My young padawan's Jedi training at Hollywood Studios

Big M began his Star Wars journey when we bought his first Star Wars Lego at 3 years old. You can just imagine that at almost 8 years old, the Jedi Training at Hollywood Studios would be one of his absolute favorite at Disney World.

We went to Hollywood Studios on our 2nd full day at Disney, and we walked in on the middle of a Jedi training. We were all mesmerized, so Daddy and Big M ran in to sign him up for a later show in the evening. J and K were going to sign up, but they both changed their mind at the sign-up.

When it came back later that evening, K, J, Little M and I sat ourselves in front of the stage (we were one of the 2 families already waiting) and waited. One of the man keeping an eye on the area were chatting with the girls and just having fun. A few minutes later, I heard the man on the radio asking if there were room in the Jedi training class for 2 more girls. He was talking about my girls. Good thing it didn't work out, since the girls already said they didn't want to do it. The man was thoughtful though, which is one of those things that makes an already magical vacation even more magical. :)

Little M was engrossed watching his big brother fight Vader. At some point he started getting mad at Vader, too. He is just like his mommy, ready to defend a family member.

Here is a video of the later half of the Jedi training, which includes a funny skit of the storm troopers. We got a kick out of this one.

What a fun evening! We loved watching Big M enjoy himself....and yes, he's the boy wearing a rebel alliance symbol that I made. :) He and Daddy wore the same shirt that day.

Turtle Talk with Crush

This is one of the highlight of our Disney trip for me. We went to Turtle Talk with Crush at Epcot. The kids were asked to sit in the front, while the parents sat in benches. Daddy and I didn't even get to sit together because he moved where he could see Little M, who also sat in the front.

We had no idea who Crush was talking to until Big M said his name. Then Crush asked for his parents, and both Daddy and I waved my hand. The woman holding the microphone was momentarily confused as to why the "rentals" were in sitting separately. But I grabbed my chance and waved furiously so Crush talked me. I was the one referred to as the "mamacita!" But in my excitement, I eventually stopped recording. Crush asked me how many kids I have, and I said 4. He said he has 75, but that's ok, it was a contest. HAHA!

Big M's voice was barely making it on this 2nd day of our vacation, that's why he sounds different.

Because of this, Crush is now one of my fave character at Disney World!

Flight to Disney World

The start of our magical vacation on Dec. 18 was off to a rocky start. We left the house bright and early at 7:30am in order to have plenty of time for our 9am departure to NJ. We had plenty of time except our flight was delayed due to weather. It said it wasn't going to arrive in Albany until 1130am. The problem was our flight from NJ to FL was due to leave 12:15pm. Fortunately, we prepared for such an event of long waits and each of the kids had their own rolling backpacks full of crayons, notebook, coloring books, and friends. While I watched everyone, Daddy went to work on securing a different flight to FL. Thankfully, everyone he spoke with at United were friendly.

The kids kept asking when the plane would be there, because they want to go! We were hungry, and cranky. Finally, we left Albany at 11:45. When we arrived in NJ, our next flight to FL was not to leave until 5pm....another long wait for the kids. Our original time of arrival to FL was supposed to be 4pm. Instead we arrived at our resort at 11pm. None of the older kids had any kind of nap. Little M had only a 20 minute nap the entire day.

Our magical express bus ride from the airport to the resort was very exciting for the older 3. They kept seeing something about Disney and they knew we were finally close. After checking in at 11 pm, we found out our bags were not there yet. Tired, hungry, and no bedtime clothes, we ate at the dining area and had a midnight snack. We took pictures of the Disney Cars characters all over the resort.

Finally, at 1130 we got our bags. We changed the kids, gave them medicine and off to bed they went. Little M was a little warm to the touch that day, and he was wheezing. Thankfully, we took his nebulizer with us. Through the length of our stay, he battled coughing due to asthma which brought on vomiting. The vomiting was only recently controlled with the new meds (prevacid), but the vomiting came back with the coughing. Daddy stole all the barf bags in the plane in our seats, and we took it with us. We did have to use a few of them.

Little M had some low grade fever. I gave him Ibuprofen, and had to use that for 2 days, until whatever he had was gone. Of course, the coughing asthma stayed. Before we bed, and before we left in the morning, and whenever we came back for a nap, he had to have a treatment.

The start of our vacation was off to a rocky start with everyone starting off exhausted.

Understanding Disney World Dining Plans

We went to Disney World for our first ever big vacation the week before Christmas 2012. We came home on the 23rd, just in time to avoid the crazy peak time. Although, the amount of people there while we were there, one would think it was already peak time.

Before recording our fun times, I want to keep some records of what I need to remember for next time. There are a lot! I will start with the Dining plan. We had a Magic Your Way Package Plus Dining, which includes 1 snack, 1 quick-service meal, and 1 table-service meal for all of us (except for kids under age 3). Everyone (except under 3) also get refillable mugs - you can get these in the resort. They will have a plastic seal that the cashier must cut when you get it. Children must order from the children's menu. The meals can be used however you want until it runs out (multiple snacks, quick service, table service a day).

Snack:
Snack is any single serve drinks/juices  or snacks like popcorn, chips, etc. The drinks will be the taller ones for adults, the children must get the children-sized drinks.

Quick-Service:
We stayed at the Art of Animation resort and everything there is considered quick-service. It can be the crab cake burger, the stir-fry, breakfast-platter, etc.  A quick service meal includes a drink and a dessert (some restaurants say you can't have deserts, but it's best to ask).

If you are staying in the resort, and you have your refillable mug it's easy to forget to grab a bottled drink with your quick service meal. If you forget to get one, you forfeit it. SO DON'T FORGET! You can grab a bottled drink, do not open it, and you can take it to the park. Or you can take it back to your resort for when you get thirsty in the middle of the night. The same goes with the dessert. If you don't get it, you forfeit it. I believe the kids don't get desert, I'm not sure on that.

Refillable mugs:
You can get unlimited refills on this at the resort anytime their open. There are even wash stations near the drink fountains so you can rinse your mugs. These mugs are not refillable anywhere else.

Table Service:
A table service is anything at the restaurant where you are seated and served. All the character dinings take 1 table service credit, except Cinderella's Royal table where it takes 2 table service credit. So if you have a table service dining plan, look at all the available character dining and book one for every evening! Just remember to book in advance; for Cinderella we were urged to book 6 months in advance.

Some of the table-service meals are buffets. We went to Chef Mickey at the Contemporary Resort and they had great food! In my opinion, much better than Cinderella's. But with Cinderella, you are paying for the chance to meet all the princesses, which in itself is worth it when you have young girls.

Should you forget to make dinner reservations, call the reservation line as soon as you remember and they will tell you which restaurants have openings, no matter what resort or parks the restaurant is.

Also, we ate Epcot one evening and found out that for the more expensive meals they charge 2 table service credits. This worked for us because due to my lack of know-how, we ended up with more than 1 table service meal on our last evening. So hubby and I just went ahead and ordered the most expensive meals.

Remember:
Refillable mug is not counted as part of the meal plan. You can refill it whenever you want at the resort.

If you run out of dining and choose to pay for one meal out of pocket, choose breakfast to pay for. They are a little bit cheaper than lunch or dinner.

To find out how much you have left, look at your receipt. The receipt counts down, so in our vacation of 5 days, we had 25 in our receipt and it counts down every time we redeem the meals.

DIY Disney Autograph books that can turn into a scrapbook

For our Christmas family vacation, I made all the kids Autograph books. From our last visit in 2005, I remember seeing autograph books going for upward of $15 and they were small.

The first thing I did was search Google for Disney clip arts for the kids' favorite characters and saved several different ones if I knew more than one kid like that character. Then I used Pages to set up an 8x8 border. I have a Mac and Pages was awesome for this. You can do the same thing on other graphic apps for PC too.

I situated the 8x8 border toward the right with about half an inch margin on the 3 edges (right, top, and bottom). I then just dragged one character clip art and put it in any corner that looks good. For some, I also put the name of the character somewhere on the page. But because did this days before I trip, I ran out of time and just put the characters. For other ideas, you can also get seasonal clip arts - Christmas, valentines, etc.

Once the pages were set up, I printed them on stock paper. I grabbed several packs at the craft store. Although , I advise you pay attention to the thickness, as some are thicker than others. I fed the paper one at a time because it's thick and I didn't want to have to jam the printer.

After printing about 10 characters for each child (many are repeated), I also made 3 blank ones for each (only the 8x8 border) for any unexpected character encounters.

Once the pages were printed out, I hopped to the car and hurried to Staples. We were leaving the very next day, so you can imagine the panic I was in at this point. I told the Staple lady I wanted 4 booklets bound and she gave me a choice of the binding. I picked a spiral and a clear cover. She out a clear front cover and a thick black board on the back. I had to tell her to trim the left side as it was about 2 inches from the boarder. At this point I told her that as long as she didn't touch the black border, she could trim whatever was needed for the spiral.
For all 4 (14 pages each - I made a cover with each child's name) I paid $17. Pretty awesome, I think. :)

Each of my 4 kids had a small cinch sack with them with their own autograph books. I kept the sharpies. The corners curled in, which was not a problem because of the 1/4 - 1/2 inch margins.

While at Disney, I saw a scrap booking kit that I bought for $25. It had a lot of the mainstream characters. Once we got home I ordered 8x8 scrapbooks (with top loaded protective sheets) from Amazon. Once I got them, I cut out the autographed pages on the boarder and they fit perfectly inside. I added stickers, boarders, etc from my Disney scrapbook kit. I am actually not done making them. I want one page to have a picture of my child with the character and the page next to it, the character's autograph. I anticipate these scrapbook to be handled pretty good, especially by my twin 5-yr olds. :)

The great thing about this DIY autograph book is that the pictures you print on the page is a "conversation" starter with the characters themselves! Mickey was beside himself seeing his picture, and so was Ferb (from Phineas and Ferb). We had a great laugh at him running around and showing everyone that it was him on the page. The kids loves the antics!