Nov 2010 -- Even our Stroller has Christmas Lights! New 12/22 Lessons Learned #222

[cherbear]

so did you post pics of your splash mountain day this past summer and I just happened to miss those??

 

[Trentmom]

Hey Marshay

9 days

Do you have pics from your halloween party day?

 

[Marshay]

How fun!! I can hardly wait to see pictures.

Coming right up!

ooh fun!!!! so y'all did this yesterday?

We kinda cheated -- did it all on Halloween and just changed our Disney Day to be Halloween! We just ran out of time!

awesome. I bet that is a great feeling to be done

I think your trip is going to be a lot of fun and different

Can't wait to see how it turns out

Well, I really had good intentions of not planning too much for this trip ... but as you all know, I am a planner ... so after I post the Halloween day, I'll update our Plan -- yep, there is one now!

Oh awesome

Can't wait to hear how your Mickey Hallwoeen Party went

It turned out not be a party so much as we just played around in the yard.

so did you post pics of your splash mountain day this past summer and I just happened to miss those??

Yes, the Splash Mountain photos are earlier in this report. If you go to Post #2 on Page #1, I'm keeping a TOC so you can find them easily. EDIT: Page #2, posts #20-22 are the Splash Mountain Day photos!

And Rachel still talks about our Splash Mountain day and how she wants to ride this 20x!! in a row, no less!!

Hey Marshay

9 days

Do you have pics from your halloween party day?

We are single digits!!! Today Rachel woke me up and said, Mommy, it's only 8 more days until Disney!! I thinks she's excited!

 

[Marshay]

So, I got a tad bit busy in October with my 2-day Scrapbook Event, Halloween Decorating and Girl Scouts. So we decided to keep our Mickey's Not So Scary, OK, It's a Little Spooky Halloween Party into a 'run around the yard' party instead.

The girls dressed up in their costumes. It was going to be cold that night. Elizabeth wore the Flower costume that Rachel did several years ago. And Rachel's babysitter donated some old costumes to us, so Rachel changed from wanting to be the witch from Snow White (she did last year) to a UniPeg. Yes, it's a Unicorn and a Pegasus together. As you know only a unicorn has a horn and only a Pegasus has wings ... but her costume had both!

This was our only Disney pumpkin. We have more Disney stuff for Halloween inside. So after Halloween we got two more pumpkin inflatables with Mickey and Tinkerbell on them.

Both girls were fascinated by this huge spider! It moves its head and legs every few seconds. Well, Elie was a bit scared at first but as you can see, she definitely warmed up to him. Rachel and Elie would pretend to feed it "leaves" every day before going to the bus for Kindergarten.

Rachel declared that here is Mommy, Daddy, Rachel and elizabeth:

Here is the front of the house. All decorating outside was Jerry's inspiration. The only thing you can't see is another small fence that he made for the right side of the driveway and more skulls/lights/garland hanging off of it. Oh, also, another pedastal that he made with another skull that lights up.

Jerry tried to recreate some graves in the style of the Haunted Mansion. Madame Leota and Medusa were the inspiration for this. During the day, the "stones" are grey like real tombstones ... but at night, he shined black light on them and you could see the black-light induced paint he used on them to add details. Cool!
Here is during the day:

And here is at night:

then on the Garage Door he had this Easter Island Monster. He had the lights timed to music to sing Monster Mash. It also said some key phrases from the Night at the Museum Movies (You dum dum, You give me gum gum; You in trouble now, You better run run, etc) We could turn on each of the phrases so as the kids came up the driveway, he asks THEM for candy ... then as they leave, he tells them to "run run". It was great! We could also have it thunder and lightning just by pressing a button ... or at times we turned out all the lights and made it pitch black -- which also scared the kids, we just did that for the older ones though!

So we had a great Halloween ... I took Rachel and Elizabeth (in a stroller) out trick or treating early and Jerry stayed home to scare the kids. Then I put Elie to bed and Jerry and Rachel went out exploring the neighborhood some more.

 

[kaoden39]

Oh it all looks so wonderful!!

I am thrilled to hear Rachel is excited about the trip. That is great!!

 

[cherbear]

Marsha, your creativity never ceases to amaze me! Who said you were just good at crafts...hmph!

AWESOME JOB!!!

 

[cherbear]

ooh I finally read about your Splash Mt day! I don't know how I missed that!! It was sooo awesome! Y'all really know how to have a good time!

 

[Marshay]

Oh it all looks so wonderful!!

I am thrilled to hear Rachel is excited about the trip. That is great!!

Thanks! I give Jerry all the credit! I decorated the inside of our house and he did the outside. Of course I didn't get any pictures inside ... guess I'll save that for next year!

I have a small countdown calendar for Disney and we put a sticker on it each day. Rachel is enjoying this and definitely keeping track, too!

Marsha, your creativity never ceases to amaze me! Who said you were just good at crafts...hmph!

AWESOME JOB!!!

Oh, I have to give all the credit to Jerry! I made some suggestions to him but basically he did all the Halloween stuff himself. The pics don't do it justice -- it was so cool when you were there, hearing the thunder, seeing the lightning and the "dum dum" etc. I do have it on videotape but not sure how to get it to my computer. Once I figure it out (or Jerry does since it's on his videocamera), then I'll post a link.

ooh I finally read about your Splash Mt day! I don't know how I missed that!! It was sooo awesome! Y'all really know how to have a good time!

Yeah, Splash Mountain day was a LOT of fun!!! We may have to do that every year, Disney or not!

 

[Trentmom]

wow.....that was awesome.

Jerry did a great job!!

I hope he can get a video up. Would love to hear it

 

[Marshay]

wow.....that was awesome.

Jerry did a great job!!

I hope he can get a video up. Would love to hear it

Thanks! It probably won't be before our trip!

 

[mousescrapper]

your halloween house looks like a lot of fun for yor girls and the trick or treaters ...kuddos to Jerry!


your park golas look real good and doable...I made sure to plan several days like that...basic agenda and goals...but not all get here, then there, etc...

 

[Marshay]

your halloween house looks like a lot of fun for yor girls and the trick or treaters ...kuddos to Jerry!


your park golas look real good and doable...I made sure to plan several days like that...basic agenda and goals...but not all get here, then there, etc...

Jerry was happy b/c he really made a lot of the decorations and didn't just buy them. That's the craftiness in him, too!

Well, our goals got a bit more agressive!

 

[Marshay]

Ok, I tried really hard not to overplan for this trip. I even lasted 7 of the 9 weeks without planning too much.

And then we had 2 days off of school for Election Day and I had a babysitter come so I could start some more packing ... and what'll you know? I got more ressies!!

So our new plan:

1) Take Rachel out of school at 1:15pm on Friday. Teacher already approved. I just don't know if that'll count as a full day or not. She starts at 11:35am so it's more than 1.5 hours. I need to find out. Cuz if it counts as a full day, then we may just leave that morning!

2) Then we drive until late Friday, and all day Saturday. We'll stop at Walmart for just some basic essentials like Milk and Fruit. ANd we'll look at the Christmas Decorations that Walmart has. A neighbor told me that they have TONS of decorations with Disney themes ... much more so than you can get in your local store.

3) That evening, if we have time, we'll go see the Osborne lights or go to DTD to see Santa Claus.


Nov 21
AM -- Explore SSR
12:15pm Lunch at Turf Club (new)
3pm -- DHS Parade and Meet Pixar characters or go to Animation Bldg and hope they have characters we need there.

then either Osborne Lights followed by DTD Santa Claus or vice versa. This is why I'm hoping we can do one of those on 11/20.

Nov 22
AM -- Epcot Family Photo and Meet Duffy
11:30am -- Via Napoli (new)

3pm -- Go to Ft. Wilderness for DIS-meet with Mousescrapper and her family.

4:55pm -- Trail's End Dinner (new)
6:30pm -- Private Carriage Ride through Ft. Wilderness (new)

If girls are still active, we can head over to MK for parade, rides and fireworks.

Nov 23

AM -- Open. I'd like to do MK but Rachel wants to do AK.

4:30pm -- Rachel's haircut at Harmony Barber shop

5:35pm -- Liberty Tree Tavern (new)
9pm -- parade
10pm - Fireworks

Nov 24

After check-out, go to DTD and shop or visit one of the parks.

Depart around 11:45am to go to Sanford to board train.

4pm -- Train departs. We're in a Family Bedroom (4 bunk beds) this time!!

 

[Trentmom]

Your plans sounds great

We ate at Trails Ends and really enjoy it. Can't beat the price


think when trent was in pre-K and they had half days....maybe they had to be there 1hr and 40 mins....

 

[Marshay]

So I packed the other day, well a lot of the clothes, and then about 2 days later the forecast changed. YEah, it was about 10 days out so I know anything can still change, but last I looked they were calling for low 80s instead of low 70s. ON the day we leave (11/24), it drops down to 70 with rain, so I think we have the best days!!

So then I went back and just added shorts, skirts and short-sleeved tops. I'm still keeping the long-sleeves and pants. Basically, I just dumped our closets now into our suitcases!

OH, I am NOT complaining about warm weather!!! Now maybe we'll even get to go swimming!

Oh, and I totally forgot that I added a Via Napoli reservation to our Epcot day!

 

[Marshay]

Your plans sounds great

We ate at Trails Ends and really enjoy it. Can't beat the price


think when trent was in pre-K and they had half days....maybe they had to be there 1hr and 40 mins....

Yeah, I need to find out. I did plan 1 hr. 40 minutes...just in case it needed to be more than 1 hour.

We ate at Trail's End for lunch in Dec 2004 when I was pregnant with Rachel -- I just remember I was HUNGRY HUNGRY HUNGRY and they had a lot of food!

 

[Marshay]

So next on my list is:

1) Go shopping for socks today -- EDIT: done! Also bought 2 bras and underwear!
2) Finish packing toys/games/movies for girls
3) Finalize paperwork/schedule and gather tickets
4) Make crafts (LGMH). I really want to add turkey feathers to the LGMH for Thanksgiving. And then one of the other November moms made me a Turkey Mickey with my name on it. So I"ll make a few of those for the strollers. Not sure if I'll have enough time. EDIT: See below.
5) Pack all the last minute things -- pillows, shoes, cameras, chargers.

 

[Marshay]

I wanted to share my last creative touch for this Turkey Mickey trip. (Thanks to WeHEARTMickey for the Disboard Turkey Design. There is a November thread where many of us have been chatting and one lady was kind enough to make these for us!)

These will be on my strollers

And then if anyone from DIS stops by to say hello, I'll give them one of these cute little guys!!

 

[Trentmom]

sounds like great weather

Via Napoli looks nice in pics. Can't wait to hear how food is


Those Mickey turkeys are so cute

 

[kaoden39]

Oh my goodness your Mickey turkeys are so adorable.