This week's Project Life highlights the week of May 27-June 1st.

This is the first week in my second album for 2013.  Last year I ended up having three albums for the entire year.  I love to have a separate album for just summer.  It's a bit smaller than the other two but it's a natural way to break up the months!

This first week is obviously our week at Disney!  I am not going to lie, I was a little overwhelmed while trying to put together this spread.   I took over 1000 photos this week!   I decided to include a favorite family photo, a photo with both kids with a character and alone, a photo in front of the castle, a photo with the kids with Todd's dad, and a photo of Todd and I.  That pretty much covered everything.

For the date pocket I trimmed a portion of a Magic Kingdom map.  I loved ow it turned out!   I used Jenni Bowlin's June 2013 Historian Add On Kit for this spread--- the travel theme was just perfect! There's ton's of Elle's Studio goodies in this kit (which of course I love)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Also linking up with The Mom Creative today!

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a way to simplify how you document life and preserve memories. Photo pockets used in my Project Life are created by Becky and can be found here. You can read all of my Project Life posts here.

Character Dining at Walt Disney World

This will be my final Disney post (are you glad???:) but I wanted to talk character dining at Disney.

It seems this is a big topic among friends who are planning a Disney trip.  This is a fabulous and time-saving way to see many characters at once, but beciding which character meals to book can be a little overwhelming (and expensive!) so I thought I would review the character meals we attended while at Walt Disney World.

First up was the 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian Resort.  Like many character meals, this was a buffet style dinner.  This particular one was really good (for a buffet, of course).  We saw Cinderella, Prince Charming, Lady Tremiane (the Wicked Stepmother) and Anastasia and Drizella (the Stepsisters).  They were FUNNY and a RIOT.   Totally in character and asking hilarious questions to the kids.   Each character spent a lot of time at our table compared to the other character meals we experienced.

Cinderella and Prince Charming even danced at the end of the dinner, then danced with the kids- it was really sweet.  I think this one was my favorite!

Pros:  Characters spent more time at each table, located at the Grand Floridian Resort (so no park ticket needed yet a monorail stop from Magic Kingdom), seemed less rushed than the park character dining, great buffet dinner.

Cons:  They took a family picture of us before we walked into the dining room.  It was just against a castle backdrop.  They brought it to our table and it was $30 to purchase.  I thought that was super expensive and for the price we were paying for the meal it should be included!

We also did the Princess Akershus Royal Banquet Hall in Norway, EPCOT.  First. can we discuss Jonah's face in this picture?

  

Before booking this character meal, I had heard from friends they didn't like the lunch/dinner food at Akershus because it was Norwegian.   Knowing that, I booked at 10:45 seating-- this is the final seating for breakfast.   They serve a typical American breakfast (a buffet and then hot food is served to your table).  My kids love breakfast food so a brunch was perfect!

I really debated about if I should book the Akershus Princess meal or the Cinderella Castle meal.   Ultimately it came down to price and feeling like I wanted to keep our day free and open in the Magic Kingdom.  At this breakfast we got to see Belle, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Ariel, and Snow White.

Pros:  When we walked in we got to meet Belle by ourselves and have a family photo taken with Belle-- which was INCLUDED with our meal (an enlargement and a few 4x6).  She really took time talking to my kids, especially Jordan.  I loved that we had this time with Belle (away from the table) and got the photo!

Cons:  I really felt all the other princesses spent about 30 seconds tops at our table.  It felt much more rushed than 1900 Park Fare, however I know there are many more table they need to visit in our seating time.  Food wise this was my least favorite of all the character dining-- but it wasn't terrible.  Just not my favorite.

I also want to mention that Epcot is a wonderful place to plan to meet characters.  There are lines to meet every character in every park-- use your time wisely!   We didn't wait in any lines for characters in Magic Kingdom-- too many lines for rides.   Save the characters for Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios!

For our last character meal we had breakfast with Pooh and Friends at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom.  This was our second day in Magic Kingdom, so I felt comfortable taking it easy and starting the day with breakfast in the park.

HOWEVER.  Jonah got car sick and a headache on the way into the MK since we didn't eat much before leaving.  We had to stop into the first gift shop and get some over-priced children's tylenol for him.  He felt fine by the time we sat down to eat but it was a hectic way to start the day!

I was a little worried my 7 and 5 year old would be over the Winnie the Pooh stage but they had a lot of fun with Pooh and Friends.  They think Tigger is hilarious and loved teasing with him.

Pros:  Great location-- right in the middle of the park with a wonderful view of the castle.  good food (the chef even walked me through the buffet and showed me which items were gluten free and brought special items out for me), nice open atmosphere, the characters spent decent amount of time at our table, and there was a little parade the kids could participate in with Pooh- really cute.

Cons:  There was no family photo taken but that wasn't a big deal to me.  I can't really think of things I didn't like-- only that I was worried my kiddos would feel to old for Pooh, but thankfully they had a lot of fun.

Next time I would love to try Cinderella's Castle and Chef Mickeys.   And who else thinks there NEEDS to be a Star Wars character dining in Hollywood Studios!!???

We enjoyed all of our character meals-- characters, locations, and times all play a huge factor when you are planning your trip.  Hopefully this review might help if you are planning a trip to WDW in the near future!

Jordan's Dance Recital

This past weekend was Jordan's dance recital.

The dress rehearsal was Thursday night, a performance Saturday night, and a performance Sunday afternoon--- it was busy but fun!!

Everything from the dressing room:

To back stage:

To the stage:

She had the time of her life.  Jordan and her class danced ballet to Venitian Dolls (ballet was a toy shop/ doll theme).  The tap dances were Broadway theme and they danced to Singin' in the Rain.

The funny thing was that a huge thunderstorm came rolling through during their tap number and we could literally hear the thunder.  I may have told her it was just sound effects so she wouldn't be scared :)  as we left she literally ran out in full costume-- and it was perfect!

So proud of this girl and all her little friends!!

We love you Jor-baby and we are so proud of you!

Having your child document your family vacation

I have always loved creating mini albums during travels. It's always so fun to come home to a book full of memories to relive and also show family and friends.

For our Disney trip, I decided to take a break from documenting while on vacation.   I have big plans to create a Project Life style album to document our entire trip.

HOWEVER-- i knew my kids would want to collect character autographs while in the park.  My mom suggested using Project Life cards for autographs (of course!) so that I could add it in our album later (and I wouldn't have to buy a character autograph book).  That inspired me to think of a little mini album the kids could work on while on vacation.

Supplies Used:

• 2 small Smash Folio Books (purchased at Target for $7.99 ea)
• Project Life Blank Cards 
• My Camera and Pivy Printer
• Disney stickers/extra stickers in my stash

They each had their own Smash Album to work on, write in, and add photos.  Working on these little albums became their favorite thing to do during our down time in our condo.  I never expected them to embrace this as much as they did... maybe because it's more of "my thing".  They (we) spent a lot of time working on this!

The Pivy printer was key in having my DSLR photos printed into instax format.   (Amy Tan did a wonderful review post on the Pivy printer awhile ago- you can read it here).  However any portable printer would work, or an instax camera. (the Pivy just helped cut down in the number of cameras I was using on this trip).

Their pages are simple and basic.  But they LOVE them.  I LOVE them.  They are so proud of them.  They have shown so many people their books and they look at it all the time-- actually, more than any other scrapbook I have made.

A few pages from Jonah's book:

A few pages from Jordan's book:

 I can't express the joy I felt seeing them discover the love of documenting their own memories from their own point of view.  It is something I know they will cherish and look at for a long time!

diving into summer

i feel like we are finally starting to come out of the disney fog.


and getting into a *somewhat* summer routine.

which has involved a lot of swimming.


and sometimes with a shepherds hook (???)

The past two weeks have been full of VBS, swimming, light saber duals, loosing a front tooth, and having friends over.  



oh how i love the summer routine!!

Project Life Week 21: Last Week of School

This week's Project Life covers the week of May 20-26.

This was the last week of school for Jonah and also the week we left for Disney-- SO much going on, yet very few photos (because i was so busy!)

Week's like this i am reminded that it's not ONLY about the photos-- my words and thoughts hold just as much importance in documenting our lives.   I included lots of journaling about what went on this week.

Jonah had a fabulous teacher for kindergarten this year.  I added a note she wrote to me along with a picture of them on the last day of school.  There is a fabulous journaling card in the Cameron Large and Medium Journaling Tags that lists "My Favorites".  I used this as an "end of the year" interview prompt for Jonah.  Perfect.

Jordan has created a new habit where she asks every member of the family to "sign in"before our weekly Wednesday night dinner.  She sets up two chairs and we have to check in with her before being seated at the table.  It's too funny.  I saved a sign in sheet and included it this week.   I secured the page protector with Jenni Bowlin Studios paper tape, and used the Writer Stamp on the backside.

I love those Heidi Swapp alphas and used this on a photo of us pulling out for our trip to Florida! (even though it doesn't look like it, they were REALLY excited:)

Thanks for stopping by today!  Be sure to stop by Elle's Studio today to see my PL post.

Also linking up with The Mom Creative today

Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a way to simplify how you document life and preserve memories. Photo pockets used in my Project Life are created by Becky and can be found here. You can read all of my Project Life posts here.

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