Date Night Movies for Winter

One of the things I look forward to the most is date nights with my husband. In winter, we tend to enjoy a hot drink, followed by a movie and popcorn, and this gets us out of the house and able to enjoy each other's company without being interrupted.

Here are some of the films we are planning to see during the colder months in New Zealand.

Mr Holmes:
Starring Sir Ian McKellan as a retired Sherlock Holmes, who finds himself reminiscing over a 50 year old case in his home in Sussex post WWII. My husband and I really enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes movies released in 2009 and 2011 featuring Robert Downey Jr., and so I am anticipating that this version will also entertain us both.

San Andreas:
As a Dwayne Johnson fan, I really want to see this even though it may be hard to watch at times due to the earthquake scenes. This movie is about the San Andreas fault line, not a GTA game as some fans thought, and features Dwayne Johnson as a helicopter pilot trying to rescue his estranged daughter as the city crumbles around him.

Minions:
The whole family is going to this, as my boys adore the Minions and their funny antics. This is the first movie aimed at children that I have been excited to see this year (my mum took the boys to Spongebob so I dodged that bullet!) and this will make a fun day out for the entire family.

Ant Man: 
My son can list all of the superheroes of the Marvel subset, and Ant Man is the latest version of a superhero character having his own movie. Paul Rudd is an actor that my husband and I enjoy watching, and it will be interesting to see how he holds his own in this performance as a somewhat serious role.

Fantastic Four: As a Marvel-fanatic household, we are also looking forward to this movie being released at the start of August. This is my husband's pick of the bunch!

As you can probably tell, we enjoy action packed movies, and I will still get my fix of romantic comedies through our movie nights at home and also going to the movies with my mum.

Are there any movies you plan to see this winter?

Aladdin Family Fun Night

Adam has recently been requesting lullabies to help him fall asleep, and one of the songs I sing to him is my favourite song from Aladdin.

This got me thinking about a family fun night based on the Aladdin movie!

Firstly, I put down a tablecloth on the floor for us to sit on as a magic carpet. Pretty basic, but the boys think sitting on the floor to eat is awesome!



We all sat down to have our dinner and watch the movie.



We had Blue Genie Juice, which was Blueberry flavoured fizzy. A rare treat in our house, but this was rather tasty! We also had Turkish flatbread, moroccan couscous with eggplant and tomato, and some tandoori yoghurt beef kebabs from our local butcher.



Dessert was Cave of Wonders- strawberry ripple icecream with jubes to represent the jewels.



This was simple to throw together at short notice, and such a fun way to spend a Friday night together. The boys loved watching the genie, and I enjoyed reminiscing about the songs as I used to sing them in choir.

If you have any suggestions of movies that we should watch as a family, I would love to hear them as we love our movie nights!