Family Movie Night- Aladdin

We love family movie night around here. It's just a good chance to slow down, relax together and create some fun memories. Since we are such huge fans of the Mouse, it's usually a Disney movie. I always try to make something fun for the boys to eat, and I'm fortunate that they are really good eaters who will try lots of new things. Tonight we did Aladdin

I love this movie, I can remember watching it with my friends when I was not much older than the lost boys. Since its an Arabian movie, I wanted the food to be along the same theme. We spent the entire day at the local amusement park riding roller coasters and water slides so I knew I wasn't going to want to make anything too involved so I hit the olive bar at the grocery store for olives, stuffed grape leaves, hummus and pitas. And Of Course we had to throw some of Abu's stolen apples on the plate.

For dinner I got them some curly fries, they are twisted like Jafar :) I also used the rest of the pitas and stuffed them with meatballs (frozen...cause remember the roller coasters??)

Dessert is what I was most excited about. We made magic carpets! I spread some softened vanilla ice cream over graham crackers before we started dinner and tossed them in the freezer so the ice cream could harden.

And here is where all of the adult stomachs will turn... I let them use nerds and M&Ms and sour ropes to decorate their carpet. Then I let them have a little chocolate sauce.... I thought it was super gross. But the lost boys did not agree!

see ya real soon!

-C

Pardon our Pixie Dust

We're Updating!!

Spend a little time....save a little money

I have a client who is a dear friend of mine, she has been telling me about how she is paying for her upcoming family trip to Disney. It's so genius that I may just start paying for my own trips this way too! I asked her to write up her process for me to share on my blog. It's lengthy and not for everyone, but it could save you a good deal of money if you decide that it's a good option for you!

So, we’re all trying to Disney on the cheap (or as cheaply as can be done!), so I have found one way to help that I’d like to share. It takes some time, but it can usually save you on average 9-10% off your total cost, which for a family of five and a week at Disney, saved us about $300! That is a lot of moolah for a couple of steps! I'm thinking it will buy us a lot of these little guys

So, firstly, make sure your travel agent accepts Disney Entertainment Cards as payment, which if you book with Magical Vacations by Courtney will be absolutely no problem!

Then, go to www.Raise.com. They are a website that buys bulk gift cards from local retailers at a deep discount and passes some of that discount to their customers. Then, you are going to buy Target gift cards from them, and right now they have 5.8% off their Target cards, so that will be even more of a savings then we got, when we bought them at 4% off. Your gift cards will arrive via e-mail.

Next, if you do not have one, get a Target red card.. you don't have to get the credit card necessarily,  you can just get the simple red card that will save you 5% off your purchase. Now, take your gift cards from Raise and buy Disney Entertainment Cards from www.target.com with your red card, saving you an additional 5%! The fine print will say you cannot use a Target gift card to buy gift cards; however, Disney cards are considered “entertainment cards”, so they don’t count under this fine print.

After this, to be kind to Courtney , our travel agent, I combined our 39 (!) gift cards into 4. This will also help if you have to get some kind of refund from Disney, as they will only refund you the way you paid them (i.e. your Disney gift cards). It will also help because you will have an online record of your gift cards. This is a very easy process, but a little time consuming. It took me two hours, but if you consider I have three kids, 3, 5, and 7 that stay at home with me 24/7 was not too bad! =)

To combine your gift cards, you will go to www.disneygiftcard.com create an account, log your gift card numbers and security codes, then you will transfer the balances to one of the gift cards. I marked (with Sharpie) my primary card as Trip Payment #1 then transferred all I could ($1000.00) to that card, then I marked the next one as Trip Payment #2, etc. etc. You can only have five cards stored on this page. So, I kept my primary (Trip Payment) card on there, loaded four cards, transferred their balances, threw them away and deleted them off my account, then loaded four more, and repeated the process. Then, when the first trip payment card reached the maximum limit, $1000.00, I would delete it from the account and start all over with another Trip Payment Card. Then, when I had them all combined, I loaded my three trip payment cards back onto the site to have an electronic record of them.

Now, tips and tricks to making this work!

#1: This process takes a while, so don’t do it a couple of weeks before your trip.
There were a couple of times Target ran out of Disney gift cards, and we had to wait for them to be restocked. One time we waited for a couple of weeks, so I called my local Target to see if I could use the e-gift card and my red card to physically purchase Disney cards, and they assured me I could; however, they came back in stock online before I could even get up there. We don’t shop Target that often!

#2: Spread out buying your Disney Entertainment Cards from Target.
I have read that you can be flagged by Target by buying too many Disney Entertainment Cards at one time. We never were, but we bought three $100 cards about every three to five days, so that made it even more time consuming. I’m not sure what would happen if you were flagged by Target, but this is totally legit, so I’m sure you would just have to call customer service to have it removed.

#3: Carve out enough time to combine your Entertainment Cards
You can see it is a little lengthy process, and it can get confusing if you have several stacks of cards you are trying to log.

#4: Save those Entertainment Cards
Put them in your planning notebook, or give them to your travel agent, just in case anything should happen and you need to get a refund from Disney.

Hope this little tutorial has been helpful! Have a magical day!!

I hope that this has helped you, or has at least opened your eyes to the fact that there are all kinds of ways to make a Disney trip a reality for your family. All it takes is faith, trust, and some ninja budgeting skills! (Or someone with those skills to lay it all out for you) Special thanks to my Ninja Fairy Amanda.

See Ya real soon!

-C

Chocolate peanut butter grahams

So I love Goofy's candy company, and Main Street Bakery. They have these amazing cookies that I buy in bulk on each trip and freeze at home to hold me over until I get back to the happiest (and tastiest!) place on earth.

On my next trip I'm so excited to try the chocolate covered peanut butter graham sandwiches. In fact I'm so excited that I decided to try to recreate them here at home.  This treat is basically a graham cracker dipped in melted chocolate, then coated with peanut butter and dipped in chocolate again. I mean, how does it get better than that??

I started with some chocolate chips and butter in a double boiler

And lets be honest, once it got to this point it was tough not to just stick my head in the bowl!

The monkey man was kind enough to break my grahams in half for me so that I could keep stirring and start dipping

They weren't too pretty after the first dip but I thought I could probably fix that on the second coat (you will see that I was wrong....)

After this I divided them in half and did peanut butter for my monkey and almond butter for the little allergic bear.

One more dip in the bowl of melted chocolate and this was the finished product. Still not pretty....

but they were gone before that mattered!

T-shirt Round-up

The hubby and I just finished up an anniversary trip to Orlando. True to form I made our shirts. I had only planned to make shirts for the Magic Kingdom, but he is such a sport he wanted matching shirts for all four parks. Fortunately I had some Star Wars shirts that we just recycled from our last trip for Hollywood Studios

For Animal Kingdom we decided on Robin Hood. I love line art, partially because my drawing skills are limited, but also because its so unique to what most people are wearing in the parks. It also gives me room to put a phrase on the shirt without making it look too busy.

I wanted something "classic" for the Magic Kingdom so of course we went with Mickey and Minnie.

Our last day, which we were super excited about on our first trip without the lost boys, was to Epcot. We were excited about sampling a few of the snacks and drinks in the world showcase. No drinking all the way around the world for us....but we did hit a few good spots and we wanted shirts to commemorate that.

We had a great time, and look forward to making this trip a yearly tradition. Now it's time to get to work on our fall family trip shirts!

See ya real soon!

Free things at Magic Kingdom

Can you believe it!!?? There are actually all kinds of magical extras built into that expensive park ticket, you just have to know about them to ask for them. I am sticking to Magic Kingdom today, although some of these freebies are universal across the resort.

1. Buttons. The first one you should ask for, either at your hotel or at guest services at the park, are celebration buttons. If you book with a Disney authorized agent, they will let the cast member know when they are booking your package if you are celebrating anything on your trip. Some of the options for buttons are first visit, birthdays and honeymoon or anniversary.

 Even if you don't have any of these special events happening during your trip you can ask for an "I'm celebrating" button. I've even seen people write in their unique celebrations such as high school or college graduations. The buttons draw all kids of special attention and cast members and guests alike will congratulate you or tell you happy birthday. Be warned, if you meet Peter Pan wearing a birthday pin you ARE going to be scolded for growing up.

2. Water. Its so important to stay hydrated in the parks and any of the quick service restaurants will give you a free cup of ice water, which you are really going to need on those hot summer days. Just walk up and ask, they quite often have them filled and ready to go for you. The drawback here is that Florida water can have a bit of a sulfur taste, and that isn't helped when you get one of the pre-made cups that has begun to taste a bit like the cardboard cup it has been sitting in. The easy fix for this is to keep some single serve powdered drink packets in your park bag. I find that I can get 3-4 cups of water out of just one packet and its so worth the trade off of not having to carry around a buch of heavy bottles of water all day.

3. Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom Cards. As you head in to the Magic Kingdom the first area you will enter is the town square. Look to the back left for the fire station. Here you can sign up for a super cool interactive game that is played at magic portals all around the Magic Kingdom. 

Head on in and get your free Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom cards and map. Even if you aren't ready to play the game yet the cards make a really great free souvenir for the kids. They are like little Disney character baseball cards :)

4. Pixie Dust. Just across from the fire station you will find the Barber Shop. You can actually get your haircut here and plenty of people do! They have a super cute "my first haircut" package that comes with souvenir Mickey ears. If you aren't in the market for a haircut though, stop in anyway and ask the nice lady at the counter to give you a little pixie dust. Just maybe make this stop first thing in the morning so the dust doesn't end up in your bed!

And don't think that this freebie is just for the kids...lots of adults believe in Tink too!

5. A Pirates Adventure. In adventureland, near the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, there is a little building housing another interactive game that can be played only in adventureland.

Its a great game and the lost boys have always enjoyed playing it. 

The maps make a great keepsake to remember their trip.

6. Pin Trading.  Ok, this one doesn't actually start out free, but I have a great tip to make it super affordable. You can buy all these great pins in the park for anywhere from $5-15. I usually go on Ebay before out trip and just buy a huge lot of them for around $15, you can't control what you get but that doesn't matter....because almost every cast member in the park wears one of these

and they will trade up to two pins with each guest in your party. Its a lot of fun to find different collections and pins that you love. 

7. Transportation Cards. Anytime you are using any form of Disney transportation, ask the cast members if they have Disney transportation cards.

This is another fun one for the kids and you can get them on the monorail, the ferry boats and the buses.

8. First Aid. All of the parks have a first aid station that will give you band aids, ice and single doses of over the counter medicine for free,

That's my roundup of freebies for now. It's nice to know there are so many of them! Disney really does go above and beyond to add all kinds of extra magic to your family vacation.

See ya real soon!

C

The Perfect Park Bag- and how to pack it!

I expect a lot out of a park bag. It has to be cute, hold a lot of stuff, fit comfortably, and come off easily when I'm getting on a ride.  It has to show my love for all things Disney, it can't cover my shirt designs. I have to be able to get to it easily to put things in or grab my phone. I've been on a long search for the perfect bag. I will even admit that on one trip I rocked the dreaded "fanny pack" although I called it  "hip pouch" to make myself feel better about the whole situation. Honestly, it was really my favorite bag, it didn't cover the front or back of my shirt, it didn't give me headache, it was so easy to grab stuff from, I kept my watch attached to it so that was easily accessible and I didn't have to take it on and off for rides. But alas...fashion prevails and the Facebook comments of my friends and family have forced me to abandon my beloved hip pouch and search for more socially appropriate options.  I landed on this option for awhile

It was a good option, not great, but it worked for awhile. I love being able to get character autographs on it. It gives me a way to keep them that I prefer over the autograph book. I even made a drawstring version of this for the lost boys. I don't like it for functionality, though. I was constantly having to stop and pull it off of my back to grab things. Its super deep has no compartments, that made it tough to find anything. And while I love the color for autographs, it really does show pretty badly if anything get on it.

While drifting through the thrift store I stumbled on this little fella....

Its a crossbody, which makes me think it will upset the flow of my shirts, but I can always pull it off quickly for a photo. It's also a lot easier to get into, so that may be the trade off that I have to make. It doesn't have any compartments but it's also not as wide as my old park bag so I'm hoping that will help me keep things organized. I have a tip on that for you later as well.

My biggest problem with this bag is that it distinctly "un-Disney." So I grabbed some scrap fabric and set out to fix that.

I'm not sure how well the autographs will show up, I will have an answer on that later this week. But I'm hoping it might finally be the answer to my perfect bag problem.

I'm headed down with Hubby and we are leaving the lost ones behind this trip. I love an adults only trip because there is so much less to carry! When I go without kids I just need a few things in my bag.

Snacks

Phone and Chargers

Wallet

Disney Essentials

Park Toiletries/First Aid

I have found that ziplock bags are worth their weight in gold on a Disney trip! Since most of the bags I like don't have a lot of compartments, I use gallon sized ziplocks to keep like things together.

If we aren't on the dining plan, we bring a lot of snack food into the park and eat through that until dinner. It's an excellent way to make a Disney trip affordable. I take granola bars, trail mix, crackers, peanut butter filled pretzels and roasted edamame. There are tons of great, easy and healthy options to keep you full and energized through the day. Since Disney parks offer free ice water, I don't usually pack bottled water, I don't like how it weighs me down! But since Florida water usually tastes pretty awful, I do bring single serve drink flavoring options. We don't like super sugary drinks, so one pouch will usually do 3-5 cups of water for us. I get lemonade and just a little bit of it helps to knock the sulfur taste off the water.

My park toiletries and first aid bag has sunscreen, feminine products, a brush, ponchos, cough drops, advil, and a few different stomach medications.

I also make sure to have my magic bands and sharpies. I need both of those on every Disney trip!

I take a much smaller wallet with just my license, credit card, annual pass, insurance card and of course my starbucks card. It's always s good idea to keep a little cash on you just in case, but most everywhere on property takes credit.

I also find that my phone battery dies pretty quickly in the parks so I keep a portable charger in my bag.

Other than hanging some hand sanitizer off the side, that's about it, I've been working on minimalizing my contents for quite awhile just to keep the load light.

See ya real soon!

Family Movie Night

Around here we love a good family movie night. We usually watch a Disney movie (I will pause here so you can get over your shock) and I try to make some kind of food that goes with whatever we are watching. With Mulan we had fried rice, Lilo and Stitch was Hawaiian pizza....you get the gist.

Last night we broke with Disney Tradition and watched a movie that I've been anxiously waiting to show my boys pretty much since we brought them home from the hospital.

Ahhh, the classics, am I right?

Bear is a huge baseball fan, the soundtrack of my life is a ball bouncing off my living room wall and hitting his glove over, and over, and over, and over.......  So I was super excited for him to watch this.

Monkey Man isn't quite as into the sport but I knew he would get a kick out of the predicament the boys get themselves into and all their crazy plans.

I really couldn't come up with a themed dinner for this one, but I have known for ages what I would make for dessert.

S'mores brownies!

I added melted butter to the graham cracker crumbs to create a crust at the bottom of my brownie pan

Then I mixed the brownies according to the directions and put them in the oven. About 3/4 of the way through the baking process I pulled them out and topped them with marshmallows. They came out pretty great!

Park Photography Tips- Character photos

Ok I have to say it....I LOVE CHARACTER PHOTOS!! I love the magic of Disney park characters, I love their authenticity and joy. I love the way they interact with kids and grown-ups alike. There are a few tips to getting the extra special shots, rather than just the "I posed with Mickey" variety. And as always, my top tip is Memory Maker, mostly because they get all the first interaction shots and while you could take those yourself, with Memory Maker you actually get to be in the memory instead of just watching it from behind your camera, which I think is just so important. I love pictures and I love to have a million memories captured but life is so much brighter when you aren't looking at it through a lens.

So now that I've climbed back down off my soap box....

You are, of course, going to want the formally posed shots of your family with your favorite characters.

I'm obviously a big fan of Alice, we got this shot on one of our annual fall vacations, I'm waiting to catch her with the Mad Hatter...he's my fave.

My hubby and the lost boys love The Jungle Book, this is a shot taken with my phone by one of the character handlers.

For me the most fun shots are the candid ones. Even if you can't see their faces, you just have to love the first time your little ones get to hug one of their heroes.

One of the best ways to get a good character experience is to find some common ground with the character, and talk to them....even if they aren't "face characters" (the characters who talk) they still really get into the conversation. You'd be surprised at how many ways they can communicate without words.

On one trip I decorated our magic bands...in this shot Tigger notices the magic band that is decorated in his honor.

And he makes sure everyone knows how much he loves it, in his own bouncy-trouncy way of course!

We met Peter on a birthday trip. Peter makes a big deal out of a birthday...because he HATES them!Birthdays mean you're growing up, after all. Here he is giving us a lecture about the horrors of becoming a grown-up. I hope he got through to my biggest lost boy...cause he's growing up to fast!

If you want a specific shot, the characters will almost always do it....as long as it is appropriate and something relatable to their world. The princesses, for instance wouldn't do a Charlie's Angels pose with you, because they don't know who Charlie's Angels are. But Pan...he will DEFINITELY do a Pan pose with you. Especial if you have the pose painted on your shirt!

I love character kisses, myself.

The main thing is just to get into it and have fun, even though you're a "grown up"...because where else are you going to get to have a chipmunk dance party?

or be intimidated by the dark side??

Or get tackled by one of your childhood faves??

Or take a selfie with the boy who never grew up??

 Get into the magic and have fun!!

See ya real soon!