*Random Thoughts of a SUPERMOM!*

Friday, May 18, 2012

Roadtrip Ready: 10 Tips to Survive Disney with Small Kids

Hi! I'm Jill, the Mom from over at the Barnes Yard and I am so excited to be here today at RTSM!

My friend, Kelli, is going to have so much fun road trippin' with her family this summer! I'm totally in love with her Airstream!

So the Barnes Yard doesn't do road trips.  I know!  We are super wimps!  I've got two kids that get barf-a-rama the minute we leave our town! 

Last month we went to Disneyland via plane. 

I do have some great tips for staying (somewhat) sane while doing Disney with small children!

1.  Make lists  

Making lists is actually one of my favorite pastimes...Anyway, each day before we headed to the park, I made a list of things I would like to accomplish, i.e. picture of kids with Mickey ears on, ride on It's a Small World, meet Rapunzel, etc. That way I could stay focused whilst being pulled in a million directions by over-excited children.

2.  Bring Grandparents

Honestly, there is no way we could have pulled off this trip without the Grandparents in tow.  They were there to push strollers, wait with the "too shorts" while the bigger kids went on rides, and take anyone in the middle of a meltdown back to the hotel for a nap.  We LOVE them! 

3.  $$ saving tip: Buy your Mouse gear before you get to the park.

I knew I wanted to dress my kids Disney every day so I stocked up months before our trip at Target, Old Navy, WalMart, and disneystore.com

 I also swiped Kelli's idea of making our own autograph books!

4.  Wear bright colors

This is what my daughter was wearing the day we lost her.  Yep, we totally lost her for about ten minutes.  Luckily my eagle eyes spotted her bright skirt from a mile away!

5.  Bring your own stroller and rent one

We brought our own strollers for the babies but, let me tell you, it was nice to have something to push around all of our drinks, snacks, cameras, purses, and purchases in, plus have a place for the big kids to sit when they got really whiny.  

6.  Don't eat too many Oreos the first night.

My
 husband made fun of me for leaving a note, but seriously, I would have 
felt really bad if the maid had put her hand in that black mess. 

7.  If they love Princesses, give them Princesses!

You better believe that I rode on that Ariel ride 50 times too! 

8.  Eat at IHOP

Kids eat free with purchase of adult meal.  We had 6 adults and 6 kids so this totally worked in our favor.

9.  Get a special souvenir  

The days were long and super exhausting (we estimated that we walked 10-12 miles each day), but every time I look at this I will remember how magical it was for my kiddos (well, at least the two older ones)!

10. Act like a kid and HAVE FUN!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Roadtrip Ready: Roadtrip Countdown

A few weeks ago, I started looking for some fun roadtrip games to play with the boys while we are driving. I stumbled upon this really amazing post by The Dating Divas that is full of great roadtrip ideas and even includes a ton of free printables. My favorite idea from that post is their Roadtrip Countdown...as soon as I saw the idea I knew I had to make one for our trip this summer. The Dating Divas have a really cute roadtrip countdown printable that you can write in your different stops on, but I wanted to make something a little different. So with the help of these cute state printables from The Vintage Lemon, I made my own Roadtrip Countdown!

This was honestly the easiest project, and it is one that I know my boys are going to be SUPER excited about! I started out by printing out all of the states that we are going to visit on our roadtrip. You could easily customize yours by making it with different cities you are driving through, different attractions you are visiting, or even include pictures of family members you may be visiting on the way. I decided to do the states because we are working on visiting all 50 states while the boys are still little:) I also printed out some Airstream clip art to help track our progress on the countdown.

I punched two holes in the top of each of my states and then strung them onto some curling ribbon in the order that we are going to be visiting them.

Then I simple tied the two ends of the ribbon on opposite sides of the car in the backseat. {Make sure that it doesn't hang down too low and block the drivers view...that could be dangerous!} I spaced out the states so they reached evenly across the car and then I used a small clothespin to attach the Airstream clip art to the states. As we move from state to state the boys can simply move the Airstream to the state we are in...from Mississippi all the way to California!