Magical Disneyland

 Disneyland is the most amazing theme parks in the world. Arriving at Disneyland you can feel the magic. The park is beautifully landscaped, and immaculately kept. Disney is great for everyone, young and old. It is the perfect place to make amazing family memories.

Here are a few tips and tricks to make your Disney vacation more fun!

• Take a light weight backpack. Fill it with food, sunscreen, and ponchos or jackets.

• Take an umbrella. Sometimes it can get very hot, and it is so nice to have an umbrella to shade yourself during those long line waits.

• Give each child a set amount of money. Let them buy what snacks or toys they want. When the money runs out, it’s gone.

• Early entrance to the park can save you hours of waiting in line for rides. Your Magic Morning will give you a full hour before the park opens to the public. Get to bed early the night before or take a nap. You will save so much time by going early.

• Pack a lunch, take snacks, and water bottles for drinks. The food in the park is expensive and honestly not very good.

• One thing that Disney is best at is crowd control. They will put many things on your way to the rides to distract you and your family. Disney charters, toys, balloons, food, and photo opportunities. DON’T GET DISTRACTED!! Bypass all the fun, and get to the rides. The lines are the shortest at the beginning of the day. Promise your kids you WILL go back and visit all those fun things later in the day!

• Use Disney’s Park app to keep track of FAST PASS time and wait time in lines. http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2011/08/disney-parks-mobile-magic-app-is-now-free/

• Use your FASTPASS first! Get a FASTPASS for a bigger ride like Splash Mountain, or Indiana Jones. Then go to Pirates, or Buzz.

• Splash Mountain: if you have big kids who want to ride on Splash mountain, but you also have little kids. Let one person take the big kids on splash. Right next to splash there is a Winnie the pooh ride that is perfect for little kids!

• ToonTown usually opens at around 10am. It is the best place to go as the park gets busier. In ToonTown there is a ride called the Goofy rollercoaster, my two boys LOVE riding it over and over! They get to ride it and I get to sit and relax!

• The monorail is really fun even if you are not staying at one of Disney’s properties. Ask to ride in the front. Take a loop with the conductor around Disney’s property!

• Take a full loop on the train ride. You might be surprised at what you get to see.

• Fantasmic: unless you have someone sit and reserve a spot for two-three hours, you will not get to see a great view of it! It was an excellent show, but won’t go again. Best spot is front and center, right by the entrance of Pirates.

Disney California:

• Color of Wonder is amazing I highly recommend it. With little kids it is best to try to get the early time, normally 7pm. Get to Disney California right when the park opens. Go directly to the FASTPASS area by Grizzle Gulch, that is where they distribute the passes. Use your Disney tickets to get the Color of Wonder tickets. It will not effect your ability to get other FASS PASS tickets.

• Unless you want to get soaked, buy a few dollar store rain poncho’s for Grizzly gulch. Most people get off the rides completely soaked.

Brighten Your Boys Outfit!

Boys don't have the wide selection of fun clothing that girls do.  Shoe laces can really brighten and make boys outfits really cute!  My two boys have loved to match the color of their shoe laces to the color of their shirts.  The cute of color from boys shirts matching to their shoes mades a huge fashion statement.   They have both loved dressing with their fashion shoe laces.

These shoe laces were purchased at all a dollar.  They had so many colors to pick from; blue, green, yellow, pink, red and purple. 

Why I love Target Pharmacy...

There isn't a mom out there that likes to give medication to their kids.  If you have ever spilled a bottle of antibiotic and WISHED there was a better way, I can tell you THERE IS!  Most pharmacy's give you a wide mouth medication bottle.  It can be a very difficult sticking your syringe down into the pink medication and trying to fill it. 

At your local Target pharmacy they have the best solution, and it is FREE with your prescription.   All of their liquid medications come with a stopper with a dosing hole for the syringe.  It looks just like the stopper you have in Italian dressing bottles.  You can easily fill the correct medication dose with a syringe.  It makes dosing is so much easier.  An added bonus at your Target pharmacy is that you can request flavors to be put into your medication.  They have all kinds of flavors, but I have heard from a pharmacist that the grape flavor hides the nasty taste of medications the best.   If you are going to have sick kids, and have to give them medication for 10 days, why not make it easier on yourself! 

You can also purchase a kit with the dosing stopper caps at this link.
http://www.dogehouses.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=41&products_id=203
It does come from a dog website, but as long as you boil sterilize the product before use, you will not have any problems. 

As an added bonus, I want to tell you about limiting the drowning of your salads.  It is in regards to the same looking stopper.  "Wish Bone" salad dressing is my favorite dressing.  Usually my children try to pour their own dressing on their salads, and they get a GUSH of dressing. Their plates can be completely covered with dressing.  I have found that pulling you can pull out your stoppers from your Italian dressing bottles, and put them on your thicker dressings.  This helps my children to pour their OWN dressing on their salads.  The stopper saves the day every time!  Just use a butter knife to pull the stopper off.  Getting the stopper off might be a little tricky the first time, so use a cutting board.  Make sure you WASH the stopper so you don't cross contaminate.  You will be amazed at how much less salad dressing is wasted with just a little tiny stopper cap! 

Enjoy!