Themed dinner - Christmas with the Kranks

Ok, I love Christmas. That shouldn’t be a surprise. I love everything about Christmas. My favorite part is probably the movies. Just really puts me in the mood.
That brings me to today’s themed dinner, Christmas with the Kranks. I could really watch this movie all year around, but I refrain. I definitely DO watch White Christmas all year long and have no shame what so ever.


   

For dinner, we had coconut crushed tofu, served over white rice, and served with yellow squash and a coconut milk and sriracha sauce.

Coconut crusted tofu recipe

For dessert, we had pineapple upside down cupcakes. Seriously the easiest dessert ever. Mine definitely isn’t as pretty as the Betty Crocker picture, but it’s still oh so delicious.

Pineapple upside down cupcakes

I think sometimes the holidays can be overwhelming, and sometimes we do wish we could get away for a bit, but nothing beats being with your loved ones this time of 

year. If you haven’t checked out this movie yet, or if you haven’t seen it in a while, go watch it. I’d love to hear what your favorite part of the movie is. Let me know if you made this and if you liked it.

FHE: BEARing our Testimonies

Did you know that today is "Party with your Bear" day? Neither did I until I looked it up. Not very specific on how to celebrate but I DID know that we should have fun with it. We invited Broseph's special friend that he's had since before he was born. Teddy. We talked about the importance of bearing our testimonies; not only in sacrament but in our everyday lives. Our Bishop once told us that our testimonies are like a muscle; we need to exercise it and make it stronger. We opened by reading a couple of scriptures. We're really trying to teach Broseph how to look things up in our scriptures. Starting with Doctrine and Covenants. It took me a while to get the hang of it myself. We ended with a yummy treat that I found on Pinterest. I wanted this FHE to be fun but it got really serious, really fast. I will not name names buuuuut..... He's gonna hear about it later. Haha!

Scriptures: D&C 115:4-5 , D&C 58:6, and Alma 30:44

I took a couple hints from Prepared NOT Scared. I'm a total cheap-o and don't want to use my printer ink unless its ABSOLUTELY necessary. So instead of using the print outs from their site, I just put them on index cards. But, I'll get back to that.

After reading our scriptures, we asked Broseph what he thought a testimony was. There's definitely no wrong answers at Haus Von Schenck. He knew that we have a fast and testimony meeting every month but wasn't too sure why and how to share his testimony. Both Rich and I shared our testimonies with him and tried to answer his questions to the best of our ability. After our discussion, we went back to those index cards. I drew little bears on the blank side (sticking with the theme) and on the other side I wrote a topic to bear our testimonies about. The topics included: The Book of Mormon, the 1st Vision and Temple Marriage. Just to name a few. We want him to be comfortable enough to bear his testimony in front of a congregation or in front of his friends. This definitely applies to us as well. When we finished that, we wrote down our testimonies on a blank index card and placed them in our scriptures.

Treat: I made Gummy Bear popsicles! Pretty yummy. Broseph really liked them. But he likes anything sweet. Mine doesn't look like the one on Pinterest but I don't think anyone noticed. 

There wasn't an official recipe for these so I just winged it. I stuffed our popsicle molds with gummy bears and filled it up with 7up. I tried to make the soda flat but ain't nobody got time fo' dat!

October 31st: Hocus Pocus

It's finally here! Our last movie of October! It was a less than eventful Halloween here at Haus Von Schenck. Hardly any trick or treaters. We have a cauldron full of candy! But that's ok because we get to end our night watching my favorite Halloween movie! And for dinner we are having what I like to call our "virgin" chicken chilli. And for dessert, our left over candy.Obviously! Haha! This is Halloween when you're 29 I guess.

October 28th: It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown (FHE)

We are headed into the home stretch! Hubs and I have been off the grid for about 3 days but we are back now. Since we weren't home on Monday (our designated FHE night) we held it today. Which was ok with me since we were carving pumpkins. For dinner, we were joined by our Missionaries! If you can't tell, we absolutely LOVE having the Missionaries over. We had "brinner" (breakfast for dinner). Gluten Free PUMPKIN pancakes, bacon, hashbrowns, and eggs. For FHE, we went off the lesson from lds daily (Jesus and jack-o-lanterns). By far one of the funnest FHE's we've had at Haus Von Schenck. To end our evening, we watched "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". I love this movie so much. Definitely gets me into the Halloween spirit.

Trader Joe's is my hero, 

Linus: Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere. He's gotta pick this one. He's got to. I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there's not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see.

D&C 50:24 - That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.

October 25th: Beetlejuice

"BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUICE!!!!!" Ok, seriously, how can you not like this movie? If you can't tell already, I'm a big fan of Tim Burton...except Corpse Bride..(sore subject). I watched this movie when I was a kid and always watched the cartoon. Product of the early 90's right here. Anyways, for dinner we started with an appetizer of shrimp cocktail (insert "Banana Boat" song) and for dinner we had black and white pasta (representing Beetlejuice's iconic suit and the love of black and white that Tim Burton has). Squid ink was way too expensive so I just used regular old food dye. It freaked Broseph out too much and he didn't want to eat it. We topped it off with red sauce (to match Lydia's wedding dress). No dessert this time. Although, I had planned one. Maybe next time.

Fairly cheap shrimp and cocktail sauce from Trader Joe's. It's becoming my new favorite store. 

Broseph's gluten free pasta that I dyed. I thought it was cool. 

Charles: As soon as we get settled, we'll build you a dark room in the basement, okay? 
Lydia: My whole life is a dark room. One big dark room. 

Lydia is my hero.

Adam: What are your qualifications? 
Beetlejuice: Ah. Well... I attended Juilliard... I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT... NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY... NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I'm qualified?

October 20th: Addams Family

Throughout this whole month, I have been very excited to show Broseph movies that were made before he was born. For some odd reason, he had never seen the Addams Family. One of my FAVORITES!!! As a child I wished I was Wednesday Addams! I actually still do. For dinner we had Thing (HAND)burgers with oozy mozzarella cheese. Tomorrow, I have a Relief Society event. So needless to say I will be skipping our themed dinner. But that won't stop us from watching Addams Family Values. On a Wednesday, OBVIOUSLY!

It was kind of hard to get it into the shape of a hand. I don't know how they did it on Pinterest. Maybe I should have read the instructions. 

Wednesday: I'm a homicidal maniac, they look just like everyone else

October 19th: Hotel Transylvania

Today we watched Hotel Transylvania! A first for me. Broseph has seen it a million times! It's super cute! My new favorite. I can't wait to watch the second one now. For dinner we had Mummy dogs and tombstone tots. My mom asked me what tombstone tots were and Broseph looked at her with a straight face and said "They're just regular tots, mom". Broseph, always keeping it real. For dessert, we had Vampire Floats. For FHE we "Boo'd" our neighbors! They live on the street over and we have never met them before but they seem like a sweet family. I'm the worst at surprises and sneaking up on people. I get a bad case of the giggles. Broseph did a good job at ding dong ditching them.

I just wrapped hot dogs with crescent rolls. Take the triangles and slice them with a pizza cutter and then wrap the hot dogs with them. Bake them as directed. 

Vampire Floats! Made with Hawaiian Punch (which should be cold. Made that mistake.) and vanilla ice cream. I put vampire teeth for decoration. 

Jonathan: I'm Dracula, Bleh, bleh-bleh! 
Dracula: I've never said that in my life. 'Bleh, bleh-bleh.' I don't know where that comes from!