Tag Archives: Family

Star Wars Weekends is an annual event, occurring each weekend in late spring (May-June) for several weeks at Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World. Hollywood Studios is filled with Costumes Star Wars characters and special Star Wars themed events, not to mention all the guests that dress up in costume too.

To be honest, I can’t remember if we have actually been to Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekends before, but Brett was pretty excited about it now that he shares his photos online with more than just our family.

One thing he really wanted us to do was one of the new Star Wars character meals. They were a new offering for this year and people kinda went a little berserk for them…I water on the phone over an hour on the first morning reservations opened up! We debated on which to reserve and ultimately decided on Jedi Mickey’s Star Wars Dinner at Hollywood and Vine for a few reasons. We thought it would be fun to see the Disney characters in Star Wars attire. We also thought Trent would like it better since he would still know who the characters were.

Also, the lighting in Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater is terrible. It provides great ambiance, but is a nightmare to take photos in, especially character photos. Since we had never been to Hollywood & Vine, we were a bit excited about that choice because we could experience a new place. Plus, it’s a buffet and Trent eats free!

However, as exciting as it seems that Trent eats free, the price of the meal was no joke…$55.99 for adults and $33.99 for kids ages 3-9. You are definitely paying a premium to meet the characters without standing in line. You also get a keepsake photo download.

We headed to Hollywood Studios just in time to make our 7:05 pm reservation. With dark clouds overhead, we knew it would storm at any moment…and with our luck, that moment would be when we pulled the car into our parking spot. So we had to quickly get our stuff together, put Trent in the stroller and walk as fast as we could inside the park. Needless to say, we were hot, exhausted and covered in sweat and rain by the time we got there…pretty nice right?

We parked the stroller, covered it with a poncho and then checked in…baking in the humidity and overabundance of people standing in the small area. Once you give the hostess your name, you stand in a short line to wait to have your photo taken with Chip and Dale. The photo set-up is right in the front as you enter Hollywood & Vine. I didn’t care where it was, as long as it was in the air-conditioning. I would have taken the photo in the bathroom if they made me.

Another cast member takes your bags and waits while you take the photo. Of course, she questioned what the heck Brett was carrying in his camera bag for it to be so heavy. I don’t know how he carries that thing all day.

You are given a special Photopass card with Jedi Mickey on it so you can view/download your photo online later.

We were pretty much expecting to look terrible in the photo, especially since Trent hasn’t been the best at posing for photos lately, but when I looked online afterward, I was surprised at how great it turned out. I am happy it was a free download, so Brett could Photoshop it to perfection…we may actually have a decent family photo!

We requested a booth and they were able to give us one thankfully. From check in to sit down took us no more than 10 minutes, including the time it took for the photo. Not bad.

Within a few minutes of being seated, our waitress took our drink order and then Brett went to fix Trent’s plate. Always bring the baby his food first (even though he’ll only eat 1/10 of it!)!

We took turns going up to the buffet and we enjoyed many of the options. My favorite choices were the Skywalker Ranch Chicken and the C3PO’s Cream Corn Spoon Bread.

I like how they named each food item with a Star Wars Theme…here are a bunch of photos from the buffet area.

Breads and rolls. Just to the right of this photo, they had butter and apple butter. I combined both on one piece of bread and it was delicious. I’m not one to fill my stomach with bread before a buffet, but I had to have two pieces with the apple butter.

Soups.

Salad and fruit salad.

Now I’ll let the signs do that talking. The photos of the signs are before each photo of the corresponding foods.

Create your own pasta.

Kids station.

So while we enjoyed our dinner, we also waited for each character to come around! Luckily, we were in a spot that we could see the characters coming to us, so I could pick Trent up and prepare for the interaction and photo.

Jedi Mickey!

Him and Minnie were perhaps the least interactive out of the 4 characters. They didn’t stay very long and immediately posed for the photo as soon as they got to us. Donald and Goofy interacted for at least a few seconds before turning for the photo.

Stormtrooper Donald!

Darth Goofy!

Princess Minnie!

As you can see, Trent would not turn to the camera for us. He just wanted to look at the characters, even with Brett yelling “Trent!” and making weird whistling sounds and all. Stubborn toddler - good thing we didn’t wait in a line for any of these!

But we can not forget about Dessert! There was a large dessert station with various small desserts, some themed towards the Darks Side (Red) or the Light Side (Blue).

Which side would you choose?

When we first sat down, our table had paper lightsabers that had blue on one side and red on the other, so you could roll them up and have a fun lightsaber to play with. At $55.99 a person, I would have liked to see something a little more useful, as these didn’t stay rolled up if you weren’t holding them.

But, since Trent had already chosen his side with his shirt, we rolled his up to create a red lightsaber…Dark Side it is!

So I chose the blue lightsaber and we battled it out until the death!

Watch as Mommy and Trent fight each other - see who wins!

Of course, in this scenario, death equals eventual sharing of C3PO-shaped cookies.

I wonder if that’s an alternate ending to the movies…

Overall, this was a fun event that was nice to say we did once. At this price, we won’t go rushing back and would probably opt to try one of the other special Star Wars character meals just to experience something different. I always like buffets, since we have 2 picky eaters in the family (not I!), so it was nice to get out of the rain and humidity and enjoy a themed buffet dinner with fun characters!

 

Stay tuned for our full trip report from this trip! In the meantime, if you’d like to enjoy our other Disney Trip Reports, you can find them here!

 

Well, to be honest, the weekend didn’t start out so great. Trent started a cold the day we got home from Disney, which means yours truly got it 2 days later on Friday. So poor Brett has to fight us off once again.

Then, since I “failed” my glucose screening (for gestational diabetes), I had to go back to the lab for the 3 hour glucose test. I actually got the phone call with the first test results on the first day of our trip, so that was a nice start to a vacation {sarcasm}. As soon as we returned, I looked up an appointment and found one for Saturday morning, which I thought would be great not having to take time off of work. I had to fast for 12 hours, which was absolute torture - I wanted to drink water so badly from my sore throat! I woke up and drove to the lab on Saturday morning only to be told they don’t take my test on Saturdays because they aren’t open long enough to do it. Even after asking why their online system let me make an appointment, I was told it was a glitch in the system and didn’t even get a sorry. And they wonder why pregnant women get all “emotional” or why I have high blood pressure…

After that, I laid down for a bit and then it was time to tackle this.

That is the current state of the nursery. Scary, huh? It was so much easier doing Trent’s nursery since his room was completely empty to begin with. This was our office/guest room. First, Brett had to fix up the crawl space behind his studio to store a bunch of stuff from this room…but you know how it goes, you have to make a mess before you can organize it all. But that was definitely a job that should have been done a few months ago, it was so hot up there!

Then, Brett moved the crib out of Trent’s room and put together his new bed!

We got the Kura bed from IKEA. At first, it starts as the 2 photos up top in the collage below (we even got the green canopy), then in a couple years, you can flip it into a loft bed with play space underneath. I’ll take photos once we get the bedding in there and clean up the mess we made

During all the cleaning/rearranging, Trent found a bunch of plastic Easter eggs and he decided to open every single one of them to look for candy. I felt bad and snuck a piece a candy in one he already opened, which then led to him going back and rechecking all of them. I can’t believe he remembered that from Easter!

In addition to Trent’s Easter egg hunt, he also kept busy with his Cars table he got for Christmas. It’s always great to know a gift still gets played with months later

In other sleep news, we found these at IKEA…they call them Spoka LED Lights. They are wireless children’s night lights…you just tap on the top and it will either change colors or stay one color. We got one for both of them.

So now, Trent holds Sheepy and the night light at night.

Another IKEA find were these fun stamp markers. If we had an IKEA near us, one of us would need to work there to pay for everything we buy.

Lastly, I wanted to share a photo I shared on Instagram and Facebook…I hope it makes you smile I hope you had a lovely weekend!

 

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We always knew we wanted to have some sort of sand or rock box for Trent once he was old enough for one. We also knew we want to “build” one, but we debated over which type of sand or rocks to buy.

We initially thought sand, but did you know that regular play sand is carcinogenic? Me either! You can get non-carcinogenic sand, but then we thought about how messy it could get and what a pain it would be to clean up.

So then the question was which type of rocks to get. We LOVED the rocks in the children’s fossil dig area at the T-Rex Restaurant in Downtown Disney, which were African Ivory Coast rocks…very small and almost sand-like. We looked for them online and found them to be very expensive for each bag…and seeing we would need at least 12 bags, we reconsidered.

We ultimately decided on Pea Pebbles/Gravel. It was like $3 a bag and we could get them at Home Depot. We are very happy with decision, as there were a variety of sizes in each bag…some as small as the African Ivory Coast rocks that we initially wanted!

Also from Home Depot was a 4×4 cedar raised garden bed kit that we got on sale for $35.

It was very easy to set up and fit perfectly in the corner of our back porch.

We had some leftover white pvc liner that we put on the bottom to have a layer between the floor and the rocks….which, as you can see, Trent the chalk artist used as his canvas one day.

The one thing with bags of rocks is that they can be pretty dirty, so each bag needed to be dumped and rinsed before going into the rock box. Brett drilled holes into a plastic concrete mixing basin to help with this (about $5).

He dumped a bag or two of rocks in at a time and then sprayed them with the hose.

Trent was such a good helper, too! He wanted to hold the hose and move the rocks around to get them all clean.

Brett initially laid out a tarp to spread the clean rocks onto for them to dry before transferring them to the rock pit…

But that process was taking too long and not worth the extra effort, so he just started letting them drain a bit in the basin and then put them into the rock box.

We ended up with about 4-6 inches of rocks in the rock box.

I don’t know who the bigger fan is, Trent because he’s in it all the time and can see it from inside the house and begs to go out to play in it all the time? Or us because it keeps him entertained without an iPad while we clean or relax?

Either way, it is definitely a hit. Sometimes Trent will still be in his jammies when he just can’t help himself and has to get in and play.

Even Sheepy likes the rock box apparently.

Trent likes to fill all his containers with rocks, if there is a toy that has a space for rocks to fit, it probably has rocks in it right now…trucks, buckets, you name it. Sand toys work great in the rock box.

He also likes to grab handfuls of rocks and put them on his head and let them roll off. Bath time is a necessity!

A rock box is an amazing addition to any household with a toddler!

 

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We had to decide the best way to get him to not freak out…sneak attack one cut at a time while he plays? Sit him in a chair and try to keep him occupied with the iPad and snacks? Strap him down in a straight jacket? Ok that last one was a joke, but we ultimately decided to put him in his booster seat at the dining room table with the iPad in front of him, a toy and a snack. It wasn’t the most convenient position for me, but it worked beautifully for Trent!

Of course, I had to pause for the dramatic parts of Toy Story 3, knowing he could move frantically in excitement at that moment…

So once I got started, I was definitely kind of awkward about it. I started on one side and couldn’t tell how much I needed to cut off or how even each side was with the other, since I couldn’t see him from the front, but I just kinda went with it and got more comfortable over time.

I was so proud at how well he was doing…especially since he’s seen this movie a million times!

Eventually, Sheepy joined us but stayed far away from the scissors.

Towards the end, we gave him a snack so I could quickly cut the front of his hair.

While it’s not perfect, it was definitely quicker and cheaper and gave us peace of mind to avoid a potential freak-out at the barber shop. I’m sure I’ll get better over time and now that we saw how well Trent did, Brett may even do it next time too, since he used to cut a friend’s hair for several years!

Trent is now ready to face the heat at Walt Disney World this week! (This was the best photo I could get that night…it’s nearly impossible to get him to sit still long enough for his hair to be brushed and have a photo taken without messing it up again! Crazy toddlers!)

My handsome boy.

 

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We haven’t had one of these weekend wrap-ups in a while, so let’s do one, shall we?

Saturday started with pool time since it was absolutely beautiful out. Sorry, no photos there, as it is becoming increasingly difficult to control both a toddler and camera around a pool at the same time. He wears floaties, but seems to have more fun getting out of the pool and running towards the fountain in the garden instead. He likes to kick and even says “Kick, kick, kick” while he’s doing it, so hopefully that’s one step closer to being able to swim!

Later that day, Brett needed a haircut and we needed to run into Walmart, so I thought it would be nice for Trent and I to get some shopping done while Daddy got his haircut.

There was no shopping to be had…instead we had the worst temper tantrum ever and had to leave the store.

It started out ok with Trent in the cart with the iPad, but as soon as I stopped to look at something, he wanted out asap. After I had to put stuff down a few times, I tried to put him back in the cart…to which he responded with a blood-curdling scream, forcing everyone in the aisle to turn around and look. So I figured I would let Trent play in the toy aisles until Brett was done with his haircut.

I even tried to do something new and put him on a bike he was obviously too small for. Omg…big mistake! He didn’t want to leave the bike and proceeded to throw himself on the ground when I put it back on the shelf.

I ended up having to leave and wait outside for Brett to pick us up while Trent screamed the entire time. Luckily, I was able to hold back the tears until I got in the car, at which time the pregnancy hormones took over and I was a mess. Dinner was picked up and consumed at home because a restaurant was the last place I wanted to be. I will never be dropped off at any store with Trent for a good 18 or so years.

We had another beautiful day on Sunday, so we thought it would be good for Trent to get his energy out at the Museum.

We were one of the first families there, which was good so Trent could run run run. He led the way the entire time…sometimes going further than we could see and us having to run after him. Fun times, indeed.

All the animals were out since it wasn’t too hot out yet.

Sun bear.

Deer.

Turkey. The turkey would make a sound and Trent would repeat it.

Otters.

Bear. Lazy bear.

In the 10 years I’ve been going to this museum, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the bear sitting up on this platform.

What does the fox say?!

In one part of the trail, they have various dinosaurs made out of metal. Trent sees them and goes “ROAHHRRR!”

Before we had Trent, we wouldn’t even go into this next room, which is a playroom for kids that are there for day camps and sleepover events. There’s some puzzles, books, and tanks with frogs and various small reptiles. But Trent had the most fun in here today…he loves puzzles and sat and did each one that was on the table.

Are you ready to see a pregnant mom try to get her son to walk through a tree stump?

You’re welcome.

It worked for about 2 seconds and then he ran back to his puzzles.

After a little while, we wanted to move on to the next exhibit, but Trent wasn’t quite ready.

Let’s play a game of “Where’s Trent?”

We tried to get Trent to follow us to the cow, but he was no longer interested.

Trent kept trying to fall asleep but we had to keep him awake while we went to lunch, which thankfully went well. I was worried after the tantrum the prior day.

After lunch, Brett ran into the store and we stayed in the car. He started out asleep in his car seat, but woke up, so I brought him over to me. This was a much more relaxing way to get shopping done than the prior day. I vote to make Brett do the shopping from now on!

He ended up napping for 2 more hours after we got home. An exhausting weekend for sure. Any chance we got, we were preparing for our upcoming Disney trip. Stay tuned for a little pre-trip report in the next couple of days!

 

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