One month until our Disney vacation!!

I can't believe we only have 1 month left. When you start planning something 8 or 9 months in advance it seems like such a long way but there is always so much to do when planning a Disney vacation that the time seems to go quickly. We are all so excited. The suitcases are out and the packing has begun. On to this months gift....

This months gift is some plain black Old Navy flip flops. After using our flip flops all summer I thought it would be nice to have a new pair to take with us. For the girls I planned on doing this:

I found the idea here: http://family.go.com/crafts/craft-913837-minnie-mouse-flip-flops-t/

But after some careful consideration and wardrobe inspection, I realized that none of us girls were taking anything red. One of my big pet peeves is red and pink together, think of it as white linen after Labor Day times 10 for me, so this idea was out the window. I'm sure I could have done black ribbons only but my 9 year old daughter is going through the "I'm not a baby" phase and sees ribbons as something a baby would wear. So, I just stuck with plain old black.

These were all purchased this summer at Old Navy during their $1 flip flop days. So this gift was a total of $5. Can't beat that for a gift for 5 people. To state again, the bags were purchased at the beginning of this countdown for $1 for 2 bags at the local Dollar Tree and I reuse the same bag every gift. The "1 month" Mickey tags are paint chips from Home Depot. 

Tomorrow starts our daily gifts. There are 23 different things the kids will received starting tomorrow. It was very hard to come up with affordable ideas but I think I succeeded.

Updates! Updates! Updates!

Today marks 1 month until our Disney vacation (I will post countdown gift later). There have been lots of things that have happened since my last post. We are excited to try a new resort (for us) and the kids are anxiously awaiting October 23, so they can leave for vacation and also find out where we are staying.

I have received our vacation packets from Disney. Since we have 2 rooms, we got 2 packets on separate days. In the packets are our free luggage tags (we ended up with 10, which is a nice little freebie), our confirmations for Magical Express, confirmations for our resort, and all the free little coupons. We will be using the 1 free round of miniature golf and the free 100 point arcade cards. Last year we used the free souvenir at Planet Hollywood and got a key chain, which is nice but with 3 children and only 2 passes it kind of makes it difficult. I have already logged on to  http://www.disneyphotopass.com/default.aspx  and registered my 2 photopass cards I received. It is nice to go ahead and register these on your account, just in case one gets lost your photos will already be on your account.

I have finally booked our out going plane tickets. I found a great deal on Airtran, hopefully when I am ready to book my flight home I can find another good deal. Right after booking I called Magical Express to book our transportation to our resort. They were very nice. They even told me that if I forget to book our return bus transportation before I leave home that my hotel room telephone has a direct link button to them and I can book during my stay. Our flight arrives in the evening and this will be the first time we can take advantage of the luggage pick up. I will admit I am a little nervous about this and will have to do some thinking before I make the decision to do this. Our flight arrives within a couple of hours of the 10pm deadline and I don't want lost luggage.

I have our luggage out and ready. We have started some packing of shorts and tank tops since it is getting too chilly to wear those where we live. I found these great packing lists for everyone on Pinterest. This is what it looks like:

 I think the kids will like packing their own clothes and it helps me not to have to pack 3 bags. This will also help Catelyn's mom with packing and knowing how much of each thing to bring. I filled it out for them and then they can pack from the list. The link from Pinterest is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brian_sibley/4749817321/sizes/l/  There are somethings on here that we don't even know what they are but I think it will help the kids with packing.

I have also started using this spreadsheet to help with confirmations and such:

This is just a sample and not my actual spreadsheet. The website for this if you would like to use it is http://www.plan-a-magical-vacation.com/disney-vacation-planning-spreadsheet.html This one is quite organized and if you go to the website you can download a blank one and then fill in your info.  In the past I have used this one: 

 It is also very good but I have decided to try the new one instead. This one can be found here:

http://www.passporterboards.com/forums/passporters-club-gallery/123871-free-sample-e-worksheet-vacation-glance.html#post1546365 

2 Months until our Disney vacation!!

Two months and counting!! We are getting so excited. The kids can't wait to find out what hotel they are staying at. All of the other times we have been I let them see pictures so they could see where they are staying but this time it is a secret. I have told them three hotel names and said one of them was where we were staying. I told them Pop Century, All Star Music, and All Star Sports. They both said they wanted to stay at the All Star Sports and they will be surprised to see it when we pull up because that is where we are staying. Both of my kids like sports and so does my niece Catelyn so I thought this would be a good choice. Xander has asked several times if we could stay at the "sports hotel" and I have always said no because they have to share a bus with the other All Star hotels. I did some reading though and Sports is the first stop so hopefully it won't be that bad, along with the fact that we are going in October which isn't known for being very busy.

Now, on to the 2 month Disney Countdown gift. This month is something cheap for the kids to take with them, its Pixie Stix. This cost me a whopping $2 for 2 bags at the Dollar Tree, I then split the 2 bags between the 3 children.

The front of the tag says: "Here's a little pixie dust for your vacation." I got the Tinkerbell graphic from here:
http://www.picgifs.com/glitter-graphics/tinkerbell/3/
I just saved it to my computer and edited it in Picasa, where I added the words with the Curlz font.

The back of the tag says: "All you need is faith, trust, and a little pixie dust." I got this entire graphic here:
http://ilene.typepad.com/ourfavorites/2012/08/it-s-a-matter-of-trust-part-1.html

There were several choices on Google images for Tinkerbell graphics and the pixie dust quote but I liked these the best.

Since I reuse the same bags, the Mickey paint chips are free from Home Depot, and I already had the spool of yellow curling ribbon (which I use every month) this months gift cost me: $2! This gave them a gift and some candy either for the plane or for when we are in Florida. 

Now that we only have 2 months left I need to get busy booking a rental car and buying groceries from http://www.gardengrocer.com/ . I highly recommend having some groceries delivered from this company to your Disney resort. For a small delivery fee you can have groceries delivered to you. We usually get some Pop Tarts, snack foods, and a case of bottled water. 

We only have 1 more monthly gift (Sept 23) left to get then starting October 1, I will be giving gifts every day until we leave on October 23. Since October 23 is a travel day their gift that day is to finally find out what hotel we are staying at. I think I am going to make them wait until we are on the Magical Express :)

3 Months until our Disney vacation!!

I can't believe we have 3 months until our vacation. This post is being done late because of a very busy summer. We are trying to get the 3 of us ready to go back to school. Unfortunately, we only have 1 week left.

For this months Disney countdown gift I went with travel pillows. I have always seen people with them at the airport and I am not sure why I haven't purchased these before. It might be because I remember back in the day when the airline had pillows and blankets for you to use. Now I usually just roll up my sweatshirt and use it. I was going to have my mom make them, there are several templates online, but I found some on the dollar rack at Target in the $2.50 bins. This was like an awesome bonus, I couldn't buy fabric and filler to make these for that cheap. They do seem to be a little flimsy but that's okay with us. So, for this gift I spent a whopping $12.50!!! You can't beat that. The kids were excited and even took them on their Michigan vacation as well.

4 Months until our Disney Vacation!!!!

We only have 4 more months left :) We are getting so excited. It just seems like yesterday we decided to plan this trip.

First up is I FINALLY found a white bag for Catelyn's stuff but when I printed it, I printed the wrong size and my printer ran out of ink. I went ahead and used it but I will buy more ink and replace her Minnie head for next month. Cost for the white bag was $.50. I reuse the white bags every month and the "4 month" Mickey head paint chips came from Home Depot. I just write "4 months" on the paint chip with different colored Sharpies. Silver is the only color that works on the dark chips.

This months gift was not a fun gift but something we all require on our vacation......toiletries. Having said that, my kids were excited to open up their baggies to see what they got. I have been collecting these for awhile. I scour clearance racks (especially Target), wait for sales (Meijer had buy 3 toiletries get 1 free a few weeks ago), and look for free samples online. I even save the free shampoos, conditioners, and soaps from hotels. Some of the toiletries for this trip were saved from our last Disney trip, so they get some Mickey shampoo/conditioner and soap. If you plan ahead you can do this very inexpensively. We require lots of toiletries and so when we fly we put them in our checked luggage so we don't have to worry about baggies and 3oz rules. 

Now for the breakdown:

Xander: Hair gel, body wash, brush/comb, Disney soap, Disney shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, and body spray. His total was $5.75 (boys are cheap).

Eve: Toothbrush, toothpaste, brush/comb, Disney soap, Disney shampoo, body wash, lotion, body spray, and deodorant. I found Cherry Fun Dip scented lotion, body spray, and body wash at shopjustice.com and she loved it!! Her total was $9.98.

Caitlyn: Disney soap, toothbrush/toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, bath gel, lotion, and body spray. Since she is 12, I got her bath products (gel, lotion, spray) at Bath and Body Works. Her total was $8.25.

"Mammie":  Toothbrush, toothpaste, Disney soap, shave cream, deodorant, bath gel, lotion, body spray, and a razor. I also got her bath products at Bath and Body Works. Her total was $10.53.

Me: Toothbrush, toothpaste, Disney soap, bath gel, lotion, body spray, conditioner, shave cream, travel bottle (to take my expensive shampoo),  deodorant, saline, face wash, and a razor. My conditioner is expensive and can only be purchased at Ulta. My bath products were gifts in my Christmas stocking so they were free ;). My total was $16.68.

Total for this months gift is: $51.19

Here is an up close pic of all of the bags of toiletries. I kept them in these gallon sized baggies since I started buying so I knew whos stuff belonged to whom. Once we travel, we have personalized toiletry travel bags purchased at Lillian Vernon for the kids and L.L. Bean for me. I highly recommend individual travel bags from these places. They usually have a hanger hook on them so they can be hung on the closet usually next to the bathroom and so a child knows which stuff is theirs. This helps with "he used my toothpaste, gross" and "she used my hairbrush, now I can't use it". Mine from L.L. Bean even has a little bag that comes out with its own shower hook, so I can keep my items off of the shower/tub surround.

Guess who got awesome mail today.....

ME!! Don't you love mail days where you get fun mail and not bills? Well, today I got the best mail, Disney mail :)(It makes me want to sing the old Blues Clues "Mail Time" song)!! I got my discount pin numbers in the mail today for my fall travels. I have been anxiously awaiting this pin number so I could book my vacation.  Here is what the outside looked like:

You know its something good when Minnie Mouse is on the outside!! When I opened it I found 2 different offers: End of Summer 30% off and Fall Free Dining. This is what the inside looked like:

(Sorry, but I had to cover my name, address, and pin number)

When I looked at the offer on the website it said it was for returning guests. I called my cousin who has been before and she got the offer as well. 

After receiving the offer I have decided on the Art of Animation as our Resort of choice for our fall trip. When booking a free dining offer with a value resort you only get the quick service dining, my family loves to try restaurants and feel like we are getting a $30 steak for free, so we will be paying an upgrade for  the Disney Dining Plan. This includes 1 table service meal, 1 counter service meal, and snack per person per day as apposed to the quick service where you get 3 meals per day but they are all quick service. We love sit down restaurant/relax time. We have used these meals as our character meals in the past (Akerhaus, Garden Grill, 1900 Park Fare, Cape May Cafe) because character meals are so expensive but we are not doing character meals this time due to the ages of the kids.

We have stayed value before, at Pop Century and liked the resort. Our only problem was the room size. We had 2 adults and 2 children (DS 10, DD 7). My son was 5'1" that year and it felt as if we had 3 adults in there and it was cramped. My cousin had 1 adult and 3 small children and she could barely get her stroller in and out of the room. Since that trip, I recommend value resorts to travelers with 2 adults and 1 child.  When we stay Art of Animation we will be staying in a suite which will give us much more room considering we have 2 adults and 3 children (DS 12, DD 9, DN 12). 

I really wanted to stay at the Polynesian this time but I feel we will be able to get more for our money with the Art of Animation and we will also have more room with 5 people, including 2 bathrooms.

This weekend marks 4 months until our Disney vacation and I will be posting then what our gift is!

5 Months until our Disney Vacation!!

This has been a busy week! We had field day at school and, of course, our 5 month Disney countdown gift. This month I got the kids a Disney pencil pouch from the Walmart dollar rack for $1 each. These will be to hold the pressed pennies they make. These pencil pouches have 2 holes punched in them and are made to fit into a binder but my thought is that they will fit nicely into those nice 3 ring binder photo albums you can purchase at Walt Disney World. I'm also hoping that they will fit into the kids pockets so they can carry it themselves. I have bought the pressed penny books at Disney before but they don't fit into the photo album and I don't know which child made which pennies. So, I thought this would solve my problems. I got Perry the Platypus for my son and Tinkerbell fairies for my daughter. We will know who made each set by which pouch they are in for years to come. I had to get Disney Princesses for my 12 year old niece because they didn't have any other characters.

I decided to make this a less expensive purchase month to counteract how much I spent last month. So, my total spent for this months gift is $3! :)

I keep reusing the same white bags with Mickey heads already on them every month. The "5 months" Mickey heads are paint chip samples from Home Depot. The plain white bag is the back of my white bag for Caitlin. I am anxiously awaiting my Dollar Tree to get more white bags in. They still only have yellow and brown right now. I have purchased brown and will make it my bag and give Caitlin the white one if they don't get some in by my next Disney countdown gift day.