Disney Surprise Fun Bags for Extra Park Magic

I don't have any great pictures for this post, unfortunately. I have snoopy eyes over my shoulder, and I want the bags' contents to be a bit of a surprise for the little ones.

I loved this idea I found on Pinterest, making fun surprise bags for the kids to open at specific times during the trip. For mine, I used brown paper lunch sacks, a Sharpie, free Disney stickers from the Disney Movie Club welcome package, and washi tape to close them. Our bags contain:

• Open when there's a rumbly in your tumbly: fancy lollipops - purchased on clearance in hopes of staving off requests for the pricy park ones.
• Open in a looooong line: 1)squishy sensory ball and plastic Slinky, 2)Rubix cube and plastic Slinky. - all from Dollar Tree.
• Open before Fantasmic and the parade: glow swords, glow sticks, light-up bracelets - Dollar Tree and Target Dollar Spot.
• Open when people-watching: mini bottles of bubbles - Dollar Tree.
• Open when you see a penny machine or a wishing well: homemade penny tubes.

They're nothing beautiful to behold, but I think the kids will get a kick out of opening them. They'll be stashed in our park snack bag until they're needed.

Going to Disney - Road Trip Fun Bags

We're more fortunate than many in that our trip to Disneyland is only a 6 hour drive, and Nana's house is conveniently right on the way, so we can stop and eat and let the kids stretch their legs. I'm also crazy lucky to have won the roadtripping kids lottery. My kids love the car. Even so, I thought it would make the trip extra exciting if I packed up a few new treasures to bring along for the kids.

Target had their Skip Hop backpacks on sale for 70% off last week. Even though my daughter already has the fox and my son has the hippo, I couldn't resist these matching frog backpacks for just $6 apiece.

Two year old's road trip backpack.

Jamie's backpack contains:
Disney My First Look and Find book - purchased used on Amazon
Disney coloring book - Dollar Tree
Minnie Mouse crayons - I split up the three pack from Dollar Tree between the kids
kaleidoscope - Michael's dollar bin
dinosaur figures - Dollar Tree
Disney board books - from the Target Dollar Spot a few years ago
Mickey Mouse flashlight - Dollar Tree

Four year old's road trip backpack.

Meg's backpack contains:
Brave Look and Find book - purchased used on Amazon
Disney coloring book - Dollar Tree
Minnie Mouse crayons
kaleidoscope - Michael's dollar bin
dry erase flashcards and crayons - purchased on clearance from Michaels (cards) and Target (crayons)
sticky hand - Target Dollar Spot
Minnie Mouse flashlight - Dollar Tree

I'll also add a blank notebook for each kid and Meg's CD player and headphones. Blankies, sippies, and snacks are a given. I found a Captain Hook plush and a Monster's Inc. Boo plush for a steal during Target's spring toy clearance, and I might give them to the kids for the ride, or I might save them for the hotel room.

2013 Easter Baskets

I've had Easter on the brain lately, and as I was dreaming up what my kids might find in their baskets this year, I remembered that I never shared last year's Easter baskets.

Meg's Basket

Jamie's Basket

The kids' baskets are from Target, purchased on clearance the year before. They function as toy storage bins throughout the rest of the year. They each received a felt bunny hand puppet (tutorial and pattern here), a felt bunny finger puppet (tutorial and pattern here), and a new book (Meg, James). Meg also received a small wooden jewelry box for her rings, and James received some bunny beanbags filled with lavender-scented beans. I was inspired by these but was running low on time and slapped them together from memory the night before Easter. They're cute, and the kids like to play with them, but the inspiration picture is way cuter.

Big, Messy Art Party

Margaret's third birthday party was all about her favorite things: creating art, making a mess, and covering everything in rainbows.

The balloon banner was an easy and inexpensive way to make a big statement. I used a tutorial I found online to assemble it.

Get Messy!

Shaving Cream Color Mixing - We filled the sensory table with dollar store shaving foam, sprinkled confetti throughout, and offered cups of liquid watercolors and droppers for color mixing.

Fizzy Painting - We made fizzy paint by mixing corn starch, baking soda, water, and food coloring. The kids painted it onto the concrete with big brushes and sprayed it with vinegar to make it fizz.

Wacky Painting - We rolled out and taped down large pieces of butcher paper and offered up trays of tempera paint and a variety of odd painting implements such as potato mashers, dish scrubbers, paper towel rolls, and toy trucks.

A pool of water to wash off and cool down was one of the most popular spots.

We had a sensory pool filled with colored cooked spaghetti, water beads, and partially set Jell-O. We'd planned on the Jell-O being set and cubed up, but it had plans of its own and never gelled.

Baby James thought it was a giant snack tray. (We made sure to keep the water beads out of his mouth.)

A little baby haven in the shade in case things got too rowdy.

Inside, we had lunch and cake. The cups had dried food coloring in the bottoms, so when the water was added, it "magically" changed colors.

The cake? The cake was a disaster. See that big wedge taken out of the back? That's because the whole thing started falling apart while I was assembling and frosting it, and in a fit of frustration, I ripped off a chunk and threw it into the sink. *sigh* Cakes are no friends of mine.

I saw an idea like this online but forgot that the watermelon was supposed to be turned upside down. No matter, it worked just fine this way, too.

The PB&Js would have looked and tasted much better if I'd have used nonpareils instead of sugar sprinkles. Live and learn.

Yogurt pops - Colored yogurt frozen in Dixie cups in layers.

This party was a huge hit! The birthday girl had a blast, and a bunch of neighbor kids stopped by to join in the fun!

Margaret's Let's Go to the Circus Party

We went far bigger than usual for Meg's fourth birthday party. She and I both had such fun brainstorming and executing all the details, and for her first "friends party," I'd call it a rousing success.

Welcome to the backyard Big Top!

Eat Up!

The treats table featured popcorn, peanuts, circus train animal crackers, and raspberry lemonade. Sadly, I couldn't find boxes of Cracker Jacks anywhere! Party hats, confetti poppers, and punch balloons were free for the taking.

I wanted the cupcakes to turn out better than most of my culinary ventures do, so I ordered some from the grocery store bakery. I ordered chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting piped on with a round tip and was handed these... and for double their estimated price! Not quite what I'd pictured, but they looked fine once we put them in festive liners, sprinkled on some candy-coated sprinkles, and popped on homemade pinwheels and colored-flame candles.

Let the Games Begin!

I added our wooden beanbag toss game with a pail of plastic balls at the last minute. The dads in attendance ended up giving it more attention than any of the children did.

Meg's Nana, Nan, and Auntie tied endless balloon animals and swords, and Nana painted everyone's faces.

After playing outside for an hour or so, we invited everyone inside for cupcakes and a magic show performed by Auntie. Naturally, I videoed the show and forgot to take a single photo.

Meggie was our afternoon's ringmaster, fittingly.

The first of thousands of balloon sculptures.

Rainbow Dash proved to be a popular choice for face painting.

Pinata loot: finger traps, paper yoyos, fortune telling fish, bubbles, stickers, pom pom balls, colored Band-Aids, and glitter glue pens.

Little brother was to be a strong man, with a mustache and chest hair painted on, but he managed to sleep through the entire party and only wake up in time to pick through the leftover snacks.

Someone had a great day!

And, oh, the mess afterward!

December Activity Shelves

This year's December activity shelves revolve, surprisingly enough, around winter and Christmas.

As usual, the top two shelves are filled with themed activities while the lower two hold a variety of non-themed toys.

Our sensory bin is a white dish tub from Dollar Tree. It's filled with white rice scented with almond extract (I'd originally planned to use mint, but we were out), a bit of glitter, miniature mylar gift bows from Dollar Tree, and a scoop that I believe we purchased from Target's Dollar Spot earlier this year.

Our treasure basket holds a few of the same things our Shiny Stuff Treasure Tin held last year (holographic foil tissue paper, a large jingle bell, and a shiny gift bow), but we've also added some other jingly instruments.

There's an art tin with a variety of papers - old dollar store greeting cards, pages from a Christmas picture book that got ruined, a snowman notepad, and festive foam shapes from Target's Dollar Spot after-Christmas clearance last year - as well as feathers, spangles, scissors, glue, and markers.

We have a basket of books about various December holidays and wintry fun, some plush reindeer the kids were given last year at "Story Time with Mrs. Claus" at the mall, and a tree stacker from Plan Toys (purchased for a steal at the consignment store, since it was massing the top piece).

Previous Seasonal Activity Shelves
February and Valentine's 2013
Springtime and Easter 2013
Autumn 2013

Previous Seasonal Sensory Bins
Springtime and Easter 2013
Autumn 2013

Previous Seasonal Treasure Baskets
Autumn 2012
Winter 2012
Valentine's 2013

Previous Seasonal Shelf Activities
Christmas 2012
Valentine's 2013
Halloween 2013