Project Date Night: March

Here's a look at our Project Date Night for the month of March.  If you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about, check out my original Project Date Night post here.

Any other Hunger Games fans out there?  If you know me, you know that I am a huge Suzanne Collins fan. I "blame" my buddy C.E. for getting me hooked - she first loaned me the books 2 years ago and I've been a fan of both the Hunger Games books and movies ever since.

Since we're cheap thrifty and already went to see the Hobbit in theaters, we decided to wait until Mockingjay Part 1 was released on DVD and do a theme date at home... Netflix is our friend, guys. Oh yeah... that's how we roll. :). Watch the trailer here!

There are SO many ideas for Hunger Games parties, gifts, crafts, etc. online.  Most of them are for the Hunger Games (the first book/movie) and Catching Fire (the sequel). Not as much for Mockingjay (the 3rd installment).

I was mostly inspired by Dating Divas' Catching Fire Date but most of the activities didn't apply to the 3rd movie and the food choices didn't work for us, so as usual I was inspired then went out and did my own thing. Voilà! Date night in, Mockingjay style. We did test our HG knowledge with the quiz from the Dating Divas Catching Fire date and  I beat M by 2 whole points.  Wowza. Am I a geek or what?

The Theme
Of course, you have to dress according to the theme... I did a Mockingjay t-shirt (inspired by this tutorial, except I didn't have bleach, so I used cream colored acrylic paint) and the diagonal Katniss braid (learn how to do it here. It's actually a lot more involved than it looks and I had a hard time doing it on myself).

Bad idea to do my hair hours before taking this picture... it's starting to fall apart.

The Food
I planned the menu with the characters in mind.  If you've never read the books or seen the movie, this won't make a lot of sense to you.

• Peeta bread (GF pita bread)
• Mockingjay wings (See the recipe here!)
• Caesar Flickerman Salad (Your basic Caesar salad - sans parmesan cheese for me - with GF croutons and I'm working on developing a vegan, nut-free and soy-free dressing option.  Hope to share that soon!)
• Mocktails (non-alcoholic cocktails... we don't drink anyway, but we thought it was a fun play on words. We did the pomegranate-apple Rossini.)
• Snowball cookies for me (I added some almond meal, just cause I like it that way. And chocolate dipped, of course!)
• White Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Bites for M (my plan was to scoop the chilled fudge into balls then dip in more melted white chocolate to look like truffles and be a different variation of "snowballs", but it was just easier to cut the fudge in chunks and dip the chunks in melted white chocolate, so that's what happened. M thought it was fine, regardless of the shape. I mean, bite size fudge is bite size fudge, people.)

The Movie
Despite mixed reviews about the movie, I really enjoyed it. Yes, I'm a fan of the franchise and I think Jennifer Lawrence is a good actress so you could accuse me of being biased,  but really... the movie was good. I was a little bummed that they cut a few parts out (they mostly trimmed scenes with Finnick and minimized his relationship with Katniss), but was excited that they fleshed out the rebellion and the rescue mission to save Peeta and Johanna. Instead of just hearing about the action sort of secondhand like in the book, you actually get to see what's going on and that creates the action and tension a more political movie needs. Overall, the movie gets a thumbs up from me.  Can't wait to see the last installment next year (because you can bet that we'll still be too 'thrifty' to spend cash on seeing it in theaters and we'll have to wait until next March to see the final part on DVD).

Let's Review
As far as the date itself goes: it's fun being geeky and knowing that my best friend and hubby is just as into it as I am. It's nice to share things like this with him.  Of course there was the "we interrupt this date night at the worst possible moment, a.k.a. the most tense and exciting part of the movie, to bring you a screaming child" thing. Sigh. One of the drawbacks of having a date night in and a small apartment. So, yes, we had to pause the movie, settle the little one down and get him back in bed, then continue. That's ok though, its part of the territory of being a parent.  So despite the pause and getting to bed a bit later than usual, we had a good time being silly and geeky together.