FMN: Jack the Giant Slayer

Tonight's movie was Jack the Giant Slayer! For out treat we ate "magic bean seeds" (also known as jelly beans 😉)

Season Finale of Game of Thrones, season 3

Since tonight is the finale episode of season 3 of Game of Thrones, it only seemed fitting to have a dinner fit for Westeros!

I used this recipe from the awesome Inn at the Crossroads for dinner. For dessert, I made lemon raspberry tarts. Since it was was Subday and I didn't want a lot of work, I bought mini tartlet cram users, filled with lemon pie filling, and topped with raspberries ( and dress lemon balm from my herb garden). We normally drink spiced wine with every episode but it seemed too hot for hot wine so we stuck with normal wine.

Yummy dinner and dessert! Now, let the Games begin!! 

FMN: Escape from Planet Earth

When I asked the big kids if they had any treat ideas for this movie, K-man immediately said, "slurpee!!".  Easy AND yummy - sounds perfect to me.  I also made "blue alien popcorn" from this recipe: http://life-should-be-delicious.blogspot.com/2011/07/jello-popcorn.html.

Kids loved the treats and the movie!  

FMN: Captain America

I love it when we find a movie that the kids like and we, the parents, like also.  Now that the older kids are getting tweenish we find movies like that a lot more often.  Captain America was one of those movies! We tend to be fans of comic book movies but this one was a little different because it is set in 1942.  The main character (played by the dreamy Chris Evans) has a lot of heart and good values which I really liked.

We started the night off with pizza that looked like Captain America's sheild.  I bought a pizza from the super market deli, rearranged the pepperonis and added a few more pepperonis where needed and a star shaped piece of mozzarella. We all thought it turned out pretty good! It didn't look quite as good after I cooked it but it was still easy to tell what it was.

For dessert we had Bomb Pops but you there are SO many possibilities!  Just think of all the different red, white and blue desserts there are for 4th of July... any of those would work great!

Halloween Family Movie Nights! Casper and Hocus Pocus

Casper came out when I was in middle school an I loved it!  That is when Christina Ricci was WAY cool and Devon Sawa was WAY cute (even if he only appeared in the film for about 30 seconds).  One of my best friends (then and now) and I used to hole up in our back family room with magazines and candy weekend and summer night after night talking and watching this movie.  That is probably why I could still recite most the movie by heart when I watched it with my kids 16 years later. And I still looked forward to the part when Casper turns into a real boy for only 1/2 of a song and float dances with Cat and says, "Can I keep you?"  AHHHHHH!

As with my most recent ongoing theme, this picture is pretty poor quality and even worse, I didn't even get a picture of just the treats.  Ugh!

I used caramel apples covered in tissue paper (wrap the apple in wax paper first) and tied with ribbon to resemble the popular lollipop ghosts. Like this:

Hocus Pocus

For this movie night I made witch hat cookies by "gluing" a Hershey Kiss to a fudge stripe cookie with frosting and adding an orange bow.  These cookies were super simple and fit the theme great!  I also made a batch and took them to a Halloween party the next night. They were a big hit!

Family Movie Night: Gulliver's Travels

I have to just say, there is something that I really like about Jack Black.  He makes me laugh and he plays the "quirky" guy SO well. I have never read the book (ya, I know, I some how bypassed it when in school) so I am not sure how it compares to the book but I thought the movie was cute and the kids really liked it.

Since Gulliver is a giant in his new land, I made lots of mini items for the treat so the kids could feel a little "giant" themselves.

We had mini pizzas, mini pigs in a blanket, mini candy bars, mini chocolate chip cookies (these were my favorite!), mini M & M's and mini apple pies (those were my hubby's favorite!).

(Again, I apologize for the bad picture.  It has become very clear to me that I need to find a better place to take pics than my messy counter that leaves a glare.  And maybe I should experiment with my camera to get better pictures.  If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them!)

FMN: The Mask and Tron Legacy

Although I seem to have a hard time finding enough time to post, our movie nights continue on!  I have a lot that we have done that haven't made it up yet so my goal is to get them up over the next couple of weeks.  They won't be in order because, well, honestly, I can't remember when we did some and I was too busy/lazy/etc to get the pics dated. :( Really though, you probably don't care WHEN they were done as long as you get to see WHAT was done. ;)

Here to start off a marathon of Family Movie Night posts: The Mask and Tron Legacy

The Mask

I apologize in advance for the quality of these pictures.  I took them on my phone and they didn't turn out too well.  V-Girl had a friend over for this movie night so I made masks for all the kids out of bright green construction paper.

 

I had the kids face their masks the wrong way. oops!  In the pic below L-Monster has his turned the right way. :)

For the treats, I topped cupcakes with yellow frosting and wrapped the base in matching paper that had a black stripe at the bottom. I added a black paper "feather" and sat them on a matching circle to make fedora hats just like Jim Carrey wears in the movie.

The picture is pretty bad but I thought the cupcakes turned out good!

Tron Legacy

It was pretty easy coming up with ideas for this movie since Family Fun Website has a section of treat ideas and printables!

I opted for the Tron Light Cycle Wheelie Pies which were easy to make (this was before Pilsbury came out with a whoopie pie kit which makes it even easier!) and they tasted great.  Except that I put in too much frosting.  When ever the kids complained of the amount of frosting (and that is usually all they eat) I knew I had gone overboard. LOL. ;p

I told the kids to get dressed in all black and then gave them glow sticks and we were set to start the movie!

Family Movie Night: Alpha and Omega & Little Giants

We were able to fit in two movie nights this weekend which the kids, of course, thought was the coolest.  On Friday night, we watched Alpha and Omega.  It is a cute movie about 2 wolves that get relocated from Canada to Idaho and have to try to find their way home.

For the treat, I made wolf cupcakes which I learned how to do from this video.  The cupcakes looked kind of Halloween wolf more than friendly cartoon wolf but they followed the theme well and the kids thought they were cool.  I meant to make them a light gray color but added to much black coloring gel so they were black wolves.

On Saturday night we watched Little Giants.  I wanted to do a football theme since it was Superbowl weekend (which is practically a holiday in our house) and we hadn't done a football movie yet.  I forgot what a good movie this is - I hadn't seen it in nearly 20 years (yes, I am getting old!).  The kids really liked the movie and the treats.

To make the treats, make rice krispie treats using this recipe and shape them into footballs.  Dip the tops in chocolate and once the chocolate has set, use white chocolate for the laces and lines.

L-Monster couldn't have a treat but he was dressed for the occasion! And V-girl has on her hat that we bought at $2.99 sale at Children's Place and she hasn't taken off since she got it.  She is even sleeping in it tonight.

Family Movie Night: How to Train a Dragon

How to Train a Dragon was such a cute movie!  We hate friends over to enjoy this movie night with us and all the kids really liked it.

For the treat, I made cupcakes and frosted them into a mound with light brown frosting and I had the kids make viking horns that stuck into the cupcakes.  I found the horns online - I searched again but can no longer find them :( - printed them and then had the kids cut them out and glue them to toothpicks.

I also would have liked to have viking hats for the kids to wear - here is a template - but I ran out of time.  Again.  Oh the joy of babies! lol!

Even without the viking hats, the night was a success!

Family Movie Night: Iron Man 2

I knew that Iron Man 2 was coming out soon so when I saw  this Iron Man candy at the convenient store, I snatched them up and stored them until the DVD release.  I always feel bad when I don't go to more effort for treats but the kids never care - they just love sugar (in any form!).

For the first Iron Man, I made an arc reactor cake (you can view it here) and printout masks (like the one here).

Family Movie Night: Marmaduke

This movie was only so-so which is a bummer because the kids were REALLY excited to see it. But as V-girl said, "it wasn't as good as I thought it would be".

For the treat, I put Cocoa Puffs, Milk Duds and Whoppers in a plastic bowl to look like dog food.  And I cut bones out of chocolate chip cookies.  If I would have planned ahead better I would have bought cheap plastic dog bowls and painted their names on.

V-girl asked that I please point out that she has shorts on. ;)

Family Movie Night: ET

Anybody want to guess what our treat was for ET?  If you guessed Reese's pieces, then you guessed right!! It just seemed like a no brainer. :)

Family Movie Night: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

My kids were super excited to watch this movie!  They looked up when it was coming to DVD and asked if we could watch it for movie night that week.

I wanted to do something different for a treat - I feel like I always do cookies, cakes and cupcakes - and wanted to make the treat look like a diary.  Well, not a diary, a journal.  I looked at looked at the grocery store and the best thing I came up with was frosted pop tarts.  I used frosting to make the pop tarts look like a journal.  I drew the main character on one side and "writing" on the other.  And of course I had to pair it with a piece of cheese which immediately ignited a "cheese touch" game in our house.

Family Movie Night: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

For Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief I decided to make lightning bolt cookies and we had Voltage Mountain Dew.

As you can see from my cookies, they didn't turn out too well. When K-man saw them he thought we were watching a movie about tornadoes.  Again, I used store bought cookie dough and as you know, THAT is the problem.  I think I really need to think about making and freezing the cookie dough so I always have it on hand.

I rolled out the cookie dough and cut each one into the shape of a lightning bolt.  I frosted them with light blue frosting and sprinkled them with blue pop rocks so they would add a little pop and fizz when then kids ate them.

My niece, the Kirsten8or who is was reading the book series and is very into Greek mythology joined us for the evening as did our neighbor Ethan who is very into our movie nights. :)

Family Movie Night: Toy Story 2

For Toy Story 2, I made cowgirl hat cookies that looked like Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl's hat. I got the idea from here.  I also thought the alien cupcakes were a great idea but since I use cupcakes so often, I was trying to do something different.

My cookies didn't turn out as good as the recipe shows but the kids still really liked them and they tasted very good! If I had more time, I would have made sugar cookies and frosting from scratch - store bought just doesn't compare. But I rarely find myself having enough time for that kind of thing lately and just try to make the treats as quick as I can.

Changing it up!

I was going to title this "New and Improved" and then I remembered how much I hate that term. So I didn't.

 There are some changes though...  I switched to a free host.  When I started this website, none of the free hosting or blog sites would let me design this website the way I wanted it. So I chose to pay for a hosting service.  The options have changed a lot though and business wise it seems silly to pay for a hosting service when this is a free website that doesn't generate money.  So I here I am on a new hosting site.  Don't worry, though, although I have had to change a few things up (i.e. the header and background) I was able to transfer all of the content and previous posts so all the same information is here. Yay!  I wasn't able to transfer all the comments  - so I am sorry if yours disappeared, the followers - so please jump back on the following wagon, or all of the links - I am fixing them as I find them but please let me know if you find a broken one.

Other than those small things though, we are back in action!!  One of me New Year's resolutions is to be better about posting so I am going to try.  Cut me some slack though - remember, the Lord "blessed" me with 2 baby boys in less than a year!

I have a lot of Family Movie Nights to post so I will try to get them posted asap. 

Thanks for taking this journey with me!

What is really in your "Mineral Makeup"?

As you know, just because a label says "all natural" doesn't mean ALL the ingredients are ALL natural. The only way you can make sure you are getting what you want is by reading the label. Makeup is the same way. Just because it is advertised as "Mineral Makeup" doesn't mean that the product you are looking at is truly only mineral makeup. Many "mineral makeups" contain extra ingredients known as fillers such as talc, bismuth, cornstarch, etc. And many "mineral makeups" contain chemicals and toxins that are the same as what is found in liquid makeup. Eeek!

Check out the ingredients in some of these common mineral makeups. Is the makeup you are using actually "all natural"? If not, I urge you to try a brand that is all natural and see the benefits for yourself.

I will start with my favorite (*wink*). Notice how few ingredients are used.

Affordable Mineral Makeup: Titanium Dioxide, Mica, Iron Oxides, Zinc Oxide
Titanium Dioxide is widely used in cosmetics and skin care for its thickening and whitening properties. It also has waterproof and SPF properties while providing a Matte look.

Mica s a sheer, translucent and skin-hugging mineral. Reflects light from the face, creating an illusion of a smoother, softer and more radiant skin tone.

Iron Oxides give the makeup its pigment.

Zinc Oxide is known for its healing properties in problem skin such as rosacea and acne, it has the ability to stay on even while sweating and swimming, as well as offers protection from the sun’s harmful UV rays.


Avon Mineral Foundation: Active Ingredient: Titanium Dioxide 5.0%
Inactive Ingredients: Iron Oxides, Mica, Bismuth Oxychloride, Nylon-12, Methylparaben, Imidazolidinyl Urea, Kaolin, Lauryl Pca, Zinc Pca, Phenyl Trimethicone, Sodium Pca, Lecithin, Urea, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Silica Dimethyl Silylate, Trehalose, Polyquaternium-51, Sodium Hyaluronate, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Atelocollagen, Beta-Carotene, Retinyl Palmitate, Sodium Chondroitin Sulfate, Tocopherol

As you can see by the list of ingredients, many of the ingredients are non-mineral ingredients. It also contains Bismuth which is known to irritate the skin and parabens.


Bare Escentuals and bareMinerals Mineral Makeup: Titanium Dioxide, Zinc Oxide, Bismuth Oxychloride, Mica, Iron Oxides

Based on the ingredients, Bare Escentuals is a much more pure mineral makeup. It does contain Bismuth which has been known to cause skin irritation for some people.


Jane Iredale: Active Ingredients: Titanium Dioxide 14%, Zinc Oxide 6% Other Ingredients: Mica , Boron Nitride, Zinc Stearate, Dimethicone, Stearic Acid, Plankton Extract, Algae Extract, Punica Granatum (Pomegranate) Extract. May contain: Iron Oxides , Ultramarines

Boron Nitride (BN) is a synthetic, inorganic powder (produced from boric acid or boron trioxide). When used in cosmetics, it has absorbent properties similar to those of natural powders such as talc.

Zinc Stearate is a creamy, white, non-carcinogenic powder used as a filler in powdered cosmetics. It has excellent adhesion and coverage properties as well as water repellency properties... but it can irritate the skin.

Dimethicone is a silicone based polymer.


Mary Kay Mineral Makeup: Talc, Zea Mays (Corn) Starch, Zinc Stearate, Dimethicone, Boron Nitride, Zeolite, Methylparaben, Sorbic Acid, Ethylene/Methacrylate Copolymer, Propylparaben, Tetrasodium EDTA, Isopropyl Titanium Triisostearate, BHT, Iron Oxides, Mica

The first two ingredients that are listed are fillers and many of the other ingredients are discussed above and not beneficial. This makeup does not contain Titanium Dioxide which gives makeup it's SPF properties so if you chose to wear this makeup, make sure you also put on sunscreen. Additionally, this makeup contains parabens and many chemicals (such as Sorbic Acid).


Pür Minerals: Titanium Dioxide 8% Inactive Ingredients: Mica, Boron Nitride, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Bismuth Oxychloride, Zinc Stearate, Magnesium Silicate, Magnesium Carbonate, Silica, Shea Butter (Butyrospermum Parkii), Tocopheryl Acetate, Iron Oxides

This makeup contains Boron Nitride and Bismuth

These are just a few of the many brands of "mineral makeup" on the market. As you can tell, it is EXTREMELY important that you read the list of ingredients before you buy so you are confident in what you are putting on your face.

One of the reasons that I love Affordable Mineral Makeup™ is because it is so pure. I know each ingredient listed and why it is used. I feel confident that I am making a good choice for my skin while still getting an exceptional product at an affordable price.

If you have any questions, please contact me at brenda.greenishpink@gmail.com
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Sources: http://www.mineral-makeup-reviews.com/Mineral-Makeup-Ingredients.html, http://naturalglamourminerals.blogspot.com/, http://www.purminerals.com, http://www.ehow.com/facts_5147638_dimethicone-makeup.html, http://www.theconservatorie.com/products/Zinc_Stearate-53-4.html, http://www.cosmeticscop.com/dictionary_term.aspx?tid=932&lid=498&term=boron+nitride

Family Movie Night: Toy Story

Since Toy Story 3 is now in theaters, we thought we better jog our memories of the plot by watching #1 and #2. We started with the original tonight. It has been almost 15 years since it first came out (and 15 years since I watched it) and I forgot what a good movie it is! K-man said he had seen it before (although he couldn't tell me anything about it) and V-girl said that if she saw it, she only saw parts of it.

V-girl had a friend from school spend the night and Ethan (our neighbor) joined us for the movie. All the kids seemed to like the movie and the treats! So it was another success!

Although there are many more prominent characters in Toy Story, I decided to focus on Mr. Potato Head. It may be because I just scored at a couple yard sales recently and added 3 Mr. Potato Heads (and 1 Jr.) to the play room but I think it is more because I didn't know how to make Buzz Lightyear out of Rice Krispie Treats. ;)

I used the recipe on the box and mixed the Rice Krispie Treats and then buttered my hands (numerous times) and formed the mixture into "potato heads". They were WAY too big for the kids (they maybe ate half) but I couldn't figure out how to make them look good and fit all the face pieces if they were any smaller.

I used gummy orange pieces for the ears, pull n peel licorice for the eyebrows, skittles for the eyes, peanut M&Ms for the nose, licorice for the mouth and peanut butter cups cut in half for the shoes. Although I used the same items on each one, they all turned out a little different.

Family Movie Night: Karate Kid

My niece and nephew came over to enjoy the Karate Kid movie night with us and they all had a lot of fun. We had a craft, dinner and a treat.

To start the night off, the kids made karate shirts. We used large white men's v-neck t-shirts. The kids cut up the front and then around the collar.



We then put the shirts on and used black cloth strips as the "black belt".

For the headbands, I bought cheap white fabric and made strips, then the kids decorated them with markers. We had quite an array of designs. Both the girls went with a "hippy karate" theme, Konman made an intricate color design and K-man had a science theme including an eye ball and a DNA. I made L-monster's headband to look like the one worn in the movie.

For dinner, we had pizza rolls because I thought they looked the mini egg rolls and the kids ate them with chopsticks. And for the treat, I made dessert egg rolls using this recipe (I used blueberry and apply pie filling). They were delicious!

It was a successful night!