Family Movie Night: Unicorns or Noah's Ark ideas

My daughter loves unicorns.  I decided that this month's family movie night would be centered around the unicorn theme.  As I made my plans I realized that all the unicorn foods were mostly just rainbow foods.  As such, this meal would also be the perfect accompaniment for the Veggie Tales' "Noah's Ark" movie as well; thus making it the perfect night for all ages.

It all started with this recipe.  Like me, you may have seen the Pin for "Quick and Simple Unicorn Noodles" on Pinterest.  I knew I had to make them.  Bonus, the chef explains the chemistry behind the different colored noodles in the blog post.  In our home, my husband and I call that "secret schooling." It's those little hidden lessons that we love. We chose to use a pesto sauce for the noodles which added a fun green shade.  I thought the red sauce would be too overpowering for the pale noodles.

We like to do a craft on family movie night as well.  We are currently creating an alphabet with animals on them.  I saw this as the perfect opportunity to create the U for Unicorn. It may not be a real animal, but it is too cute an opportunity to pass up.  I even found an adorable blog for inspiration.

After that recipe I started digging deeper into the world of unicorn food.  There are a lot of cute options out there.  We made a few alterations to make our meal slightly less pricey and more fitting to us.  For the spaghetti, we did not use the more difficult to find and expensive cellophane noodles.  However, this may be a common thing in your area (lucky).  We made a Unicorn Poop veggie dip but I altered it to be the more traditional ranch and sour cream dip since we don't like greek yogurt.  We used carrots for dipping but referred to them as unicorn horns.  We go all the way with our themes.

For a second side, I opted for a super colorful fruit salad.  It kept with the rainbow theme but added an extra tasty side that seemed needed.  Add in your families favorite fruits.  Bonus: Turn it into "secret schooling" by making this with your kids and talking about the colors of the rainbow (who remembers Roy G Biv?)  You could also use this as a guide and turn it into a cute Bible lesson.

Now for the desert! Best part of the meal, right? I found a recipe for Rainbow Unicorn Dip.  It's really just cheesecake dip with graham crackers.  This recipe also makes suggestions for more natural food coloring. 

Below, I have listed our movie night meal, activity and movie.  Enjoy!

Meal:
Quick and Simple Unicorn Noodles
Easy Homemade Pesto
Unicorn Poop Veggie Dip (with carrots for dipping)
Fruit salad (the more colorful the better)... call it "Unicorn Salad"
Rainbow Unicorn Dip (with graham crackers for dipping)

Activity idea:
Paper Unicorn 
Follow and Obey God's Colorful Way (fruit salad activity)
Noah's Ark Doorknob Hanger (We made this when my daughter was younger.  It's a big hit.)

Movie:
Unicorn- "The Secret of Moonacre"
Rainbows- "VeggieTales: Noah's Ark"

Read Aloud: “Upside-Down Magic”

“Upside-Down Magic”

By Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle and Emily Jenkins

Buy it on Amazon 

Rating: 9/10
Age: 7+

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Nory Horace’s world is much like our own; except everyone has magic.  Each person fits into one of 5 categories which they call the 5 F’s.  These include Flickers (can make self and things invisible), Fliers (they fly), Fuzzies (they are good with animals), Fluxers (they can shape shift into animals), and Flickers (who have fire magic.) Unfortunately for Nory, she doesn’t fit neatly into her category. Her magic is upside-down.  Now that she is in 5^th grade she will have to begin her magic training… which means dealing with her upside down magic in a classroom full of other upside-down magic kids.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:    

This book gives an age appropriate look at bullies, making new friends, big life changes and learning to accept yourself.  There are some things to consider before reading this book with your child. Early in the book, you will learn that Nory’s mother passed away.  This has a big impact on family dynamics in a not so positive way.  Her dad has mostly left the raising of his children, cooking and care for the home up to Nory’s oldest sibling while he throws himself into work.  Nory has a lot of pressure early on from her dad and siblings.  

REVIEW:

I thought this book was very sweet.  I felt Nory was an excellent role model.  She makes mistakes but always tries to fix her mistakes. Overall, it is a well crafted story. The characters are interesting and they make you want to cheer for them.

My young reader also loved the book and insisted we start book 2 the moment we finished.  I didn't worry about forgetting to read a chapter because she always had the book ready to go. 

WHO SHOULD READ IT?

This book is great for kids struggling with bullies and finding their place. I think both boys and girls would enjoy this book.

IF YOU LIKE THIS…

Upside Down Magic is the first book in a series.

Read an excerpt

Play online games about the book 

Teacher’s Guide

Buy it on Amazon  

Stay Date: Painting!!

I've heard lots of people over the years talk about the importance of dating your spouse. Many say you should go on a date once a week. I 100% agree with that idea. However, when you have a young family and/or a small budget, that isn't always the easiest thing to do.  So what do you do? How do you date your spouse with no or very little budget? How do you date without a babysitter?

The solution? A stay date after the kids are in bed. I've been thinking a lot about this option lately.  Then, one day as I wondered down the aisles of Dollar Tree (you never know what you'll find), I spotted some small canvases. It reminded me of those fun painting stores that charge an arm and a leg to teach a bunch of people how to paint the same painting at one time.  But, how could I do that at home? I'm not a painter, neither is my husband.

Enter Youtube. After a quick search, I found a fun channel that walks you through a painting in a simple but fun way. I gathered up the random paint I had from various craft projects over the year, some sponge paint sponges and cue tips.  I set up all my supplies on our kitchen table and set up my phone to play the video (shout out to my Popsocket).

Once my daughter was safely tucked away in bed, I grabbed my husband and announced my stay date plans. He was game, thankfully, and we began our little adventure.  We had to pause it a couple of times so we could go at our own pace.  We had fun talking as we painted and joking about our inability to make our cue tip brushes work in the same way the Youtuber did.  We didn't have the colors the painter had, but we used what we had without issue.

We were pleased with our finished work.  They were much better than we expected... which is saying a lot.  Next stay date is on him.

If you want to purchase all the materials for the stay date or just one or two you might not have, you can purchase them from Amazon or your nearest Dollar Tree:
Acrylic paints
1 inch paintbrush
Paint canvas
Cue tips
Rubber bands

The video we used was "Wisteria Willow Tree Q Tip Painting Technique for BEGINNERS EASY Acrylic Painting" by the Art Sherpa