preparing kids for disney: autograph books!

We are so very, very, very, very excited that we’re heading to the Happiest Place on earth in just a few days!  As part of the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration, our schedule will be packed, and it will surely be an incredible event!

The kids are elated, my husband is elated, I am elated, and though Brady doesn’t know it yet, I’m sure he’ll be elated to be a spoiled grand-dog for a bit.

The last time we went to Disney, Maddy was 5 years old, Owen was 4, and Cora was days away from turning 3.  So things were a wee bit different.

Now that the kids are 8, 6, and 5, what we’re doing to prepare–and what we plan to do while we’re there–have taken more of a ‘big-kid’ spin.  And a little bit o’ preparation–and activating the ole schema–makes sense so that everyone makes the most of this awesome opportunity!

Here’s the skinny. . .

• Homemade Autograph Books: Last time, our kids barely knew how to write their names.

Now, they’re totally into writing, into collecting, and into challenges–so having them make a homemade, just-for-Disney Autograph Book was the perfect idea.

Inspired by my sweet, totally smart friend Julie, of Just Precious, Cora and I hit the craft store and bought three inexpensive, hardcover blank books.

 

And then we covered that little ladybug (though she certainly was cute!) with an over-sized white label sticker, and Maddy, Owen, and Cora each decorated the cover of their books. 

They used stickers I bought at the craft store and that we had here at home.  They also used letter stickers for their names, though Owen was totally cool just writing his in with pencil.

 

Finally, the kids made a page for each character they thought they would see.  Actually, Maddy and Owen made a page for each character, and Cora just put her stickers anywhere she wanted, grouping the princesses together and the Minnie and Mickey’s together, and doing pretty much anything she pleased.

I’m not sure she understood the concept of the Autograph Book, but that’s fine with me.  She was happy, so I was happy.

 

Maddy went a little fancy with her pages, adding the character’s name and ‘sign here’, but Owen just slapped on a sticker of each character, and he was good to go.

We decided that it would be way too hard for Maddy to do this for every single character, so she plans to stamp the letters for about half of them. I thought it was a smart substitute!

Owen makes his autograph book pages!

Cora works on her cover.

Cora’s princess pages. . .

. . . and our home-made stickers on the jumbo labels.

 

We had a few packs of stickers from the craft store, like I said, but we realized we were missing many of our favorite chara cters.  So Maddy and I hit the internet for some characters, and I formatted a page that matched our jumbo, over-sized labels, and we printed those puppies out! Yay!

One really important thing I reminded the kids as we worked was that they needed to leave the characters enough space to sign.  Often their gloves were big, so signing may be difficult.

Another thing we talked about–that Maddy remembered from last time–was that many characters cannot speak; they wave, they move their bodies, but Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, all of the big fuzzy guys don’t talk.  Just something good to remember so the kids aren’t broken-hearted when Mickey doesn’t say, Hello, CORA!! I’ve waited my life to meet you!! (Though she’ll expect that from the princesses, I’m sure. .. . )

And that’s it! Just a quickie, inexpensive activity that (I think!) will add a bit of excitement to our trip, will get our kids super-excited to meet their favorite Disney characters, and will give them a real hand in memory-making!

Thank you, thank you, Julie, for the inspiration and idea, and please check out Julie’s Just Precious for other fabulous kid-happy, mom-happy ideas!

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