Getting the kids fired up

[Jedi Osborn]

It looks like we'll be going to WDW on November 30th for a week of Christmas/Disney magic!! My wife and I are VERY excited! We're looking for ways to get our little ones to be just as fired up. They are ages 4 and 2. My oldest has been there before, and does remember some parts of it, so we've been telling her stories to get her excited.
My youngest has been there but doesn't remember any of it.

I show them the scrapbooks I made for the last 2 trips. (yes, there is at least 1 guy out there that does scrapbooks. But I have to go out and kill a wild animal after I'm done to confirm my masculinity..) We show them some trip videos. But nothing is really sinking in.

Its not that we want off the wall little ones, but we want to help them get excited and look forward to the trip. We do paper chains before Christmas and remove a link each day, so that's an option, but I was looking for something different.

Any ideas?

 

[PagingTomMorrow]

HAHAHAHAHA your signature


hill guy 1- well it was a big guy and a dark lady who was ehhh what was it again
hill guy 2- ah scary beyond all reason?
hill guy 1- yep thats it



:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Jedi Osborn]

can you feel the power?

oh yeah. I feel it.

LOVE that movie.....but we're getting a bit off topic

 

[DWGIRL]

I don't know how fired up your kids will get about this if they can't remember but my kids love to make wishes in the fountains everywhere. We start collecting a jar full of pennies from everyday change just to throw into the fountains for wishing at Disneyworld. Each morning we start out with a fresh baggy of pennies in our backpack for the day. Anyway, they get excited just finding pennies on the ground to take on vacation for wishes.

 

[DWGIRL]

Another thing they love to do is look at all of the park maps and talk about which rides they have to do and where they want to buy ice cream in the parks.

 

[DWGIRL]

I keep remembering more things. We listen to our Disneyworld music over and over. We watch previously recorded shows about it as well as our own home movies. We get out their masks they made at Epcot and all of their souveniers we have saved over the years. Mostly we just talk about how our vacation will be when we get there and then we are all so excited we can't wait.

 

[Jedi Osborn]

The pennies thing is a great idea. Both Girls love to throw pennies in the fountain. In fact on the trip before my second daughter was born, we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge and my older (then..only) daughter spent abotu $5 in pennies. A couple of the wishes were for a little brother. So while wish doesn't work, its still a great idea for them. Thanks.

 

[Jedi Osborn]

Oh, and we just started the map thing. They're kind of hard for the little ones to grasp, but they get the general idea. Mabye I'm doing enough already.

Still like the penny idea though.

 

[CAPTAIN HOOK]

Sit the kids down in front of the TV and watch Disney DVDs - should stir some emotions - what about the Disney planning DVD, do you have that ??

 

[Jedi Osborn]

I don't have the most recent one, but I do have a couple older ones. We'll have to start doing that once in a while before we go.
As far as Disney DVD's.....they don't watch any other kind!

 

[Raven66]

My DD and I do a countdown trip calendar about 30 days out. Every morning she gets up to go to school she rips a page off. The closer it gets to #1 the more excited she gets. We make it together, I write the numbers on and she cuts pictures out of the Disney Direct catalog and tapes them to the pages. You could try that. Have fun on your trip!! :wave:

 

[PixyDust]

My DD and I do a countdown trip calendar about 30 days out. Every morning she gets up to go to school she rips a page off. The closer it gets to #1 the more excited she gets. We make it together, I write the numbers on and she cuts pictures out of the Disney Direct catalog and tapes them to the pages. You could try that. Have fun on your trip!! :wave:

I think I'm going to steal this idea! My kids would love that - especially cutting out pictures and pasting them on!
Thanks! (We have around 50 days to go, so that would be good to do in a week or so!) :wave:

 

[Jedi Osborn]

That's a great idea.
We can work on the calender for the next couple weeks and then when November hits, we can start taking off days.
That's funny because I was pondering this today and I was thinking it'd be cool if we could cut out pictures and make something, but I couldn't come up with something specific.
Thanks!!

 

[DWGIRL]

I like this idea. I have 4 kids and they would love to work together on this and take turns pulling off the days. Thanks.

 

[Raven66]

I'm glad y'all are going to do it. When I told my DD, she was thrilled that others were going to use the idea. Another thing we do with it is, put her favorite character on the last page. So the last thing she sees on it is Ariel. Have fun with it, it's a great project to do together. :wave:

 

[Craig & Lisa]

the family and I have been there when the christmas decorations have been up, you really don't have to fire them up for anything, believe me that fact that they are going is enough, you don't want to over do it, for one basic reason, it may get over blown then it may not come out to be what they were expecting. Try little things, most kids if not all love christmas decorations, plus as an added suprise take them to get their hair cut at the MK barber shop, just inside MK and to the left in the corner next to the fire station. They can cater to any child and do a great job, plus they can even color the hair, (comes out in the bath) plus pixie dust, really great memory, and you can tell them that it's something that not too many people can say, I got my haircut in WDW. Then you have the character meals, and when you to get on the monorail ask the CM to see if the front car is open if it is you get to ride with the monorail driver, and they give them a honorary monorail driver card, there are many other things that you can do without hyping them up about, then you can do a countdown calandar, just take your wall calendar, just write a count from the day you leave up to the day your at on the calendar and it works as a countdown. Also pick up the unofficial guide to touring WDW, barnes and noble has it, a really great read. hope this helps

 

[shari71]

I have two daughters as well (2 1/2 and next week a 5 year old, but still 4 as of today ). We have several Princess books and we like to go through them naming them off. Then I says something like would you like to meet ____. They usually say "yeah" so I tell them about the trip and they start jumping up and down. Pictures from past years also work great. My youngest likes to just sit in front of our computer and watch the picture screensaver. She names off the characters and people in the photographs. We also let them pick out which princess dress they want to take as well as helping to pick cloths for the trip. They each have their own suitcase that they help me pack. The youngest is too little to remember her first two trips (or even the one in the womb ), but the oldest has become acustom to eating at Cinderella's Royal Table. She has already picked out her dress she wants to wear and all the accessories. She has even colored a picture to take to Cinderella. Hopefully once the birthday is complete this weekend, I can start on autograph books that they can help me decorate. I also have planning cards that I put pictures of them doing the same things last year like eating ice cream, getting on a ride, swimming, etc. I plan on making a set for my scrapbook (I am female and love to scrapbook. I think it is great that you are scrapping!), a set for each child to take (makes them feel involved and important), and a set for me so I don't go crazy with confirmation numbers. Then there is a set that I am going to put on a chain and make my husband wear around his neck since he continually makes fun of all the planning I do :animwink:

Sometimes it is the small things that get them going. Pictures are the best when you have small children, they can relate to that sometimes better than words....especially with my 2 year old who's favorite word is "No".

 

[Laura]

My kids are 2 and 4 also. Before this last trip (got home 2 days ago) I think the best thing I did for them was rent or buy just about every Disney movie I could think of to help them learn all the characters in the parks. Good ones to get are Peter Pan, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Dumbo, Beauty & the Beast, Swiss Family Robinson, Country Bears, Lilo and Stitch, etc.

By the time we got down there even my 2 year old knew who every character was. Even if you don't like Stitch, make sure to get your kids excited about Stitch before you leave because he will be everywhere you look. We rented Lilo and Stitch 2 about 2 weeks before the trip so when we got down there my kids were dying of excitement everytime we saw anything with Stitch, and of course we brought home a stuffed Stitch. LOL

 

[Jedi Osborn]

Thanks for the vote of confidence with the scrapping thing. Sometimes I feel a bit...umm....un-manly. But its kind of fun and I enjoy the fact that we'll have high quality photo albums from Disney and everyday.

Which leads me to the fact that maybe I"m doing a good job getting the Girls ready. I really like the calander idea, and beyond that I'm doing the video thing and the picture thing. So maybe they're as ready as they're going to be.

I show them pictures from past trips of characters and special buildings to look for. There's one spot in MK where we take a picture every year, and I explain to them that we can watch them grow bigger each trip.

Stitch is one of our favorites, its too bad they're not a little older so they could try out SGE. I"m looking forward to trying it myself, but that's a whole different topic...

Thanks again for all the ideas.

 

[shari71]

Oh, I forgot to mention the letters the girls receive. Last year I just took clipart of different characters and wrote letters like they were coming from that character. I even bought Disney stamps that just had come out. This year I am taking photos of the girls with the different characters and writing letters again. It gets a little redundant, but I try to get them a letter for each week starting 2-3 months before we go. I save Mickey for the end. They are too small to read the post mark so I am safe for this year...next year may be a different story. They get such a kick out of getting their own letter and then to have a character on it is icing on the cake. I daughter saved every letter last year in a shoe box. She has only gotten two this year and the youngest doesn't really understand yet, but she knows she got something with her picture on it.