3rd Annual Movie Under The Stars

Another summer has come and gone and in an instant our lazy mornings, late nights and carefree attitude are no where in sight. We ended our summer like we have done for the past 2 years, with an outdoor family movie night.

This tradition of ours, well I just love it. Families from all over descend upon our yard eager to see each other again and huddle with their families for one more night.

Swapping summer stories and gabbing about who has which teacher seems to be the automatic ice breaker for the first 30 minutes of the party and I love every stinkin' second of it.

Popcorn passer-outers

Our 5 foot "ground floating" helium Buzz Lightyear got punched to infinity and beyond and stayed there for the following 48 hours.

But for a brief second he was an adorable party favor

Our concession stand menu was a mix-and-match theme consisting of 4 main ingredients:

Intergalactic Pulled Pork

There's A Snake In My Nachos

Yodel-Ay-Hee Hot Dogs and
Reach For The Chili

The combo possibilites were endless, though the cheesy, chili and pulled pork nachos combo reigned supreme!

And let's not forget about the candy counter. I swear, year after year the rasins go untouched. Why do I even try?

And a big thanks goes out to my friends Kim, Melissa and Nikki for providing such yummy desserts.

And of course, the watering hole. Stocked with plenty of drinks for the adults. I keep forgetting to make a drinking game out of the movie. Next year for sure.

The choice of movie is always a heated debate round these parts. The kids really wanted Despicable Me and while I love that movie--it's lacking an element of magic that Toy Story 3 so obviously embodies. I really, really love the Toy Story movies and I know that I only have a handful of years to still pull off the animated movies--but secretly I CAN'T WAIT till the really awesome movies like E.T. , Pretty in Pink and Grease--just to name a few.

Toy Story 3 was also chosen because it was a great opportunity for us to make an impact.  We partnered with The Toy Box Connection  (a fantastic local charity) and asked our guests to bring either a new toy or a gently used toy to be donated to the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. And the result was unbelievable. I was humbled and overjoyed with the generosity of our community. Look at this:

Until next year....