November 30, 2015

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This past holiday weekend was a flurry of activity. We kept ourselves busy with visiting family and out of town friends, and didn’t make a bit of a dent in holiday shopping. Since we currently have no home to decorate, we also skipped our usual Thanksgiving weekend tradition of acquiring a Christmas tree and hanging our lights. While we weren’t exactly sad to skip our usual holiday prep work, since we’re all pretty excited and thankful for our renovation, we did feel a bit out of sorts and the kids asked for the hundredth time since this all began, “when are we going home?”

Art and I worked a good portion of Sunday, completing a huge project that was due today, so to celebrate, we decided to take the kids to see The Good Dinosaur. The last time we were at the movies, Hayden had seen the preview for it and he literally gasped at the part when the dinosaurs move their tails around and the sky lights up with fireflies. Between the sweet face of the dino, and the endearing snarling and growling character Spot, it seemed too cute of a movie to miss.

The kids, and Art and I, all loved the movie. The graphics were breathtaking, and in fact during a couple of scenes, especially when taken place in the water, they looked so real I thought they had included real live footage in with the animation.

The story line focused on facing fears, and the importance of friendship, family, and most importantly, loyalty. The two main characters, Arlo and Spot, face incredible danger and challenges during their journey, and with the help of Spot, Arlo eventually conquers his fears and becomes the brave dino his father believed him to be.  I have to say though, it was a tearjerker. All of us, besides Hayden, who is still a bit young to pick up on the subtleties in the story line, cried a couple of times during the movie. The story was so touching and the writers did a really good job of inspiring empathy for the characters. While there were a couple of intense scenes that may be a bit scary for little ones, I loved that the movie was free of snark and attitude, which is so often found in kid’s movies today. Overall, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this movie for kiddos of all ages, but parents, just be on hand during and after to help explain and/or discuss some of the emotional scenes.

Sun-Maid has teamed up with Disney/Pixar to help spread the word about this newest release, and have an awesome sweepstakes currently going on, until December 31st, 2015.

Sun-Maid is giving away 5,000 trips for two to your local theater to see The Good Dinosaur, which was just released on November 25th. For a chance to win one of the 5,000 “Movie night for two” prizes, go to Sunmaid.com through the end of the year.  You can enter up to once a day.

Additionally, if you’re short on healthy snack ideas for the kiddos during this time of holiday sweets mayhem, Sun-Maid has you covered with this Caveman Crunch recipe.

This is a sponsored blog; while the views expressed here were genuinely mine, consideration was paid to me by Sun-Maid to review this product.