The Journey of Parenthood…

Disney Springs Fun

Our breakfast at Ohana was set for 7:40 in the morning. Even with taking our time we were still completely done by 9. Our big plans for the day included exploring Disney Springs and letting the kids spend their gift cards/chore earnings. We looked it up and realized Disney Springs didn’t open until 10 so we had some time to kill. We went ahead and changed clothes (yay for family bathrooms!) and just CHILLED in the lobby for a bit. The kids watched some Disney tv, Zach let all that food settle and Mrs Charlotte and I mapped out future Disney plans 😉

Originally we were supposed to be at Magic Kingdom that morning. I’m SO thankful Robyn suggested switching days and that we did go ahead and switch! While at Ohana I went to the bathroom and heard fellow moms STRESSING about the weather ruining their park plans for the day. Thankfully it didn’t affect our plans much at all!

We headed to Disney Springs and it was downpour when we arrived. We all had umbrellas and wore flips flops and rolled up our pants and went for it!

I wanted to go ahead and walk ALL the way to the end of the Marketplace. I’d rather face a bunch of rain at once and get where we want to go and then slowly work our way back especially because our afternoon plans were at the other end of the area!

Our first stop was in Disney’s Days of Christmas store. I was a mama on a mission! I had seen on a Disney fb group that the Disney Christmas store will give you birthday buttons and will personalize them like the do the ornaments…for FREE. Duh. I was all about some free 🙂 

We went to the personalization area of the store and asked nicely if they do birthday buttons and asked if they’d mind doing one for each of our kids. Not only were we currently celebrating Kye’s birthday but when we come back again it’ll be for Britt’s birthday! They were SUPER sweet to do the pins for us but if it’s something you plan on doing then be prepared: it took AWHILE. 

This girl gets crunk about Disney surprises 🙂

Watching a little of The Nightmare Before Christmas (Which is one Disney movie my kids have not seen. It’s an awesome one but one I don’t feel like they are old enough for yet!)

Check out how awesome these turned out!!! So cool!

While at the Christmas store we got our family ornament for the trip (Zach picked out a Chip and Dale one while the kids and I waited for the pins). Something I didn’t realize until my girls’ trip with Britt is that the opposite end of the Christmas shop is a FROZEN store. It’s really neat and I figured she’d want to spend some of her money there. She cracked us UP with what she chose: a rice krispie treat and a washcloth haha

Hidden Mickeys!

Making her big purchase

We just worked our way through the shops as we passed them and up next was Goofy’s Candy Company. Surprisingly we all felt snacky even though it was like 11 😉 Since we had a HUGE breakfast our plan was to skip lunch then eat an early dinner and the snacks def helped hold us off a bit!

I adore how Britt always is watching Kye to see what HE is doing 🙂

Gotta be GOOFY at Goofy’s Candy Co!

Fun Mirror

We talk DAILY about Disney at our house. Even when we don’t have a trip coming up, we still are just Disney people 🙂 Since the kids have been working hard to earn their commissions to pay for special things on the trip we have talked about that A LOT. Both kids said early on that they wanted to spend their money on SNACKS haha. We see so many yummy treats at Disney that we rarely get to eat so they liked the idea of having their own money to buy as many treats at they wanted 🙂 Kye knew he wanted to spend his money at Goofy’s Candy Co and he knew he wanted cotton candy (a boy after my own heart). He was SO EXCITED!

Britt on the other hand took AGES to decide what she wanted. If you wanna know anything that Goofy’s Candy Co sells then I can tell you because we looked at EVERY single item at least three times. I kept telling her she could eat her Elsa and Anna treat she had just bought but she really wanted to buy something there too and just couldn’t decide what. In the end Zach took over and she decided on a simple chocolate chip cookie. Girl LOVES some chocolate (just like her daddy!). 

Zach and I raved about the popcorn so Mrs. Char had to try some!

Chocolate cookie just like his daughter 😉

And I couldn’t resist a Mickey ice cream!

We had SUCH a fun day. I love when there isn’t a rush and we can just ENJOY Disney. We took as long as we wanted and it was a great spot to sit and wait out the rain. We ate our treats and talked and laughed. 

As a souvenir every trip we buy the kids a new pin. I actually recently got them each a pin board in our playroom so they have their favorites on display (and we keep some on their lanyards for trading). We headed into the pin store (which is the largest selection of pins at Disney World). They each chose their pin for the trip and traded with a cast member there!

Over Christmas I got the Disney Visa. It’s a JOKE as far as the rewards program is concerned. If you are looking for a high points earning card then I highly recommend Chase Sapphire. I switched to them a couple years ago and we’ve racked up a TON of points (I’m a big Dave Ramsey believer but this is one area we disagree…Zach and I do pay off our card in full each month and stick to a strict budget and it’s worked well for us!). But I did get the Disney card because it offers some advantages. Certain restaurants, hotels, and experiences get discounts plus you get a discount when purchasing merchandise. It also has other random perks and one is access to a limited edition pin. This years is a Darth Vader one so Kye wanted that as his pin for our trip!

Britt picked Rapunzel because we had fast passes to meet her the next day!

Our next stop was Once Upon a Toy. The recently revamped the back of the store and switched it from princess themed to Star Wars themed. Worked out great for Kye! I knew when we purchased the gift card for him that there was ONE thing I was hoping he’d spend it on: building his own lightsaber. I mean how cool is that?!?! And y’all it was SO reasonable. Kye chose the cheapest option and it was $25. Really not bad, especially for Disney!

The cast member was SO helpful!

He got to choose every piece of his lightsaber

and got to assemble it!

Of course he wanted one like Luke’s 🙂

That smile is priceless!

It is so cool! It makes sounds and everything!

He let Britt try it in hopes that she’d want to spend her money on building one too so they can have light saber battles, she passed haha

Star Wars nerd alert 😉

Isn’t this cast member SO ADORABLE? 

Another freebie…stopping in Ghiaradelli Soda Fountain for chocolate samples! 

The weather cleared and the kids were able eat their goodies while avoiding Stitch’s spit!

World of Disney is SO HUGE that it’s a bit overwhelming. I’m honestly not a huge fan. I find it to be pretty disappointing as far as selection goes? On our girl’s trip I wanted to get Britt a Jasmine and they had NOTHING. This time she really wanted to use her money to buy a plush of a princess she doesn’t have and, again, NO LUCK. As in they had ZERO plush princesses other than ones that had two heads (literally, you flip the princess over to reveal another princess hidden underneath. I had one as a kid a loved it and it is twice the princess for the price of one but you can’t actively play with both princesses at the same time either). We also wanted to get something Nemo for Tess but they didn’t have anything either! Bummer!!!

I do wish they had this in adult sizes though 😉

Showing more of his Star Wards nerd side 😉

Britt ended up getting the two headed princess. She doesn’t have a cinderella plush and really wanted one and this one had both Cinderella and Belle which she was happy about. We also found a really affordable, fun jewelry section and she was able to get a princess charm bracelet that had three princesses already on it for under $10 and we added an additional charm to it! She was thrilled!

Showing off her bracelet 🙂

Of course our crew LOVES the Lego store!

Kye wanted to use the rest of his money on Legos. I tried to semi-discourage this because Legos aren’t cheap and I’d rather save the more affordable sets for Christmas for US to get for him haha! But Zach didn’t catch my hints and was ALL about it. As was Kye! He picked a Star Wars set and we got to see it “come to life” on a screen in the store!

Zach and Kye wanted to build a car to enter in a lego car race!

Belle/Cinderella took turns watching with Britt 😉

Ready to race!

WINNER!!!!

This is my new favorite picture of Kye. Completely unposed. HIs TRUE joy smile. It completely captures him and brings tears to my eyes!

We had SUCH a fun time and when we wrapped up with the Lego store it was nearing 2:00 and we were all hungry and ready for another birthday surprise waiting for us 🙂 

Emily Parker
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