyard! 

Mommy-Daughter Trip to Scotland

My daughter has really been wanting to see the new movie Brave.  So I thought it would be a perfect activity for our Mom-Daughter Date.  But, instead of just going to the movie, I planned a "trip to Scotland" to make our day more memorable.  Since the movie takes place in Scotland and all the previews show the main character (Princess Merida) doing archery, that's what I planned our activity around.

First, we had to fly to Scotland.  I set up our living room to look like an airplane by simply arranging my daughter's stuffed animals as the pilot, flight attendants, and other passengers.  Then I printed off our tickets to Scotland and we boarded the plane headed to Scotland!

While on the plane we watched some You Tube videos of Scottish musicians and dancers and snacked on peanuts, fruit snacks, and a cup of water.  

When our plane landed in Scotland our first activity was to make our own Scottish plaid table cloth.  I had a large piece of butcher paper and we made a plaid pattern by drawing lines across and down.  Drawing the plaid pattern was also a good practice in following color patterns too.  

When the table cloth was done we set the table for a Scottish lunch.  We had traditional UK fish and chips served cabbage (or coleslaw), berries, and biscuits and mugs of cream soda.

I also hung the Scotland flag in the dining room to make it more authentic (and because the Scotland flag is so simple to make).

After lunch we did our second activity -- archery!  We made these cute bow and arrows with popsicle sticks, floss, and Q-tips.  I found the tutorial from the blog The Brooding Hen.  

The tiny bow and arrows shot really well and we had a lot of fun practicing our archery skills.

 I made a LARGE bullseye so we would be sure to hit it. ;)

Finally we ended our day in Scotland by going to the movie Brave.  Now my daughter and I are world travelers, can't wait for our next adventure

Muppet Puppets

Who doesn't LOVE The Muppets?  Well, we do!!

My family's all-time favorite Muppet show is the Christmas Carol.  We also have a few seasons of the old  Muppet TV series on DVD.  They're short and silly, and my daughter loves them!  So when the new Muppet Movie came out on DVD, I figured it would make a perfect activity for our family.

{our homemade sock puppet "muppets"}

I thought it would be fun to make our own Muppets and put on our own show.  First I chose a Muppet script for us to perform. I went to this website http://www.puppetresources.com/.  This website has tons of puppet scripts for puppet plays.  I did a search for "Muppet" and found a list of Muppet scripts from the old Muppet TV series.  I chose the Bunny script for our Muppet play.  I printed off a copy of the script for each family member to read from while we performed the play (or practice, if they wanted to).

 Then, together we each made our own sock puppet.  I found this website with a pattern to make the sock puppets www.daniellesplace.com.  We used large socks, felt, yarn, and cardboard to make our sock puppets.  But you could also use brown lunch sacks and draw on the faces to make quick and inexpensive puppets.  We made Nurse Piggy, Doctor Bob, and Nurse Janice (to go along with our Bunny script).

To set the stage, I set up a curtain for us to hide behind.  For simplicity, you could also try sitting behind the couch or kitchen table.  Either way, I recommend trying to hide yourself a little because afterall, the fun of puppets is that you can't see the puppeteer, right?

I also setup our video recorder so that we could watch our performance afterwards. (You can try using a webcam, iPad, camera, etc.) I highly recommend taping your puppet performance.  We didn't have a live audience to perform for so it was hilarious to play back our little muppet play. So fun when the entire family is involved!

Afterwards we popped popcorn, snuggled in, and watched The Muppets movie together as a family.

You Lift Me UP

We all love receiving special notes of appreciation!!

This is a quick and easy dinner activity idea to make the whole family feel appreciated.  

At everyone's plate I put a can of 7-Up with a simple label taped around it that said, "You Lift Me UP!"

Click here to print your own labels

{labels fit easily around 12 oz. soda cans} 

Then I personalized each label by writing something that I liked about each person and I tied a balloon to the top of each can.  The balloons added a fun, colorful twist to our dinner drink!  

During dinner we talked about something or someone who had lifted us up during the week.  This was very insightful and inspiring to hear all of the positive events that happened in the lives of my family.  Also, my children really enjoyed the simple note that I wrote about each of them.  It was simple and unique way to express my love for them.

*If you want, a fun family activity would be to watch the Disney Pixar movie UP after dinner!

*Another fun variation would be to leave a can of 7-Up in each family member's room as a thoughtful surprise when they came home from school or work - a welcome treat after a long day!