Family Movie Night :: A Hobbit Party

One of my favorite things to do is to read with my kids.  It's important for so many reasons, most of all that it helps them develop a love of literature.  And to make reading even more fun, we started a tradition last year of celebrating after we finish a big book.  It all began with our Harry Potter Party last year, and after that I decided to throw a little party every time we finished a huge book.  It took me the better part of a year, but I have finally finished reading the Hobbit by JRR Tolkien to the kids.  To celebrate I decided to have a "Hobbit Party" for our family.  I bought some simple decorations from Etsy and made some fun snacks and we watched the first half of the Hobbit on DVD all cuddled up together in the living room.  The kids were so excited, and to be quite honest so were the parents! 

We started the evening with the boys tidying up the living room while I made "dinner" and

Ella made a simple blackberry pie.  For dinner we had "Second Breakfast" just like a Hobbit would.  There were pancakes, bacon and potatoes.  While they ate dinner I gave them Lord of the Rings Word Searches to work on (I found them on Etsy...very cheap, and they loved it).  After dinner we all got in our PJ's and watched the movie together (actually, we had to split it into two nights because it is a very long movie).  While we watched the movie I set up a table of fun snacks in the kitchen.  We certainly ate well at this party, and had tons of leftovers, so the kids are going to have some interesting lunches this week!

I didn't go completely overboard, but I did get a few cool Hobbit printables to decorate the kitchen.  I bought circle images meant for bottle caps for hairbows and such and made them into a banner, and I printed out a map that I found online, and bought a beautiful sketch of Bagends from Skadoodled on Etsy to hang up as well.  The kids thought those decorations were very cool.  In fact, the party is over...but the decorations will probably hang in the kitchen for quite a while.  They are quite the conversation starter with the munchkins.  

And then there were the snacks for the movie....here's what we had:  Cheese, Bread & Apples for the long Journey, Elrond & the Elves Cookies (Keebler!), Bilbo's Blackberry Pie, Gollum's Fish, "My Precious" golden rings (Funyuns), Dwarf Ale (root beer), and a few other snacks.