Disney World Countdown

With our impending "year of poverty" upon us, the Henderson family is having one last Hurrah! (mainly because we already had the trip planned when we found out Troy made it into nursing school).  Our trip did set up a really fun conversation when we got the acceptance letter.  I was able to say "So, you've just been accepted in UAB'S AMNP program!  What are you going to do next?"  To which Troy emphatically responded, "I'm going to DISNEY WORLD!!!"

Taking a 5, 3 and "turning 2 while we are there"-year old to Disney for the first time, we wanted to do something to help build anticipation.  I looked on Pinterest for some ideas of Disney countdowns.  While I was able to find some great ideas for the countdown itself, I couldn't find a varied list of activities for each day.  So, I decided to combine the GetAwayTodayVacations chain with the Vermillion Rules chain.  I also used some of Vermillion's activities with some I made up myself.

Our list of 30 activities is as follows:
Bounce Around the Room like Tigger
Dress up as your favorite Disney princess
Sprinkle a little "pixie dust", think a happy thought, and fly around the room like Peter Pan
Watch your favorite Disney movie
Name the character you are most looking forward to seeing in Disney World
Name the ride you are most looking forward to riding in Disney World
Pretend to take a magic carpet ride with Jasmine
Make phone number bracelets
Eat an apple in honor of Snow White
Color a Disney picture
Sing your favorite Disney song
Work on your Autograph Book
Wear Disney pajamas to bed tonight
Have Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast
Play the Disney Princess Memory game
Play Disney Monopoly
Read your favorite Disney story
Make Disney hair bows
Make Mickey Mouse Cookies
Play freeze dance with Disney music
Get new Disney stickers
Play Pluto's dog bone hunt
Eat Disney gummies
Have an Un-birthday Tea Party
Like Lady and the Tramp, have spaghetti for dinner
Play DisneyJr.com for 30 minutes
Make Mickey Mouse Ears
Go look for buried Treasure
Put together a Disney puzzle
Do the "Hotdog Dance" from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

*Now, this list was made based on what we already had available and the fact we have three little girls.

First of all, I printed out my list using Disney font (Waltography) and cut them into 8.5"x1.25" strips.  I then cut out thirty 8.5"x1.5" strips.  I used three different colors for our three children - that way they each get to remove their own color and there will not be fights over who gets to remove the link that day.

Now, if we had a working printer at our house, we could have just printed the list onto the colored paper, but that would have also taken planning to put the red ones on a page, the white ones...etc.  However, being the weirdo I am, I did have to sit down and plan activities around our calendar because some activities are more involved than others and might require more time to accomplish.  So...I sat down with every calendar we had to figure out what needed to come what day.

 Then I was able to glue the activity to the red, yellow and white strips alternating for each girl.

Next, my little assistants helped staple the links to one another to make the chain.  (I did keep my master list next to me to make sure the activities stayed in order through each step.

 For the final piece, I took a black strip that was 8.5"x1.5", measure out 1/2" on either side of the center of the strip, and using an X-acto knife, cut a 1" slit horizontally across the center.  Then take 1.5" circles cut from the same black paper and inset through the slits.

Place a small amount of glue on the piece of the ear that sticks through the bottom.  Bend that little piece flat against the bottom of the strip to secure the ears and make them stand up.

 Finally, attach the black strip to the  last activity link (which if red, looks really cute with two white hole punch dots as the buttons on your "Mickey pants").

This list also has given me material to post for the next month.  I'll let you know how the countdown goes and include instructions on any that may seem confusing.  Now we just have to wait a few more days to begin the countdown.