Disney World Part 2 - We made it to Florida, now what??

First things first, we all put our magic bands on in the airport. You will start using these in the airport and up until your very last day. These bands were magical indeed. EVERYTHING is on them, including all of our resort info, key to our room - you just wave it in front of the keypad on your door, your park admission, your dining plan, fast passes, you name it and it was on there. They came in a cute box and personalized with our names on them.

 One of the things I loved about staying at a Disney resort is once you booked your luggage at your departing airport you never see it again until it's delivered to your resort room! That's right! You don't have to hassle with it in the airport, getting it on Disney's Magical Express, off the bus, in the hotel and in your room. They do it all for you! And when you're leaving too. I will say the line to get on the Magical Express was long. They have all the lines divided by resorts in the airport. And after weaving in and around lines we finally were able to get on the bus.

 We stayed in a value resort - which is the most economical (ok, cheapest) resort. However, we loved every minute and although it was the cheapest you wouldn't know it. The value resorts are all geared towards kids. We stayed at Disneys Pop Century Resort. Which is decorated around the different centuries. I really wanted to stay at the Art of Animation Resort but they were already booked. Our plan is to go back in 2015 and stay there.
Everyone at the front desk at Pop Century was super accommodating in explaining everything you need to know for your first trip and that's where you get your first free gift. Tell them it's your first trip and you get first trip pins to wear. They give these pins for just about every special occasion birthday, anniversary, newlywed, etc.
In order to get to the food court you have to go thru guess what?....a gift shop! Be prepared to shop, because you will. Especially if you're there for 8 days like we were.
Talking about the food court. The food was wonderful!!! Everywhere we ate on the entire trip no matter the hotel or park was great!! They give you souvenir refillable cups at the hotel. Everyone can pick their own color however, there were only 3 choices. Thanks to my mom bringing a sharpie we just wrote everyones name on the cups.  Keep in mind you can only refill these cups at the hotel not at any of the parks. And if your using a stroller you may think it's a good idea to refill them before you leave to take to the park. Good idea IF you have an extra pair of hands. This was not a good plan for us with 1 parent getting the kids on the bus and situated and another handling the stroller and camera bag and sometimes a tri-pod (oh yes, he did bring it! :-/). So we just refilled them at breakfast and then again when we got back in the evening.

 Let's talk about Dining Plans...
Do you pay extra for the dining plan or not - that is the question! Well, since it was our first trip I decided we either go all in or not. And I'm glad we did! I'm pretty sure we will always use the dining plan. For several reasons, it's extremely convenient, easy to use, you can book character dinners so you don't have to wait in long lines at the park, and the food is great! Again, we did not have one single bad meal.
There are 3 dining plans, Quick Service, Dining and Deluxe Dining. We had the dining plan. Which meant we could have 1 quick service (which was our lunch) and 1 tables service (sit down dinner) and 1 snack (ice cream, pretzel, etc.). This worked pretty good but I think I would like to budget for the Deluxe Dining next time so we can have an actual breakfast. In regards to Character Dining this has to coordinate with your park tickets. If you pay extra for the park hopper then your fine. We did not, so our reservations had to line up with the park for the day. Which is not a problem. So what I did was research which restaurants had character dining. Now be careful because sometimes you will see small print that says character dining is only at breakfast and lunch, but the pictures look like it is always character dining. The waltdisneyworld.com website was very user friendly when making reservations. You just pick the day your going, which park and character dining and it will let you know when you can make reservations for. If they don't have any reservations available keep checking. I checked on a weekly basis and was able to book several of the dinners we wanted. Also, book these reservations ASAP. For real, these book up fast. But keep in mind you do not have to put any money down to reserve and can change up to 24 hours before. Here is what I used to help us with coordinating our dining, park, and fast pass ride plan.

I just changed the morning, afternoon, and evening to say Park ,Rides, Reservations. Worked perfect for us! Here's the link when I posted this previously on how to get it. Getting organized for Disney.
Here's what our looked like......

The only thing we changed once we arrived, was on Thursday. Once I found out our Christmas Parade tickets could get us into magic kingdom at 4 pm we decided to spend the day at Animal Kingdom then took the monorail to magic at 4. Was a great day!

Next post on Animal Kingdom......

First Trip to Disney World Part 1...The Research

It's been a month 2 months since our first visit to Disney World and I must say I'm still missing it. It truly, truly is a magical place. We went the first week of December and loved, loved, loved it! It is worth every penny and then some! Our children were at the PERFECT age (son 5, daughter 3). They truly believed all the characters in front of them were the REAL ones. Ok, so maybe Wyatt caught on in the end but he still went along with it and took pictures and got autographs. I'm going to blog about everything I possibly can for this trip. Hopefully, it will help a few other families with their first trip. Here goes........
1) The Research
Those 2 words alone might scare some people off. I can hear you now "Research? I'm not researching my vacation. I Just want to go and have fun and do whatever we want whenever we want." My thoughts on that.....Good Luck! If you don't research a Disney vacation I guarantee you will NOT have a happy family at the end of the trip and lots of complaints. Now to clarify "research". You do not have to spend hours upon hours researching.
Your best research is from other people who have already been. I talked to LOTS of friends and I will say that when you start telling people your going to Disneyworld, it's like being pregnant. Advice starts coming at you like crazy. Can be a little overwhelming but just take it in and use it if you would like or don't. It's your vacation!!

There are endless bogs and websites to use. Find the one that suits you and use that one. I've listed below a few links that really helped me plan our trip. I tried to focus on families that had the same age as my kids. What rides are the best for them, what's the best resort to stay in with families, do you rent a car, what to do with my kids on the plane (this was also our kids first plane ride), what dining plan to use, etc.

Here are a few links that really helped us:

The Poe Family Blog - Family that went for their first time and had lots to say about it.

WDW Hints - Great source of extras.

Magical Mouse Planner - Helped me understand dining credits.

Things you never thought to pack for Disney World - Title says it all and it helped!

Apps for Disney World

After research we were ready to book. We booked with a travel agent we were referred to. Debbie at The Magic for Less was amazing. She was more than pleasant to talk to on the phone and answered all of my zillion questions. And after talking to her I realized she helped me with things I didn't even think about and had to do a little more research. I HIGHLY recommend a travel agent for your first trip for sure! They will walk you through the process and make your trip as perfect as possible. Once our trip was booked I took a deep breath - Whew what a relief it's booked, it's really going to happen!! Guess I should tell you when we went. We left the Saturday after Thanksgiving and came back the following Saturday. Best plan, because I had the entire Friday after thanksgiving to pack and kept from Black Friday shopping!

Since we had an early flight to Orlando I had something special delivered the morning before we left. (David ran really fast around to the front, dropped the package, rang the doorbell, and ran back around the back-it was pretty comical in the moment). The special package was this....

Some new games to keep them occupied on the plan, snuggie blankets for the plane, a little snack and cute Christmas ornaments since we were going at Christmas time. And of course a special message from Mickey and Minnie themselves. I was going to take pictures of the kids faces but I didn't want to get wrapped up in taking pictures just wanted to experience this magical moment with them. So glad I did, they could not believe that Minnie and Mickey brought them this special gift.
So here's my bullet point for your first trip:
*Do your research
*Use a travel agent
*Research resorts - if you have small children you want to stay close to the food court. Let them know that.
* Book a stroller through Magicstrollers.com Our stroller was delivered to the hotel before we got there and was picked up on the day we left. Do NOT rent a stroller in the park! There is quite a walk from where the busses drop you off to the gates. You have to hassle with getting it on the bus but I promise you its worth it! Especially when you stay till closing and your kids fall asleep!
*Buy a dining plan. The character dinners are worth it and save you tons of waiting time with characters.
*If your staying at the resort do NOT rent a car. You don't need it. They have free transportation to and from all the parks, downtown Disney and the airport.
*Bring an extra empty suitcase for all the souvenirs that you will JUST have to have when your there. I promise!
*Go with as many family members as you can. Priceless memories will be made and will last a lifetime!

Lego Game - Love it!!!

I was browsing around in my Things to do with my kiddos Pinterest board and found this picture

and thought what a great idea. Wyatt needs to practice his math and this would be perfect. Except.....when you click on this picture it takes you to exactly that the picture and not a printable. Ugh! So I found another one that was a printable

printed it out and played it 10 times with W. In those 10 games I realized

1) he loves this game

2) he can't tell what to do when he lands on the square because he can't read all the words yet

3) I can make one of these!

And I did and here it is!

 

 and this is where you say......Well of course she did...

 

 

And we love it!! W knows exactly what to do when he lands on the square and we love the landscape format better than portrait. And guess what you can use it too. Just right click on the picture and save it then print (landscape) and laminate. Have fun and lego on!!!

 

Christmas Ornament idea from Pinterest - Did it work??

So I wanted to help Whit's class with a keepsake Christmas ornament. If your like me you are NOT a fan of the cheap foam Christmas ornaments you get from your child's class. Although, cute they just don't hold up over a day time. So to Pinterest I go. Found a super cute handprint Santa ornament. Tested it with my kids first and it was a hit!!! They are very easy to make. See recipe at the end of the blog.

Make them....

 Bake them....

 

 

 

Paint them....

 

Decorate them.....

 

Set of 15 ornaments for her class. Thanks to Ms. Erin for her help in making everyone's hand print. I baked them at the school. Then took them home to decorate.

Attached to each ornament was a cute little poem...

"This is to remind you

when I have grown so tall,

that I was once quite little

and my hands were very small."

 

Here's the recipe for the Salt Dough Hand Ornaments

Combine 1/2 Cup salt

1/2 Cup flour

1/4 Cup water (give or take)

Kneed until dough forms.

Make impressions and cut out hand shape, leaving a small border.

Don't forget this step!!! Poke a hole in the top for hanging. A straw works perfect.

Bake at 200 degrees for 3 to 31/2 hours. The thicker the hand print the longer it needs to bake. After 3 hours, flip the ornament over if it has any soft spots bake an additional 30 minutes. Don't worry about cracking the paint will cover that up.

Paint, Seal and ready to hang!

 

 

 

 

 

Disney Countdown Has Begun

Even though we've known we're going to Disney World for awhile, and no we didn't keep it a secret from the kids(are you kidding me) or do a surprise video, my kids have been exceptional in not asking every day when are we going. I think that's mainly because they don't really even know what Disney World is. What?!?! I know but to get them up to speed we have watched a ton of videos about it, but I still don't think they really know. Needless to say, It wouldn't be me if I didn't do some kind of Mickey Mouse theme countdown. So again, thanks to Pinterest, this is what I created. It started out as a project to do with my kids but, Whitney was sick in bed and once Wyatt saw me use my paper cutter, he became very fascinated and decided he would rather cut scrap paper than work on this project. So stapler in hand, I completed the countdown.

 Tada......

It was extremely easy to make.The example I modeled can be found here with directions - Disney Countdown Chain.

Which by the way, her blog is really awesome and I got a few other great ideas from her as well. Now, her chain was cuter because she added the white buttons on the red. Had I been a little more patient and or didn't have a sick daughter waking up, I probably would have added them. But for now this works. And my kids totally love it. They each have a turn every other day and Wyatt has already figured out which colors he'll be taking off on his days. Let the countdown begin.....

Warm Fuzzies Project

Lately, it seems my adorable little angel children of mine, have gone down the sibling rivalry road and.......they're making me crazy. They are constantly fighting about everything and Whitney is really pushing her boundaries with Wyatt. Sooooooo before I whip out the "get-along-shirt", I'm attempting another Pinterest parenting project. And that is the introduction of the Warm Fuzzies Jar. The idea is “Whenever we see the kids playing well together, are loving towards each other and/or something helpful or kind, we place a pom-pom ball in the jar because kind and helpful acts make people feel good, like a warm fuzzy. Once the jar is full we will treat the kids to something special that they decide on (with parental influence of course). Wyatt wants to go roller skating and Whitney wants to go to Chuck E Cheese. Tough call........NOT, Skating it is........as soon as we have a full jar. So the day we started this we put one warm fuzzy in and then 5 minutes later pulled a warm fuzzy out. Blah!!! However, we are working on the process and it really does seem to change how the kids behave and treat each other. Hopefully, I'll be posting pics soon of their reward!

Back to the Old School Paper Planner

I've had my wonderful, glorious IPhone for about 5 years now. Can't live without it! However, it has failed me in the calendar and to do list portion of my life. I put everything, and I mean everything in my phone. So I just knew my phone would help me in staying organized in every aspect of my life. Because I was NOT going to be the future old lady that refuses to become one with todays technology. So after 5 years, I've gone back to the old school paper planner and super love it. There's something satisfying about writing it down and crossing it off after completion. And the ability to see what wasn't accomplished this week and move it to next week. Also, love the fact that I can cover my weekly appointments, to do list, menu plan, and grocery list all on 2 pages. That would require 4 apps on my phone! So in my quest to find the perfect planner (for me) I have now gone through 3 and think I've finally found the one! Here's my review of the 3 I've tried.....

First Planner up is the Classic Life Planner by Erin Condren.

 

This is the planner that started it all. I happened onto her products via Pinterest (duh). Fell in love with her website, pre-ordered the planner(paid a fortune), and waited for eternity it to arrive in the mail. Finally arrived and I was disappointed quickly. This thing is huge! There's no way it could fit in my purse. Even though it's huge, I was going to overlook it, IF it was able to function for me. So I opened it up and fell in love with the durability, bright colors and the thought of it organizing my life! I was again disappointed by the daily pages. The area to write in is just too small and I didn't like how they have the day divided into 3 sections. And the notes section on the left is just small enough to write the abc's in. I mean really, who writes that small.  What I do love is the handy, dandy ruler that subs primarily as a place marker.

I purchased the Inspire planner. Loved all the inspirational quotes placed through out the planner. 

 

Loved the folder and "Ziploc" bag.

So I'm sorry Erin Condren. You may be right for some, but just not right for me. Onto the next planner....The next planner is the Home Executive From Picket Fence Publications. Her planner is WAY more affordable than Erin Condren, however not as high quality. I was attracted to this planner for the mere reason to be able to meal plan on the same page.

Calendar on the left and meal planning/grocery list on the right.

Love the recipes included on the monthly page. However, as you can see below, they are very hard to read. 

  Cute stickers included too.

The problem with this planner was that my to do list was merging with my daily agenda. So I knew it just wasn't the one. So as I'm discussing my planner addiction situation with my boss, she whipped out her handy dandy planner and the Angels started to sing......
After a couple weeks of use, the winning planner is.......... The Family Organizer from Amy Knapp

 

Isn't it glorious! Thank goodness the cover is cuter now. It used to be a little to "Momish".

 

What I love about this planner......I can do all of this on 2 pages!

1) To Do List is on the left

2) Daily Agenda on the right

3) Meal planning on the right

4) Perforated grocery list on the left.

 So simple yet so practical! Lesson Learned!