disney days

We are officially into the single digits in the countdown to our Disney trip:) We are all about to die with excitement! To get me even more in the mood (like I need any help!), I thought I'd share some of the details of our trip just in case you may be planning on visiting Disney World in the future or are just curious what we will be doing. If not, sorry...I feel the need to share so I don't spontaneously combust:)

Our trip - May 13-19

We chose this time to hopefully miss the summer vacation crowds. Ideally we would have gone earlier (like end of April), but with my nursing school, I can't take time off. We're leaving the night after I finish finals, so this is the earliest we could go. I hoping its a good time!

Oh, and it is my, Jimmy (husband), Noah, and my mom going on this trip. We are beyond excited for Noah's first visit...we know he won't remember it, but we will:) Also, my mom has graciously offered to watch Noah for us when we want to do rides and stuff own our own, so Jimmy and I are excited to have a little alone time as well.

Our travel plan - driving our own cars all the way

We opted not to fly for 1)the expense, 2)no car rental, and 3)we can bring more stuff there & back. We'll be traveling down in the middle of the night so Noah will sleep and traveling back right after lunch so he will nap for at least part of the trip (pray that this will work!). Yes, we'll have to pay to park each day we visit the parks, but we're willing to do that for the convenience of no rental car, no waiting on the Disney bus system, and no having to lug Noah's carseat around.

Our resort - Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort

*photo from allears.net

We chose to stay on the resort for several reasons (convenience, extra magic hours, etc), but we didn't want to spend a fortune, so we chose a moderate tier resort. We've heard wonderful things about this resort from many different people, so we're super excited about it!

Meals

We chose to purchase the dining plan this trip, and that is something we are super excited about! Jimmy and I were very unprepared when we visited Disney for our honeymoon (we waited to make reservations when we got here), so we really researched our options and decided to go with the plan so we could eat everywhere we wanted and not worry as much about the price. We also made our reservations WAY in advance. Here are our plans for meals:

• May 13 - Dinner @ Coral Reef Restaurant (in Epcot)
• May 14 - Dinner @ San Angel Inn (in Epcot)
• May 15 - Dinner @ Boma (in Animal Kingdom Lodge)
• May 16 - Breakfast @ Chef Mickey's (in Contemporary Resort); Dinner @ SciFi Dine In Theater (in Hollywood Studios)
• May 17 - Dinner @ Le Cellier (in Epcot)
• May 18 - Dinner @ Sanaa (in Animal Kingdom Lodge)
• May 19 - Lunch @ T-Rex Cafe (in Downtown Disney...NOT ON DINING PLAN!)

We're planning on having breakfast in our room, using our quick service credits for lunch, and using snack credits whenever. We'll also have to purchase Noah kid's meals, but they are very reasonably priced.

Extra Stuff

*I'll spare you the plans on which park we'll be visiting each day. I'll just say that we do have the park hopper option on our tickets, and plan on doing one park in the morning and one in the evening. Typically, the evening park coincides with our dinner reservations, but we just prefer to switch it up halfway through the day like that.

*One other fun thing we'll be doing our first day is getting Noah's first haircut at the Mainstreet Barbershop in the Magic Kingdom. They make it all very special (with "first ears" and a certificate and such), so that's something I'm personally very excited to do.

*Otherwise, we plan on taking it easy that week:) I'm not so crazy that I plan the order of the rides or anything, but we already know which attractions, which shows, and which parades and such that are at the top of our list. That is one benefit to having been before...you know what to expect, what you want to do again, and what to skip this time around.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask away:) I'm certainly no expert, but I've spent LOTS of time planning and researching this trip because I enjoy it and I want this to be an extra special one since it will be Noah's first time there. You know I'll have a million pictures and stories to share when we return too!

tot school - letter f

Noah is 19 months old.

Ff is for Farm

We kept it kind of light again this week since my semester in nursing school is winding down, but we still had fun learning about farms and farm animals!

First, Noah made his letter page. He did the gluing, and it was a good opportunity to talk about shapes as well with the barn. He loved making the fingerprint animals, and even though they don't really look like their supposed to, it was good to talk about their colors and what sounds they made.

I made a bingo board of farm animals for Noah to work with. We didn't really play the actual game, but it was great reinforcement on what the real animals look like and what sounds they make. I knew Noah knew all of his animal sounds, but I didn't realize he didn't know what many of the animals actually looked like! He knows all of the animals on the board now though:)

Otherwise, Noah played with his many farm-themed toys throughout the week. The megabloks farm set has long been a favorite..

He also loves the leapfrog fridge magnet set...especially the songs it sings:)

We also worked some more with his Kumon sticker/gluing workbook. He has moved onto the gluing exercises now...

We did a couple of vegetable pages, and the horse page. He did so well with the horse!

Other activities Noah did that I didn't get pictures of were:

*Read our many farm books...including Barnyard Dance, Moo Baa LaLaLa!, Farm Babies (no link...it is by Charles Reasoner), John Deere Farm 123, Touch & Feel Tractor, and Old MacDonald Had a Farm

*Watched our Brainy Baby Animals dvd

*Did Starfall letter Ff

That's all for our week! My exams start next week, but I'm planning on a regular week of tot school. And if you haven't noticed our Disney countdown...its down to 10 day!!! Woohoo! I'm hoping to do a short tot school week with all Disney themed activities the week we leave (just fyi).

Share your own ideas and see what others are doing for tot school at 1+1+1=1!

tot school - letter I (better late than never!)

Noah is 19 months old.

Geeze...sorry this is so late. We are just not with it around here lately...I'm in my last two weeks of the semester for my nursing classes (2 clinical days, 3 tests, and a research paper this week alone!) and Noah just hasn't been himself lately. I think it must be all the pollen and such, but he isn't sleeping well, isn't eating as well, and just isn't his happy self all the time. Thankfully there are only 16 more days until we head to Disney, so that's my saving grace at this point:) I think a vacation will do us all a lot of good!

Anyway..onto our pitiful excuse for tot school this week. Ha! I tried...I really did. Noah just wasn't into things this week. But that's okay. It happens, so we'll just keep on keepin' on until next time:)

Letter Ii

Ii is for ice cream!

I was excited for this week because let's be honest..who doesn't love ice cream?! Apparently Noah! We tried ice cream field trips twice and even tried a little at home one night, but he just doesn't like the temperature. Silly boy:) Maybe that's why he wasn't too into these activities?

Noah did actually seem to enjoy making his letter page. He helped with all of the gluing and did the pink and red paint...I painted the cone. I'm really proud of how far his gluing has come!

I saw this ice cream I on The Poe Family a while back and thought it was too cute:) I painted the cone part again, but he did the purple (with some help/coaxing), red, blue, and brown paint, and even put the cherry on top:)

I made a sorting game using this coloring sheet (found through Google). Noah has suddenly developed a love of coloring with crayons, so he enjoyed helping color the ice cream. He did really well with the sorting too (when he would actually participate)...

I printed these out from here. We did color identification with just the papers, and using playdough. I didn't get a picture, but we played ice cream shop...

I would "order" using the papers and he would match my order with the playdough. He liked this game early on, but not later in the week...

Noah also color sorted his pompoms using the ice cream papers from above using this tray. He was NOT into this though...he just wanted to throw them around the room..

I also thought we could get creative with ice this week for the letter Ii. Noah has enjoyed "painting" with ice in the past, so I had the brilliant idea to add food coloring to the ice cube tray. Well duh...of course the ice totally stained our hands for three days. Not my shining moment in planning...I guess that's what I get for trying to plan stuff while totally stressed out. Noah did make a pretty picture that day though...it is shown below.

Because I was a slacker in planning, I didn't have anything ready for Earth Day either. Ugh...so I pulled out some coffee filters and water and Noah made coffee filter earths at the last minute that day. I actually got a picture of him!

He actually had fun with this one...he LOVES the rare times we use markers, and he thoroughly enjoyed dumping the water bowl on the table even though the dropper was right there:) He also wanted to keep going after the coffee filters were gone, so we used construction paper too.

On the left is the colored ice picture. Then, all the marker/water pictures & earths. I think they turned out quite pretty:)

So yeah...my apologies for a less-than-stellar week here. I'm really going to try and get it together for the rest of this week, but no promises:) If I'm not here next week, look for me the week after to be back to normal. If I don't end up on a psych ward by the end of my week of tests and papers that is! Say a prayer for me please:)

See what others are up to in tot school and share your own ideas at 1+1+1=1!

tot school - no school

We decided to take the week off from any organized tot school activities this week. I spent most of the week catching up on nursing assignments for my own school, so we didn't do anything really planned. Mostly Noah played with some of his learning toys (puzzles, blocks, nesting toys, etc) and we reviewed the letters we've learned so far, but nothing else special.

We'll be back next week with our regular stuff! Enjoy your week...lucky me, I get to be home with Noah all day 5 out of the 7 days this next week:)