About a month before Christmas I came across these behaviour sticker charts at Dollarama. I had actually looked over them on previous trips to the store, but after a week of trying behaviour from both my children I grabbed two out of desperation.
Tag: #Disneyside
Disney Inspired Treats : Churro Popcorn
When doing my research for our Disneyland trip 2 years ago, it was hard not to become completely sidetracked by the pictures and reviews of all the amazing foods Disney has to offer in their parks. There are blogs dedicated solely to sharing the world of Disney eats and one could easily spend a large portion of their time in the parks hunting down and enjoying a variety of sweet and savoury treats plus fine dining meals.
Cheers to a Happy and Magical 2017!
I hope you all had a great Christmas! It is time for a New Year and a bit of a new focus on Dolled Up Design.
My lovely sister shared with me that, instead of a list of New Year’s resolutions, she was focusing on one word for the year: Believe. I loved this idea and In order to give myself some clear direction and motivation with my blogging this year, I decided to try and come up with a similar simple mantra to follow.
Cinderella Pumpkin Carriage
Even though I knew I would be spending way too much time making our Pokémon themed pumpkins this week, I didn’t want my daughter to feel completely left out. When I saw a bag of tiny white pumpkins at the grocery store, I knew right away that they would make the perfect wheels for a quick and easy Cinderella Pumpkin Carriage.
Disney On Ice: It Pays to Be Prepared
Since a Disney trip is not in the cards for us this year, I decided to try and fill that void by booking us tickets to Disney on Ice: Dare to Dream. After reading glowing reviews online and seeing by my 3 year olds reaction to the commercials for the show on Disney Junior, I knew we would all have a great time. Continue reading “Disney On Ice: It Pays to Be Prepared”
Sweet Stacking Fun with Tsum Tsum’s
Even though I love almost all things Disney, I will admit that I never understood the appeal of Tsum Tsum’s. I didn’t understand the need to transform beloved characters into the odd flattened oval shapes and what people did with the toys beyond collect them to display on a shelf.
Then, I was given the opportunity to review Jakks Pacific‘s new line of Tsum Tsum figurines and learned that the word “Tsum” is actually Japanese for “stack”. Finally the whole concept made a whole lot more sense to me! The odd shapes of varying sizes were to allow for stacking of the toys in a myriad of combinations. Continue reading “Sweet Stacking Fun with Tsum Tsum’s”
A DIY Princess Anna Costume for Mommy
I thought my daughter’s Frozen obsession would have subsided by now, but she will be joining the hoards of other little Elsa’s this Halloween. Also joining in will be our large hound dog, thanks to this Elsa dog dress we came across at Petsmart.
A Star Wars Ice Cream Social
On August 19, we hosted our second annual ice cream social for all our friends in our cul de sac. It was an idea I came up with last year to get to know our new neighbors, and it went over so well that it will hopefully be an annual tradition for many years to come. Continue reading “A Star Wars Ice Cream Social”
A Princess Garden Party
I am so excited to share with you my daughter’s Princess Garden Party themed 3rd birthday party. For the second year in a row, we were very fortunate to have wonderful weather for her birthday party which meant I was able to have everything out in our backyard as planned.
Going to Disneyland Surprise Treasure Hunt
Our trip to Disneyland in February was the first time for all of us so I wanted to find an extra special way to tell the kids we were going. To do this, I came up with a small treasure hunt throughout the house including a few fun new surprises along the way.
At 4 and 2 years old, I understand it is hard kids to grasp the concept of time so I waited until the week before our trip to let the kids know exactly when and where we were going. I figured only 7 days of “When are we going?” was best on both them and us. I had considered waiting until last minute, but the week gave me time to get things packed and ready without having to hide suitcases or answer questions from my 4 year old.
Our 10 day trip was basically divided into 3 parts – Disneyland, Legoland and then a few days with my husband’s parents in Palm Desert. My son loves treasure maps, so I decided to design a simple map for him with each of the destinations as small picture pieces to glue on. I wanted it to be fun and interactive while giving a visual image of the trip that he could look at and easily follow.
To prepare for the treasure hunt, I had my husband take the kids out of the house to a movie (Big Hero 6) Saturday morning. I set up 4 different treasure spots throughout the house – one with the initial instructions and one for each of the three locations we would be visiting on our trip.
When the kids got home, they were surprised with the new Little People airplane and their figures ready to go on a plane ride. Well,at least one of the kids was – the movie tired my 2 year old out so she ended up napping on the couch while her brother got to enjoy all the treasure hunt fun!
A small sign with the plane explained:
Their first clue read:
After first checking out Nova’s favorite sleeping spot on the main floor, Camden then headed upstairs to Keira’s bedroom where he knows she often naps. Here he quickly found their maps, along with our Grandma and Grandpa Little People figures and a small globe.
He was excited to get their maps and glue their pieces on before reading the next clue.
I had Legoland spelled out in Lego blocks overtop Camden’s bed. We had already spilled the beans to Camden about the Legoland trip so I knew finding this clue might not be all that exciting for him. I found the “Everything is Awesome” shirt at Target and decided to include it in a small box for him to build the hype.
After getting the LEGOLAND piece glued on, we read out the last clue:
We headed downstairs and in our (yet to be finished) basement playhouse Camden found this:
He seemed very excited about the new Fisher Price Little People Day at Disney set and the Mickey cupcakes, but it took some prompting before he clued in that we were going to Disneyland. In his mind Disneyland was all Mickey Mouse and Princesses so his reaction wasn’t exactly as I had hoped. Luckily we had the Disneyland planning DVD to watch so he could see some of the other fun “boy” stuff Disneyland has to offer.
I took video of him discovering the surprise, but I mistakenly deleted off our camera during our trip so I don’t have many pictures to share. I was upset about deleting the video at the time I did it, but since his reaction wasn’t that great I am not completely heartbroken over it.
After Camden checked out the new toys, we all sat down to enjoy the mickey cupcakes and watch the Disneyland planning DVD. Even though I have had it for several months, I resisted watching it until then so we could all get excited together. Keira eventually woke up and Camden was very excited to show her the new toys and explain the map to her.
I won’t lie that, after all my planning, I was a bit disappointed over my daughter sleeping through the fun and my son’s less then excited reaction to the Disneyland news. It was something I had kind of expected and knew to prepare for with kids so young, but I was a bit bummed nonetheless.
And to drive the point home that you REALLY can’t plan for everything with kids, we ended up with a trip to emergency room that same evening. Our excitement filled day was capped off by my poor little guy falling off a bar stool and breaking his arm. He ended up going in for surgery the next morning, just 6 days before the trip, and we were left questioning whether we could even go on the trip. Lucky for us, the surgeon cleared him to go and the broken arm really didn’t limit Camden from being able to enjoy almost all the rides and activities at the parks.
Even though everything did not work out as planned, I still had a lot of fun planning our treasure hunt surprise and I know if I do something similar next time there will be a lot more excitement as the kids have now been and know the magic of Disney. I just hope next trip announcement doesn’t involve any broken bones!
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