Two of My Favorite Things

I love these photos that I took in Epcot.  Mainly because they feature two of my most favorite things.  I had fun playing around with depth of field with this gorgeous model.

   

I mean, seriously. Sam AND a truckload of Coke.  The only thing better would be my hunky husband driving said truck home for me.

Preparing for Disney 2010

Preparation for Disney began sometime last summer when I read someone else’s blog post about their trip.    They talked about going to a character breakfast and the characters from Little Einsteins were there.  That little spark was all it took for my to start imagining Sam meeting his girl June! 

There are so many resources out there to help you plan your own trip.  Before I start sharing our adventure, I thought I’d let you know what my very favorite sources were.  At the end of all my Disney posts, I’ll also share a few things we learned throughout this whole, wonderful experience.

Without further ado, my recommendations for great information:

(Titles are clickable!)

1.  We actually carried The Unofficial Guide to WDW with Kids 2010 into the parks with us…it is THAT good.  The ride recommendations and descriptions were spot on (just ask Scott about “Dinosaur.”) and helped us decide what our priorities were for each day in each park.

2.  If you buy the Unofficial Guide, you get free membership to an incredibly helpful website by the authors of the book, TouringPlans.com.  You can find information about wait times, crowd sizes and soooo much more!  Even if you don’t buy the book, it’s worth the paid subscription!

3.  My goal was to save as much money as I could to cover expenses and the cost of the trip.  For that goal, I turned to extreme couponing ala Jenny from Southern Savers and Kristin from Couponing to Disney.  There were several other blogs that I was following, but it was too overwhelming.  I paired my list down to just these two because they were really the most helpful.

4.    Click here to check out Kristin’s “Training for Disney” posts.  Her great advice helped us make some decisions while planning our trip. 

5.  For the best deals on tickets and accommodations head over to these two great sites:  MouseSavers.com and UndercoverTourist.com. 

There are TONS of resources out there to help you plan.  For what it’s worth, these are the ones I used, LOVED, and recommend.

If you have favorite sites, please share.  I’m already scheming and thinking about next time!

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Oh, and just to get things started, I’ll tell you about day 1 of our trip.  We actually drove to my college roommate’s house to spend our first night.  She lives about an hour from WDW so it was a great opportunity to spend time with her awesomely cool family!  While we enjoyed a fabulous dinner, Sam played hard with Jackson and Zach. I don’t think he even knew we were there…until bedtime that is!  Sam just adored playing with the boys!  We can’t to see them again!  Here are a few shots of Sam playing with the boys.  By the time I got the camera out Sunday morning, the boys were heading out to play football, so most of the pictures are of Sam. Imagine that.

 

The next morning, we headed to Orlando to begin our Disney adventures at Epcot.  But I’ll save that for the next post!

Kid-isms

This is me...refusing to let Facebook kill my blog. I think that's why I don't write here as often as I used to. It's so quick and easy to share things over there. But that may be due to the fact that I'm visiting there so much. I'm changing that, too.

Anyway....

So, I opened up this post because something funny just happened and I wanted to write about it. By coming here, I can tell you about a few funny moments today. Well, you know, funny to me, anyway.

1) Scott and I are sitting in Chic-fil-A, both of us on out laptops, "closely" watching Sam play in the playground area. I've been watching the sweetest family across the way sign to each other. The little boy, playing in the play area with Sam must be about Sam's age (almost 4) signs back and forth to his Mom through the glass. I think Mom is deaf, and the little boy may be. Or he could just be really quiet. There is also another, older little boy who showed up to play (turns out, he's a brat, but he does it with such a sweet voice) about 10 minutes ago. While I was in there talking to Sam, the other little boy was talking to his Mom through the glass.
The brat turned to me and said: She told him to go play.
Me: Oh, she did?
Brat: Yeah, I understand glass talk.
Me: Glass talk?
Brat: Yeah, talking through the glass.
Me: Oh, I see.

You may not be laughing but I cracked up. Besides being a cute thing to say, kids who know it all crack me up!

Oh, and by the way, I call him a brat because he held the door for his little sister, then wouldn't hold it open for Sam. He explained to me, very politlely, that he was told to only hold the door open for his sister. Brat.

2) As Sam and I were leaving the house earlier, I threw a clean shirt on him. He looked down at the shirt and said "Cool! The Bumblebees!" No, honey, that would be the Beatles. We both laughed and then Sam pointed to his shirt and the front door and said, trying to make a joke, "The Doors!" Well, actually, Sam... :)

3) Sam got very lucky last week in Florida because we let him sip on our drinks often to give him just enough energy to get through the long days. So I shouldn't be shocked that he just came out of the play area and took a sip of Scott's drink. As he turned to go back in, I said "Whoa! What, are you gonna just start sipping our drinks now Mr.?" to which he relied "Yeah." and returned to the play area.

Oh, look. The brat is "glass talking" to his mom now. Cute.

4) This morning, as Sam was heading down the hallway, I said something about remembering to brush his teeth. He turned, and with the cutest, most appropriate, puzzled facial expression said "Mom, are you talking to me?" Oh, I don't know where he gets his keen sense of humor from!

So, there's a few of the moments that made me laugh today. They're probably all "had to be there" moments, but whatever. Oh, I wish I could remember to write down even half of the things Sam says or does in a day that crack me up!

How do you keep up with your kid-isms? Or do you forget just like me?

Something Disney This Way Comes

Happy Valentine’s Day, my friends!  Just a note to let you know that we’re back from Florida and I’m working on a series of posts to document our trip so that I don’t ever forget a single, wonderful, fun memory! In the meantime…

That’s Reading, My Friend!

I noticed this weekend that Sam had developed a small core of known words that he could read (Sam, up, go, a and I).  So, after talking about things that go up, together we chose some pictures and I created a book for him.  I wanted to use those known words in the book and keep and story structure reflective of his language structure.  When I asked him “What goes up?” Sam replied “A balloon goes up.” and thus a book was born.  I put the book together  and gave it to him today.  I have to tell you, there isn’t anything like seeing “the look” on a reader’s face when they notice something in the print that they know.  I love that look!  And I was thrilled that Sam flashed me that excited look when he opened his new book and looked at the page.  I broke out the camera during Sam’s second reading of the book, in which he was reading it to his Daddy, so I missed the first part.  However, I’m so glad I caught the amazing processing that he demonstrated on this second reading.  Just watch as he rereads to search and how he monitors his reading and self-corrects the mismatch. 

Oh, and do I really need to remind you that emergent literacy is my passion/profession/specialty?  I thought not.

Oh, and please ignore the mess…and the half-naked reader.  Y’all know Sam by now!