Disney Nights: Snow White & Pinnochio

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on here before, but we’re going to Walt Disney World (the Disney in Florida) this December!  We’ve been planning a family trip with Michael’s family (parents, sister, brother, and sister-in-law) since last July.  I absolutely LOVE Disney World.  This will be my 5th trip and Michael’s 3rd.  Even though he’s not a nut like I am, he really enjoys it too.

Since we’ve been married, we’ve joined the Disney Movie Club twice.  So…it’s safe to say we have a lot of Disney movies.  To celebrate our upcoming trip, we’ve decided to watch a different Disney movie every week leading up to the trip.  I’m sure there will be some weeks we don’t get one in–especially around the time the baby comes–but we’re going to try.

I’ll post a little synopsis of our Disney night, and then I’ll give some ideas of what I’d do for a theme night with little kids.  I can’t wait to have Family Nights someday soon, and I love planning things like this.  I might also add a few things I like about each movie and/or fun facts.  We’ll see.

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Snow White

Our Family Night:

• Watched the movie
• Cleaned the house (fun, right?!)
• Mini Foods in Sevens (Michael just ate normally, but here’s my plate. PS. Can you tell I was still having a hard time with foods?)

Other Family Night Ideas:

• Have the kids put on a talent show with dancing and instruments they make
• Make a treasure hunt for toy jewels

Thoughts/Fun Facts:

• I didn’t really like Snow White much as a kid.  I didn’t like her high-pitched voice, and it just wasn’t one of my favorites.  In fact, Michael and I had decided to not buy it.  That is, until we went to Disney World in 2009.  On our behind the scenes tour, we learned a lot about Snow White and decided we had to have Walt Disney’s first animated feature–actually, the world’s first full-length animated feature.
• Recently, I read in “The Vault of Walt” by Jim Korkis that Hollywood stars showed up for the premier because they had to.  Many of them could be heard making fun of coming to an animated movie and talking about the absurdity of it all.  When it was over, they gave Snow White a standing ovation!  Also, many of them left with sunglasses on to cover their tear-streaked faces.  It was safe to say that Snow White had accomplished more than anyone thought possible.

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Pinocchio

Our Family Night:

• Watched the movie
• Ate Homemade Pizza (see below for tie-in explanation)
• Played “2 Truths and a Lie”

2 Truths and a Lie Game–You have to guess which one of the other person’s statements is a lie.  We decided to give 3 points for the first guess being correct, 1 for the second, and none for the third.

• One of my examples: 1) I wanted to be an artist 2) I wanted to be a nurse 3) I wanted to be a doctor.  Correct answer: 3 is the lie.
• I ended up winning by 2!

Other Family Night Ideas:

• Make puppets and put on a play
• Let the kids have a grasshopper race (hop on all fours)
• Wish upon a star

Thoughts/Fun Facts:

• While we were watching Pinocchio, we decided to find out where the story takes place.  Michael thought it looked like Germany, but I thought that the names were Italian and the clothes were Swiss.  After much googling, we finally found that it takes place in northern Italy.  So we brushed up on our geography and looked at a map of Europe.  It turns out that northern Italy borders Switzerland, which borders Germany.  Hm–you learn something every day!

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We made a list of all of our Disney movies (in order of original release date) and I tried to think of something to go along with each.  I’m such a nerd for things like this, and I’m excited about our weekly Disney Nights!

I’ll be writing a Pre-Trip Report on the DISboards (www.disboards.com) later, and I’ll post the link here.  I’ll also post an abbreviated list of our plans here once the trip gets closer.

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Q for You: What ideas do you have for different Disney Nights?

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–Staci

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The Truth About Christian Giveaways – By M

In case you’re not familiar with Jon Acuff, he is a great Christian writer/blogger/speaker.  Staci found him and introduced his blog to me.  Back then he only had his blog “StuffChristiansLike” (SCL).  Now he’s blogging about much more than that.  You can check him out HERE.  So if you’re not familiar with what he writes on the SCL blog, Jon takes a satirical approach to all of the little Christian nuances that we all know are silly, but do anyway.  I.e. the side hug, the metrosexual worship leader, the guitar kid in the youth group, the kid who always wears shorts even when its 2 degrees outside, the Jesus Juke, leaving church early, and much more.

So this will be my attempt to writing an SCL-esque post… hope you like it.

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Yes, because I know it’s wrong to tell lies… I will now tell you the truth about the Christian Giveaway.

What is a Christian Giveaway, you ask?  Well they’re gimmicks that the church is really good about using as a means to draw people to church or another Christian activity.  Some keep it low key – Christian CD, “Facing the Giants” DVD, Christian Concert tickets, etc.  Some churches pull out the big guns – $100 or more prize, new plasma screen TVs, X-boxes, etc.

So, as many of you know, Staci and I were recently in Dallas for the Catalyst conference.  It was an incredibly amazing time!  We sang, we learned, we fellowshipped!  It was a cornucopia of Christian love and camaraderie!  But at the same time this weekend was difficult.  Many of us (and by many I mean probably everyone attending the conference) were made aware of the deep-dark sin that lies inside of us.  This sin is called “I-really-wish-I-won-that-giveaway-but-because-we’re-at-a-Christian-get-together-I-have-to-pretend-to-be-happy-for-you-winning-so-I-don’t-look-like-a-jerk” syndrome.

Don’t deny it! I know you’ve been there.

I experienced this emotion strongly on Tuesday night.  Staci and I went to a book signing by Jon Acuff at Books-a-Million in the mall.  We knew there was going to be a random drawing for a $500 giveaway (yes, even Acuff bribed us to come… of course we would have been there either way).  We got there, got our booked signed, and filled out our raffle ticket…

And waited.

And then the moment came.

“Attention everyone, it’s time for the $500 drawing.”  Ears and eyes perk up and all is silent.

The tension in the air is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Will it be me? Please be me! You know what I could do with $500!!!  Please, God, I’ve been so good.

“And the winner is….. (Insert name of some other random lucky person here)!”

And the crowd goes wild!  Everyone laughs and claps and congratulates the winner….

But I know what’s really going through everyone’s head… I really wanna punch that guy in the nose and take that money!

Oh yes, we all have this feeling but we play it off all jolly, like the guy won the money to split it all with us.  Well I’m calling everyone out right now!  I know what’s really going on deep inside… you can’t hide…

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Or maybe that’s just me and my thoughts, and I have major issues…. yup, probably that.  🙂

oh well…

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Have you ever been the lucky recipient of a Christian Giveaway?  What’d you win, you lucky dog?!

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-M

Best Night of the Year!…maybe – By M

Tonight we all (well, not if you live in Arizona or any other weird place that doesn’t take part) will celebrate the best night – or really more like one of the best nights – of the year!  That special time of the year where we get to set our clocks back an hour; meaning we get a little bit more sleep tonight!!! How wonderful!

The problem is, I’m not a really big fan of the really early sunsets…  And, it also means that there is the horrific day in the spring where we set our clocks forward and lose that hour of sleep!!! How terrible!  …. wouldn’t it be great if we could just always set our clocks back?!  I guess minus the years that “day” would be night and “night” would be day.

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Here’s the better option, as much as I love the extra hour of sleep, it’d probably be best not to have a time change at all! Especially because I usually go to bed an hour later than I would normally because I know I’m going to set my clock back anyway… so really I lose that “extra hour” of sleep anyway.   And really, the hassle of having to change all your clocks is pretty annoying

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So on that note: I think I’ve talked myself out of thinking the night we all set our clocks back an hour is the best night of the year.  So, don’t forget to set your clocks back before you go to bed tonight!

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Any wild stories of when you forgot to reset your clock?

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-Michael

Woo-Hoo! Harry’s Here!

For the past two weeks, I’ve been called “Calvin” more times that I can count.  On the 4th, Michael used a Calvin and Hobbes comic to go along with his message for the youth.  I’ve looked all over the internet, but I can’t find it.

Basically, Calvin sees that you can get a beanie if you mail in 6 proofs of purchase.  After he mails them in, all he can think about is getting his beanie in the mail.  EVERY day he comes in and asks if his beanie came yet.  He talks to Hobbes about his beanie while they’re trying to go to sleep, and it’s all he thinks about at school.  Finally, after weeks and weeks of waiting, he comes home from school and says, “I bet my beanie didn’t come in.”  But that was the day it arrived!  After he nearly failed trying to assemble it, he realized that it didn’t make him fly and was therefore worthless–but at least it came in a great cardboard box!

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ANYWAY, so what does that have to do with me?  I ordered some books from Amazon on the 3rd and they shipped on the 5th–WITH NO TRACKING INFORMATION (how am I supposed to check the status multiple times a day?!)!  Every single day since then, one of the first things I say when I get home from work is “Did my books come in today?”  And every single day I’ve gotten a “no”.

Today I’d decided that the mail was probably coming via BICYCLE from San Fransisco.  That’s the only way I could justify it taking over two weeks to come in.

BUT…when I went to check the mail after my lunch break, IT WAS THERE!

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You’re probably wondering what book could get me this worked up…  But I’m gonna have to be honest:  ANY book that I order will get me this worked up.  I’m a nerd.  And I think it also has to do with getting a package in the mail.  Who doesn’t like that?  Plus, I’d like to act like I’m a super patient person, but anyone that knows me will tell you that I’m not.  At all.  I try to be, but I’m not.

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So what were the books?

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

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And now for the back-story:

At one point, I owned the first four books.  Then I decided that I’d jump on the bandwagon and get rid of them.  I watched the first three movies when I went on a movie binge before the Forge (I knew I wouldn’t be able to watch TV or movies for the 9 months I was there so I watched a TON during the weeks leading up to the program), and I really liked them.  But by the time I completed the Forge, I’d forgotten that I wanted to watch the other ones that were out.  Michael and I decided to rent the first one last month, and within a few weeks we’d gotten all caught up.  We both REALLY liked them, but it made me want to read the books again.  Books just add so much more detail and they’re usually better (A Walk to Remember is my only exception so far).  So I decided to buy the books and read them again.  Oh–and by the way, I got each of them for $4 a piece–including shipping!

Needless to say, I’m really excited that they’re finally here, and I can’t wait to start reading them again!  I might even talk Michael into reading them.  But I’m not holding my breath on that one.

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–Staci

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Q for you:  Have you read the HP books or seen the movies?  What are your thoughts on them?  What was the last thing you couldn’t wait to get in the mail?

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And I feel like I should have a disclaimer:  While we really enjoyed the movies and I’m excited to read the books, I don’t plan on encouraging kids to read/watch them.  Some of it does get to be too much for kids (especially #4).  That being said, I don’t feel like they’re any darker than some of Dekker’s books (esp books like “Boneman’s Daughters”), and the movies weren’t as creepy as “The Lord of the Rings” movies.  But that’s SOLELY my opinion.  If your kids have read them and you’re ok with it, great!  If you choose to not read/watch them, great.  These are just my thoughts.  🙂

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Books Page

I just wanted to let you all know that I’ve added a Books Page to our blog.  You can click on the tab at the top or the list at the right.  Each book has a short description and what I thought about it.  You can click on each title to see that book on Amazon.  Right now I only have one genre up but I’ll be working on adding more all the time.

YEP.  I’m a nerd.

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–Staci