You Pinspire Me
By now, the excitement of the new school year is starting to wear thin. Your renewed enthusiasm for ‘fall cleaning’ the house has dwindled, as has your goal to meal plan weeks in advance. (I’m projecting? What? I have no idea what you could be talking about.) Your resolve to get to bed on time so that you have the luxury of a relaxed morning before heading out the door to school has weakened, and by the time Thursday rolls around, you’re dragging yourself into the kitchen to get something – anything – prepared for dinner.
Ok, maybe this is the worst case scenario – but admit it – every once in a while, you wish that you could take a day off from preparing that healthy, nutritious meal for your kiddos without spending money on take-out or dine-in.
The perfect dinner for a cold, rainy movie night: home made (& very greasy) Meat Lovers.
This is why I’ve instituted Family Movie Night in our house. One Friday a month (ok, maybe every other Friday), we’ll all sit down together and pick out a movie (on Netflix, obvi – we haven’t actually rented a movie in 4 years!). We bring the little craft table & chairs in to the livingroom and prepare something easy that everyone likes for dinner – if I have time, we throw together a pizza (either from Paula Deen’s pizza crust recipe or just using prepared pizza dough), but otherwise we do something like KD & hot dogs or pigs in a blanket, and pull out the popcorn maker for a tasty – and remarkably healthy! – dessert.
I pulled out the Big Guns here – pretty table cloth and Funkins napkins to boot!
We never – and I mean almost never {ok, when an important Olympic event is on, or the Netherlands is playing in the World Cup…} – have the TV on during dinner time. We also never have things like KD or pigs in a blanket for SUPPER (sure, they’re an acceptable lunch, but…) – so pairing these two exceptions up seems pretty perfect to me. The kids know it’s a treat overall, and not to expect either of them if it’s not a Special Day.
The kids love it because #MoviesBeforeBed, and I love it because #nostalgia.
I said that we pick out a movie together, but that’s a lie. My husband and I pick the movie. The kids think they get a say, but they don’t, not really, they’re just our excuse to pick a kid’s movie. This means that we get to watch our fave kids movies again when we wouldn’t actually ‘waste’ an evening on our own re-watching Free Willy because there are so many other awesome ‘grown up’ movies on Netflix.
Everyone’s happy. I’m happy because I get to slouch on the dinner-making. The kids are happy because they get to watch a movie and have treats in the SAME NIGHT at the SAME TIME! The husband his happy because, for once, he doesn’t have to run interference or keep reminding the kids to not dump their fork full of food on their laps.
…it was a dark and stormy night (literally…it was pouring buckets!) when Bianca and Bernard entertained our whole family!
To make the night even more special – we take an intermission and ‘let’ the kids get into their PJs – which conveniently speeds up the post-movie bed time routine. Score.
Disclaimer: We’re part of the Netflix #StreamTeam and post (at least) once a month on our favourite things about Netflix. We love them a lot. We also sometimes receive some pretty cool things as a ‘Thank You’ for being on their team, though they don’t pay us monetarily for our posts. Don’t tell Netflix, but we’d probably post about them just as often even if they didn’t want us on their team. (But thank goodness they do – my children think that I’m a Very Important Person since NETFLIX – their MOST FAVOURITE brand in the world – sends ME things in the mail!)
Jenn vanOosten
Latest posts by Jenn vanOosten (see all)
- How I Epically Failed the #RenewLife 30 Day Challenge… and Why that Failure is Helping Me Kick Off a Great 2018 - January 8, 2018
- What to Watch on Netflix: Jenn’s Top Picks from 2017 #StreamTeam - January 2, 2018
- I’ll take my Netflix To Go, Please! - December 5, 2017
Please take down that image of the yummy pizza. You’re threatening my diet.
xo