Our big Christmas present to the kids was a BIG SURPRISE! I know I should probably blog our Christmas home decor and Christmas morning before this post… but I’m just gonna be a bad blogger and dive right into this one because I CAN’T WAIT to share the details and just chat all the Disney World things! hehe. In today’s post I’ll share the surprise reveal, all the details on what I put in their surprise trip box and a fun countdown craft we did!
Ben and I decided this would be the perfect year to take all 6 kids to Disney! Chase is still FREE a little longer and we haven’t been since Hunter was just a month old! He’s FIVE. somehow.
I seriously had the hardest time not telling the kids, especially my big girls! Because I knew they were going to all freak out. But it was worth the wait because their reaction on Christmas morning when they opened the surprise boxes were EVERYTHING I could have hoped for. I just loved how excited they were…and Sophia crying was classic Sophia haha. Love her grateful heart!
VIDEO OF THE KIDS UNBOXING THE SURPRISE TRIP PRESENT
Asher was a tad excited. haha. ;)
OK! Let’s chat what was in the boxes! The boxes themselves were from Hobby Lobby. I really wanted something that all ages of our kids could easily open at the same time. I didn’t wrap it because I knew that some kids would tear into it and be ready to see the surprise quicker. It worked out great for them to just pop open the top all at once! What you don’t see in the video is me jumping out of the shot after holding down the top of Chase’s till dad was ready to film it haha. He was the only wild card in the mix. But it worked out soooo great – everyone opened the tops and was shocked and excited all at once!
I was inspired by @homeofuandme to do personalized water bottles with disney stickers on them. I found these water bottles on Amazon and they keep the water SO COLD (the kids have already been using these.) They will be perfect for at the parks. And they work for all our kids’ ages (14-2.5)because of the flip up straw feature.
I got the cute personalized name stickers from – Wild June Studio
And the Disney stickers are from – Wish Upon Magic
I added these fun little mickey fidgets that I found off Amazon!
I really wanted to have a cute autograph book in the boxes for the kids…but all of the ones I found on Amazon were prettyyyy ugly and too expensive. So I decided for that I would do a DIY. I got these blank spiral notebooks. (perfect for flipping it up to a page for them to sign…and blank pages-no lines!) Took me a while to find the ones I wanted but these were perfect. I used my Cricut Maker to add some vinyl labels to each. Simple and cute – now they will know which one is theirs and have a fun little keepsake. I’m bringing the sharpies that you click at the top to open. (no lids.)and will have handy in my fanny pack.
I wanted to add a little snack they could enjoy Christmas Day (something salty after all the sweets they were getting.) Saw these Disney themed Gold fish packs at Target and grabbed them up.
The Disney ticket was a printable that I got off ETSY and I customized in photoshop. It originally had mentioned Santa on it but this was a gift from us, not Santa. I just loved how classic Disney it looked! You get a download and can print as many as needed. I personalized each one and printed them each out on card stock. There are SO MANY ticket options on Etsy. Seriously there’s just tons of fun Disney options on Etsy to begin with. I saw so many things I wanted to get but sadly, ship times didn’t work in my favor!
I wanted to have mouse ears in the boxes but I knew that the girls would want to have the fun (with me) of finding more puffy stylish ones. I thought the boys wouldn’t care as much and might not even end up wearing them at the park… You never know! BUT…the boys really loved these mouse ears. Perfect size for them! The girls and I had fun looking on Amazon and found some great puffy Minnie Mouse ears that are SO CUTE and we are going to wear together. I’ll share those over on insta!
We are doing 2 days at Disney World this time. Magic Kingdom ad Epcot. We are so excited!! It’s the perfect combo for the ages we have and have some of our favorite experiences + new rides we haven’t tried yet!
I created a Disney Trip board over on my @athomewithnatalie Amazon Page to share all the things I’ve bought for the trip. I knew I wanted to get light up stuff for the fireworks again. Found the coolest pop tubes that light up. Got some stroller accessories for our double stroller. It’s all over there!
Asher helped me make some countdown paper chains for the trip! He asked everyone what their favorite character was (or one of them!) and we made a paper chain that matched. (using what we had.)
Sophia – Ariel
Sienna – Charlotte from The Princess and the Frog
Micah – Baby Yoda
Asher – Buzz Lightyear
Hunter – Mickey Mouse/Iron Man- haha.
Chase – Donald Duck!
I knew I wanted to make a paper chain for each kid…because everyone would want to be the one cutting off the paper chain of that day and as a mom of 6…I’m all for reducing sibling arguments. ;) It worked out! Everyone could have the fun of their countdown. We hung them up in a main area of our home so that whenever we would pass by we could be reminded of the fun coming soon!
There are two youtube channels that have been SO HELPFUL as I plan our trip. First one is the very popular DisneyFoodBlog channel. Great info and content. I also LOVED watching an account called Ear Scouts. The guy is so calming and his videos are FULL of good tips. Planning a Disney trip ( as a parent) can be a little overwhelming….you want to make sure all the magic happens and have a big mental load of all the things to do…but he really helps you prioritize and makes it all seem so doable and not chaotic at all. So I highly recommend watching his videos!
We will be sharing our trip over on Instagram!
Follow a long for the fun! – @athomewithnatalie
