Princess Ashlyn's Birthday Trip - That's 2 For 2! September 2010 PTR (Started my TR!)

[BabyEeyore]

Tonight was our latest movie night! We watched The Lion King. My dad had a copy and sent it to us.

Here is our table. I decided not to decorate the dining room table this time and just focus on our kitchen island thing.

I couldn't keep the baby Simba up there long because it is one of Ashlyn's absolute FAVORITE stuffed animals and she wanted to hold it.

When planning this movie night I knew exactly what Ashlyn was going to wear. I thought this dress that she had was perfect for the occasion!

I told her to act like a lion and this is what she did.

She can be such a goofball sometimes.

Before dinner we decided to go on a Safari for Simba!

Where's Simba?

Ashlyn hasn't really tried to find stuff like this before so we decided to go a little easy. Aaron would take her into the kitchen and I would just hide Simba somewhere not too hard. During the safari, she found Simba in her doll bed...

.. and in her tent!

After that she didn't want to give Simba back to me to hide. She just wanted to carry him around.

For dinner we had Wildebeast Steaks, Pride Rock Baked Potatoes, and Jungle Broccoli Trees!

Man, the broccoli looks so skimpy. At the last minute (like, 30 minutes before dinner would be ready) Aaron asked if he could invite his friend over to join us. His wife and son are off island visiting family so we had him over. So we didn't really have enough for all 3 of us. Oh well!

For dessert was Rafiki's Banana Pudding! I alternated between Nila Wafers and animal crackers for that wild animal look.

I am really happy with how everything turned out! I was really excited to be able to play a game like our Safari for Simba. I love the crafts we do (and we have a few planned on our 100 day countdown calendar... I'll be starting to share that soon! ) but it was a really fun change.

 

[DrMomof3]

So cute!!! You did a great job!

Amanda

 

[BabyEeyore]

So cute!!! You did a great job!

Amanda

Awww, shucks. Thank you.

 

[seamama71]

What a great movie night!! And Ashlyn is ADORABLE
I'm definitely going to play with some of those ideas as we get closer. When I do too much Disneytalk with my boys, they start thinking the trip is tomorrow! Guess it's getting to be time for a countdown calendar ---
it's so exciting that we're getting so much closer to our trips!!!!

 

[lexmas]

Aww, that movie night is adorable! And how big Ashlyn is getting that she can play games now! I love how you "theme" the food, I never would come up with that!

Can't wait to see your countdown calendar!

 

[BabyEeyore]

What a great movie night!! And Ashlyn is ADORABLE
I'm definitely going to play with some of those ideas as we get closer. When I do too much Disneytalk with my boys, they start thinking the trip is tomorrow! Guess it's getting to be time for a countdown calendar ---
it's so exciting that we're getting so much closer to our trips!!!!

Thank you so much! I can see that being a problem with Ashlyn as she gets older, not being able to talk about it TOO much. But I think countdown calendars will help since she can actually see how long until we go. At least I tell myself that so I won't think I'm too silly for doing it again next time.

Aww, that movie night is adorable! And how big Ashlyn is getting that she can play games now! I love how you "theme" the food, I never would come up with that!

Can't wait to see your countdown calendar!

Thank you very much!! I know, I can't believe how big Ashlyn is getting. The first time she tried "hunting" for something was this past Easter for Easter eggs. She did okay but needed a little help. She wasn't perfect this time, but did really well. It was too cute that she shrugged her shoulders like in one of the pictures when I would ask "Where's Simba?"

 

[-Hope-]

What a great movie night! I love Ashlyn's dress, so cute! I also like the idea of using animal cookies in the pudding, very creative.

 

[BabyEeyore]

What a great movie night! I love Ashlyn's dress, so cute! I also like the idea of using animal cookies in the pudding, very creative.

Thank you! I honestly can't remember if I thought of using the animal crackers or if I read about it here on the DIS.

 

[BabyEeyore]

Today marks 100 days until we're at Disney! (I'm saving my BIG dance for when we are officially in double digits. ) We completed and put up our countdown calendar last night. Today we're having a special Disney-themed dinner. I will post pictures of our countdown calendar and our dinner either tonight or tomorrow!

 

[Dancegrl624]

We're at 100 days today too! Love your "Lion King" night. I really wish I was that creative. I have a bunch of classic Disney movies on our Netflix list, so maybe I'll give the whole theme night thing a try!

 

[BabyEeyore]

We're at 100 days today too! Love your "Lion King" night. I really wish I was that creative. I have a bunch of classic Disney movies on our Netflix list, so maybe I'll give the whole theme night thing a try!

Even though 100 days is still quite a wait, it just feels more manageable than 125 or 150 or something, you know? I'm so excited you are at only 100 days, too!!!

I "borrow" a lot of my ideas from other people's movie nights (there's a thread full of movie night ideas here on the DIS) and those ideas usually inspire me to create one or two of my own things. It's a lot of fun!

 

[BabyEeyore]

We just finished our special, 100-day mark, Disney themed dinner! First I would like to share with you our countdown calendar. Over the course of 10 days or so (1 sheet a day so she wouldn't get bored) I let Ashlyn color some characters for the decorative side of the links. Each page had a specific character. She liked to start off with picking a few of the pictures (since the character was on there multiple times) and coloring them in. Then she would just go crazy with it and color all over the place. So cute.

Here is how our chain looks. I was going to find somewhere to put it upstairs, but Aaron insisted we put it in the dining room.

Each link has a different activity for us to do. Sometimes it's something kinda big (like a movie night or picnic or whatever) but most of the time it's just small, but still fun, things.

We took off the first link today! 100 DAYS LEFT!!! Tonight we had the special dinner I mentioned before. We focused on the Magic Kingdom since we aren't going to any other parks this trip. Here's how our kitchen island looked.

The digital photo frame in the middle rotated between pictures of Ashlyn with a bunch of characters.

We had Princess Pink Lemonade...

... Pirates of the Caribbean Grape Cannonballs...

... Mickey Mouse Pizza...

... and dessert was Rocky Road Brownies.

Here's the story on the Rocky Road Brownies. Originally I was going to make sugar cookies and cut them out in ghost shapes and they were going to be Hitchhiking Ghost Cookies. Well, I had been talking about making these brownies and Aaron was looking forward to them, so he said I should make them and cut them out into ghost shapes. Well, the topping (while DELICIOUS) was too gooey to do that. So... it is the rocky road the hitchhiking ghosts have to travel along. Whatever it was, it was really, really good.

I'm going to post at least once a week now (sometimes more) with all the little activities we have planned.

 

[-Hope-]

LOVE it! We are doing our countdown chain Thursday. Ours has cute pictures but no activities- so ambitious!

I love how you tied the rocky road brownies into your theme.

 

[BabyEeyore]

LOVE it! We are doing our countdown chain Thursday. Ours has cute pictures but no activities- so ambitious!

I love how you tied the rocky road brownies into your theme.

Thanks! Trust me, the activities aren't anything huge. Each Friday has story time at the library written down. It was a bit difficult to think of that many things. Next time I will probably just put something cool to do every 10 days or so, that might be cool.

Thanks about the brownies. I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't cut them out into ghosts, but it all worked out in the end!!

 

[DrMomof3]

I love your creative ideas!!!
Down to double digits!!!

Amanda

 

[lexmas]

Yay for 100 days! That chain is much shorter than I would think it would be...I even counted a few days to get the idea haha. Once I counted 10 links I thought, yeah, that could be 100. I would never remember to remove them, so I couldn't start this early. I tried to make a weather calender with DS (A giant tree and then you color in the leaves based on what the weather is like that day...white for snow, blue for rain, green for sunny) and I just got so far behind that I was always making up the weather. So I gave up.

Gotta love that theming for dinner. It looks great!

 

[BabyEeyore]

I would love it if you joined me for my official DOUBLE DIGIT DANCE!!!!!

 

[BabyEeyore]

I love your creative ideas!!!
Down to double digits!!!

Amanda

Thank you! Yep, so excited to be to double digits now!!

Yay for 100 days! That chain is much shorter than I would think it would be...I even counted a few days to get the idea haha. Once I counted 10 links I thought, yeah, that could be 100. I would never remember to remove them, so I couldn't start this early. I tried to make a weather calender with DS (A giant tree and then you color in the leaves based on what the weather is like that day...white for snow, blue for rain, green for sunny) and I just got so far behind that I was always making up the weather. So I gave up.

Gotta love that theming for dinner. It looks great!

Wow, that weather calendar is an awesome idea! I'm going to have to write that down somewhere and do that with Ashlyn when she's older. LOVE it!

I think it will help us to remember to take the links off each day since it is right by our regular calendar and I mark that off each day while Ashlyn is having breakfast (since her highchair is right next to it). Otherwise I would probably forget every now and then, too.

 

[lexmas]

I will happily dance with you!

 

[BabyEeyore]

I will happily dance with you!

Thanks for dancing with me!