A Time for Family Movie Night

We recently started having a "Family Movie Night". Partly because now we have enough kids that are old enough to actually sit through a movie, partly because we finally got a TV and no longer have to crowd around a computer screen but also because we just had two babies in less than a year. By the time Friday comes we are wiped and need a low-key relaxing activity that we can do with our older kids while we are also taking care of two babes. Now that the girls are getting bigger (18 months and 8 months now...crazy!) and it is a little easier to get out of the house and do things we will do this less, especially for the summer, but the kids have enjoyed movie night a lot! Especially since there is a "no tv/video game" rule on school nights!
The challenge with movie night we have found is finding appropriate movies. We are careful with what we allow the kids to watch. It's also challenging to find something that will be interesting for our 8-10 year olds AND the 4, 5 and 6 year-olds. Since subscribing to Amazon Prime we have been able to find a lot of great old movies to rent. If you find yourself in a similar situation, having trouble finding good family movies, here is a short list of some we have enjoyed recently:

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Follow Me, Boys!

Frozen

The Sound of Music (surprisingly ALL my older kids loved this movie)

Swiss Family Robinson

Shakiest Gun in the West (we are big Don Knotts fans!)

The Apple Dumpling Gang

Of course every good movie night comes with yummy snacks! Thankfully my kids were thrilled with popcorn because there were a lot of movie nights I barely had the energy to do that much! I pop it on the stove, I don't buy the microwave kind. Sometimes I pop it in coconut oil and that makes it really yummy!  I did find a really great recipe for "movie night" popcorn and my kids beg for it every time. If it wasn't sooooo sugary I would. Here is the recipe and it's worth making:

Movie Night Popcorn (click the link)

Then there was the night I made salted caramel pretzel bark (click the link). It's out of this world...you HAVE to make this stuff. It's incredibly easy and I promise you will not be able to stop eating it! 

A few weeks ago I was tired of popcorn and didn't have time to cook something but wanted to do something different. This is what I came up with and it turned out to be one of the kids favorite movies night snacks! 

 Basically all the ingredients for S'mores were staring me in the face when I opened the cupboard. Since it was a cold, rainy night and we couldn't make a camp fire I thought maybe the kids would be okay with just the ingredients for s'mores. I was right, they loved this!  I served it in coffee filters so the clean up was easy too!

There you have it. Throw in lots of pillows and comfy blankets and you have yourself a pretty good movie night!

 I'd love to hear your family movie night suggestions for movies AND snacks!