When Kye and Britt turned 5 we transitioned them from having themed birthday parties to instead doing “Disney Birthday.” We take a Disney trip as a family and focus on the birthday kid to celebrate them. We started Tess’s Disney birthdays when she turned 4 due to us owning the Disney House at that point.
Tess’s 4th bday at Disney didn’t go over all that well. She struggled with ALL that attention on her and it kinda stressed her out getting to make decisions and having so much focus on her the entire trip. She LOVED it by the time she turned five though so I had kinda decided to have Spear wait until age 5 to have his bday at Disney World.
But then. Spear is a different kid than Tess! He already did a construction birthday party last year and he’s still very much into tractors and all things vehicles. He is also VERY all about his birthday. He talks constantly about all the things he wants to do for his birthday and the places he wants to go. I knew he would LOVE all the attention on him and getting to “run the show” a bit.
It also worked out that this year Britt was turning 10 and wanted to go skiing for her birthday (like Kye did when he turned 10) so this was a rare chance to have our Thanksgiving Disney trip be JUST Spear’s birthday celebration. In the future, he and Britt will share the trip as their combo birthday trip (their actual bdays are only 5 days apart).
Spear was SUPER pumped about his Disney birthday and while it was a bit sad knowing the era of birthday parties is over, it was also SO much less stressful not having a birthday trip AND a Disney trip back to back the same week!
We headed down to Disney and went straight to Disney Springs. I needed to update Spear’s annual pass and Mrs Charlotte had some issues with her annual pass so we went to guest services and the others walked around a bit and took in all the holiday festivities.
I’m trying to chill out a bit on birthdays. 2020 was a good reset to do less for their birthdays as I tend to go WAY overboard but then it’s also hard because 2020 meant we missed out on SO much and I’m also wanting to do ALL THE THINGS now that we can!
Spear’s big birthday dinner for the trip was at T-Rex! I had a tough time getting reservations and had several people on Instagram recommend signing up for the Laundry’s Select Club which costs $25 to join but then you receive a $25 welcome gift so it ends up being free. Having the card gets you easy access to ALL Laundry’s restaurants (TRex as well as Rainforest Cafe at Disney) without a reservation! We walked up and were seated super quickly AND were seated at a super cool and awesome table spot!
It’s so cute how much the older kids all just simply adore Spear. They ALL wanted to walk around the restaurant together to show him all the Dinos…and of course Mommy and G-Mama wanted to be there with ’em.
It is good to be warned that T-Rex has a “meteor shower” at regular intervals and it gets dark and there are thunder sounds and the Dinos make sounds too and move around a good bit. It can be scary for little ones and even Spear enjoyed it but also didn’t want to get close to the dinosaurs either. He liked seeing them from a distance!
The birthday boy got to have a special Dino cup and I did NOT know this but the cups include a cute little Dino toy too. They also come with an icee so be sure to request that, we didn’t realize it and got lemonade.
I love how each of my kids are their own unique people. Kye was PUMPED for the ribs and Tessie was super excited that they had spaghetti and meatballs on the menu along with go-gurt!
It was the first time Spear has experienced a restaurant singing to him for his birthday and I loved watching his sweet face. He may be growing up but he’ll always be allllll of our BABY!
T-Rex is slooooow on service. Even pre-Covid I’ve never had a really stellar service experience there and we waited a good bit for the check and to pay etc. I took the kids to walk around a bit more! I am impressed with the pricing in the gift shop…$14 for 8 Dino toys isn’t bad AT ALL.
G-Mama likes to get each of the kids a little something when she comes with us on trips. It’s one of those things that I never ever scoff at. She’s the grandparent! If she wants to do some spoiling – GO FOR IT. I do, however, like to try to navigate the kids towards semi-good deals when possible and this was a perfectly priced toy item for Spear and he used the little toys our whole trip!
One area of T-Rex that we’d never explored before is the sand pit play area. Um, it’s AWESOME. It’s kinda hidden and you find it by walking through the gift shop. ALL of the kids were super pumped about it, even Kye. Yall know I LOVE moments when ALL of my kids have fun together.
They have brushes on hand to help with your Dino dig!
I also love that they have a super cool themed hand washing station as you leave the digging area. It’s a genius design because it helps transition kids from playing without any pitching fits or tears because they are super into checking out the hand washing spot 😉
Spear was SO appreciative of the special lunch and the attention all on him. He randomly came up to me and said “thank you Mommy for my dinosaur lunch.” SO PRECIOUS. Britt also said during lunch that they have the best grandmother in the world which is SO true. I love that our family is able to have these experiences and that Mrs Charlotte is able to be part of them with us. I know it fills her cup full and I pray I’m able to be as involved with my own grand babies someday too 🙂
Disney Springs the weekend before Thanksgiving? PACKED. As expected! We didn’t do any shopping, just walked around and checked out the cool Christmas trees as well as the new updated Lego designs (Tess and her “smolder” from Olaf’s shorts) and then Kye picked up his traditional slushee and we were done for the day!
We had guests staying in our Disney House so we couldn’t be in until 4 and enjoyed hanging out a bit to walk off some of our late lunch/early dinner.
Spear and Kye have started watching the new Spidey cartoon as “their show” together and Spear LOVES it. He was so excited to see the Spidey Christmas tree and worked hard to perfect his web slinging fingers.
It was a wonderful start to a fun-filled week ahead in honor of celebrating this precious boy!
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