I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM, WE ALL SCREAM FOR MOVIE NIGHT!

On March 25, 2022, during MilHousing Network’s spring movie night you had the opportunity to watch Disney’s Monster Inc. or its prequel Monsters University. Our team prepared some fun Facebook lives to follow along so you could decorate your living room in a movie night fashion, mix a movie-inspired cocktail, and create a monster-themed charcuterie board and snacks. All activities were kid-friendly and designed to help build up the excitement for the fun movie night that all family members would cherish. Thanks to our sponsors, Armed Forces Insurance and Caliber Home Loans, we were able to send out many snack boxes and give out prizes. To win, you had to use #mhnmovienights and share with us photos of your movie nights setup among other contests. 

The preparations for the movie night started with a sign up for complimentary snack boxes that we sent ahead of the movie night (OCONUS-friendly!). All you had to do was click on the link in our MilHousing Network Movie Nights Facebook group and fill out your information, then just wait for the box to arrive and put a smile on everyone’s face while unpacking candy, popcorn, and masks of the movie characters. If you purchased something from our online store (https://milhousing-network.myshopify.com), e.g., new movie night t-shirt design, it was possible to win a Premium Box made by Westhouse. The premium boxes were, as the name suggests, a little bit fancier, and this time they contained tumbler, cotton candy, candied pretzel rods, temporary tattoos, and stickers. 

Earlier in the week, leading up to the movie night, Ona did a Facebook live and showed us a couple of kid-friendly movie night decoration ideas. The main craft was to create Monster’s Inc. banner, and Ona showed us a couple of different ways to accomplish that. All you needed was a paper of any color, thin rope or yarn, scissors, markers/crayons, and optional pom-poms, ruler, and ribbon. 

How to Make a Monster’s Inc Banner

• Cut the paper in half (each half will be one door)
• Design each door any way you want
• Design ideas: you can mark 0.5-inch margins all around the door (use ruler for straight lines), glue pom-pom as a door handle. Use crayons or markers to make the door as elaborate or as simple as you’d like 
• Punch holes in two upper corners with a hole puncher. Put a string through the many doors your family creates
• The result should be one big banner that you can hang up on the wall

How to Make a Marshmallow Monster Pop

Bryce Palmer from Armed Forces Insurance guided us through this fun craft. Items needed: marshmallows, lollipop sticks, candy melts, food writing pen. 

• Melt the candy melts. Follow package instructions
• Put a marshmallow on a lollipop stick, and dip it in the melted candy
• Before it hardens, dip the top in sprinkles to create hair 
• Attach candy eyes (any amount and placement)
• Draw a funny mouth with a food pen 

How to Mix a Blue Monster Cocktail

Michelle from Caliber Home Loans taught us how to make a signature movie night cocktail for adults and kids. 

Adult cocktail:

• Put ice cubes at the bottom of the glass
• Add 1 oz. of rum and 1 oz. of vodka
• Splash desired amount of Blue Curacao
• Add 1 oz. of lemonade
• Add lemon/lime soda seltzer or 7UP
• Stir and garnish with lemon

Kids’ mocktail:

• Put monster stickers on a blue glass if you have one (let children decorate it)
• Add ice at the bottom of the glass
• Add lemonade and blue Gatorade or blue Kool-Aid. 
• Add 7UP for fizz
• Garnish the edge of the glass with cotton candy

How to Make a Monster’s Inc Charcuterie Board

Co-founder of MilHousing Network, Lindsey Litton, walked us through the fancy snack tray making. For ingredients, Lindsey recommended the following: olives, crackers, Brie cheese, Babybel cheese, Cheddar cheese, Ham, salami, raspberries, pretzel rods, grapes. 

• Make one or more salami roses (bend slices on a champagne flute, add them on top of each other, then flip over and arrange on the board
• Create Babybel cheese monsters. Take of the middle strip from the Babybel but leave the rest of the package on. Using knife, cut out little triangular teeth on top and bottom of the package to make it look like a monster’s mouth. You can add candy eyes
• Add the rest of the ingredients on the board in no particular order 
• You can put candy eyes on the grapes 
• You can cover pretzels in chocolate, sprinkles and add candy eyes
• You can turn Brie cheese into a packman by cutting out a little triangle out of it and adding a candy eye

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