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!

Park Photography Tips- USE Memory Maker

In This part of the series I want to give some tips on how to get the most out of your memory maker. It can be easy to spend the money on this and come home with hundreds of great pictures. It can also be easy to make the investment and come home with only a handful.

The first thing you need to do is always remember to have the photographer scan your magicband when you are done taking photos. They are pretty good about not letting you forget but sometimes in the hustle and bustle you can get away and all of those great photos won't get linked to your account. Also don't forget to scan your band at the photo displays after all of the rides that take photos and/or videos. After you have done this once, its a good bet that your kids will take over this particular responsibility and you will find yourself with 3-4 of the same image loaded on your account! But you will be ok with that...because of the faces.

Once you've ridden a time or two you figure out where the cameras are and can do fun stuff like this

And then there are those times when your exhausted kid falls asleep on a roller coaster , and you HAVE to preserve those memories!

Obviously, the more you make use of park photographers, the better return you are getting on your investment. Photographers will be stationed at character meals, character meet and greet spots and at various "key" points in the park.

(just as a psa, I look like I'm grabbing my sisters tush here, I'm really just holding the stroller!)

Any time you see a photographer stop and ask them to take a few shots.

They are always up for some fun

And speaking of fun, make sure to ask the photographers if they can do magic shots, any photo at Disney World is magic, of course.....but nobody goes over the top like the Mouse.

In the next instalment we will check out character meet and greet photos.

See ya real soon!

Park Photography Tips- get memory maker

In this series I will give some park photography tips. I am in no way a professional when it comes to taking pictures, but I have managed to create some magic in Disney parks. Most of that magic came when I put the camera away and got to live in the moment with my family and let someone else do the work.

Get Memory Maker

When traveling with family its easy to snap lots of great shots of the people in your group....let's be honest here, if you're the mom, it's easy to snap great shots of just the OTHER people in your group!

When I sat down to look at the photos of our last family trip, I noticed that at least 3/4 of the shots I was in were selfies!

Enter Disney photopass photographers and Memory Maker!

The Memory Maker package is just $149 when you pre-purchase it before your trip, which actually seemed like a pretty steep price to this frugal princess, but after I got home and looked at the beautiful photos captured by the photographers I wish I had paid the price and had access to those memories without the watermarks. Sure, you can purchase the photos individually, but at $15 each I couldn't pull the trigger on that.

The Disney parks photographers are always happy to take photos of your party with your camera or cell phone, but they take their shots first. We all know that with kids, the photograph stamina runs out quickly! Also, all of the great candid stuff, like that first moment when they meet their favorite character, is going to be on the park photographers camera. We got some nice posed shots on our media, but we missed the moments like this....

The other thing you're going to want that comes with Memory Maker are all of the ride photos. I will be honest here and tell you that I never thought I would be a ride photo girl, my mind was changed by the precious, excited, terrified expressions of my boys.  You will notice a lot of people snapping photos of the screen display in the gift shop, but how can you live with this grainy image of your child's face the first time they ride Everest??

 Or the fifth time that they ride??

The victory on their little faces when they conquer a ride that used to scare them is priceless. A screen shot simply won't do.

It's clear that these photos that are full of potential don't make for good blog photography. They aren't scrapbook quality or "mantle material." In my next entry I will showcase some great shots that came with my Memory Maker package along with tips on how to get the most for your money when you purchase it.

See ya real soon!

Kindness is Power

We are learning about the letters K and L this week. As we review I always have my kids do a new installment in their "Letters of Disney" book. I have a Disney quote (Usually from a movie) and a little art to go with it.

I love, love, love how out letter K art turned out.

I started with a silhouette of the Partners statue.

I colored it with whatever color chalk each kid chose.

Then I had the kids take tissue and swipe the template

That gave an effect something like this....

And the final product was beautiful. So were the kids faces when I lifted up the template and they saw what they had done.

Another super easy project!

see ya real soon!

Valentine magic

Today my class full of sweet little three year olds made "mail bags" for their Valentines Day party. I had a super simple and easy plan...it doesn't often work out that my simple, easy plans turn out to be either of those things. This time it was both!

I started with paint and round sponges

and then I added in a heart template and a Mickey Mouse template

I taped the templates down to their plain white craft bags

Then they got to go to town with those round sponges!

I think the final product turned out great!!

And there you have it, friends...the worlds easiest tutorial!!

See ya real soon

-C

It Begins

It begins with a love for this......

And also a love for this....

And a way to, as often as possible, make this a reality

(only without the fanny pack. NEVER again with the fanny pack.)

My name is Courtney and I am addicted to Disney. It works well that the rest of my family shares my love for the Mouse.  I have taken my passion for travel and Disney and crafting and married them together to create magical vacations for my family. And, thanks to a new business venture I am starting, I hope to be able to create magical vacations for others as well.

One of my favorite things when planning a vacation is deciding on and creating our matching shirts for the trip. Yep...we are that family.

See???

I hope this will be a space where I will be able to share my creations, our vacations, and several tips and tricks I have picked up along the way.

See ya real soon!