Hi there! It’s been a month of Sundays since we’ve done a Movie Night, but we moved into our new home and finally starting to get back into the grooves of things. First up, the beautiful mother daughter story, Brave. I’ve been wanting to do this movie for the longest time, but just didn’t know how to do it justice. I’ve been struggling coming up with some easy alternatives to our movies nights that won’t keep you in the kitchen the whole day, I never want our movie nights to seem intimidating. My passion is cooking, so that’s what I tend to focus on the most.  I know my kids would be happy just eating popcorn watching a Disney movie as long as I’m unplugged from my phone and focusing on them and the movie. So, keep that in mind when you read this, you could do one of these ideas, all of them, or skip them all together and add your own passions. As long as you’re spending some magical time with your family, that’s all that matters! 

We started this movie night a day early by making some of King Fergus’s Beef Stew.  I kept the leftovers and used my favorite pie crust recipe to make individual meat pies (click here for the recipe). They are perfect for keeping you warm on a cold winter day. 

For breakfast, I treated the kids to some Bear Claws from Panera. This treat is all that you would need for an easy and quick movie night.

The Scottish eggs were a big hit! They were so easy to make too. My kids happen to get the biggest kick out of peeling hard boiled eggs and loved helping with this part of the dinner. Maybe it’s their little fingers, but they are so good at it. Haha! Click hereBaked Scotch Eggs for the recipe

Now, the sweet buns look really pretty, but I was not happy with the recipe I used. I was expecting a SWEET bun and it was more of a dinner roll with icing. Even the kids didn’t eat them. Oh well. If you have a sweet bun recipe that you like, please leave me a comment below. I’d love to try a better one. Thank heavens, I had a second dessert option.

The Will O the Wisps turned out AMAZING! They are just meringue cookies shaped like the wee spirits that led Merida to her fate. (click here for the recipe and instructions) I love how airy and light these treats turned out. And just like the wisps magically disappeared in the movie, so did these as the night went on.

And I didn’t forget about the witch in the woods either.  I bought a plastic witch’s cauldron from Amazon, put a smaller glass bowl inside, filled it with water and carefully added a few pieces of dry ice to make it bubble and fog over the table. I know you can put dry ice in the actual drinks, but I didn’t want to risk my little ones getting hurt. I mixed up a witch’s brew of my own using a concoction of juices that I knew the kids would enjoy and had it sitting aside to serve later, dry ice free.

We added a fun little project for our movie night too. I asked my daughter to paint a family “tapestry” and I’m blown away with her talent! I’ll definitely be framing it for our living room wall.

Hope y’all enjoyed following along on our Brave movie night. We adore this movie and hope you do too. Word of warning for parents with little ones, there are a couple intense scenes with a bear, so I would encourage to watch it before they do. My kids did fine though and love it.

Thank you so much for joining us! Don’t forget to tag me in your movie night adventures on Instagram using #amagicalkingdomcalledhome. I would love to see them!

Have a magical day,

Esther