It’s Disney week here at Five in Tow!  If you’ve been reading along this week, you know that Jeff’s aunt and uncle took the three older children to Disneyland for the week.  We kept the trip a secret until the day they left.

Yesterday found us at the airport.  The kids had just received their personalized Mickey Mouse shirts.  They pulled them on over their heads, put their pixie dust necklaces on, and grinned at me because clearly, Mickey Mouse shirts and pixie dust and the airport are completely unrelated.

“So, what’s the surprise?”

I considered coming right out and saying it right there in the middle of section J-5 of short-term parking.

But I didn’t.

I had one more trick up my sleeve.  Enter the Disney gift bag, otherwise known as the if-you-don’t-get-it-after-this-you-never-will gift bag.

Ta-da!

Originally, I thought the kids could open these on the plane.  However, I also thought the kids could figure out they were going to Disney without the help of divine handwriting on the wall.

Alas.

Enter gift bags!  I grabbed the gift bags at the dollar store and added my own interpretation of the Disney theme (see his buttons?).  That didn’t go so well.  When I showed Jeff the bags, he looked at me blankly and asked me what eyeballs and to do with Disney.

Artists are so misunderstood.

While at the dollar store, I got some other Disney-themed goodies.  Did you know the dollar store has lots of (cheap) Disney stuff?  Here are some of the things I snagged to fill their bags:

Disney puzzles in tins, perfect for the plane ride

Autograph notebooks

I was going to make autograph books for the kids, but then I saw the Aladdin-inspired notebooks for the girls and thought, “Hey, that’s one less thing I have to do.”

Sometimes, the Fairy Godmother needs to outsource.

Next, I found Wish-Upon-a Star glow sticks for the Grand Parade.

I wanted the kids to save the glow wands for the parade and not use them for a mid-night light saber fight, so I wrapped them up and included a little note:

The handwriting isn’t that neat but you’ve gotta give the Fairy Godmother a little slack because she was in serious danger of going to the ball without mascara.

Scary.

Also, the dollar store had light-up bouncy balls, which I turned into these:

These would make great party favors for a birthday party, Disney-themed or not.  Simply change the wording to “I hope you had a ball!” and hand them out as the kids leave so that you don’t have to deal with a billion seizure-inducing light-up bouncy balls boinging around your kitchen while you’re trying to serve the cake.

Word to the wise.

I found Pixie Stix in the candy aisle, which was kind of a shame because I’d already made my pixie dust necklaces, but I couldn’t resist because a good two years of my childhood were fueled by Pixie Stix.

I bought them and later justified my indulgence by turning them into this:

Hey, the kids have to get home, right?

In my spare time, I also created two different kinds of “Mouse Mix” for the kids to munch on.

The first was Mickey Mouse mix, a concoction of pretzels, almonds, dark chocolate chips, dried cranberries, and coconut flakes.

I took the pretzels and put a dark chocolate chip in each “ear.”  Then, I stuck them in the oven at 350 until the chocolate softened.  Of course, chocolate chips are made to hold their shape so I had to dab them into the holes with a knife (because I had nothing better to do than to dab chocolate into pretzels) to make them look anything like mouse ears.

Use your imagination.

The second “Mouse mix” was just a bunch of different flavors of Jelly Belly candies in red, white, and black, the Mickey and Minnie Mouse colors.

I made a Mickey Mouse template using spice jars so I could trace and cut out Mickey Mouse labels for everything.

Using a real ribbon made everything look that much nicer and yummier.  Why is it that ribbon makes things taste better?

The last thing I did was create money holders for the spending money we were sending along with the kids.  Twenty dollars should be enough to buy…nothing.  Disney should take a hint from the dollar store.

I used the same template I had created for the labels, traced them onto felt, and used my hot glue gun to glue the edges together, leaving a small opening for the money.  I added hair bows for the Minnies and a snazzy bow-tie for MIckey that almost-completely-removed-my-fingerprints-because-I-stuck-my-fingers-into-the-hot-glue–ouch.

I wrote a poem to go with it (you knew I would).

If you can’t read it, it says:

Every story has to end,

So here’s some money for you to spend.

Buy a treasure, something neat,

Buy a memory you can keep.

Don’t forget to think of others

(Perhaps buy something for your brothers).

Ignore that glob of glue on MIckey’s bow tie.  Just like my fingerprints, it’s not there.

All of those things went into the gift bag, along with a few other random things like bubble gum for the plane ride and Disney stickers.  Would it be enough for the kids to figure out what was going on?

Well, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out!

I’m mean, I know.  But really, I’m hoping Jeff can help me edit the video so you can see the kids’ reactions yourself, and since I’m completely inept when it comes to hot glue and video editing, I need some help.  Also, this post is getting really long already and you probably have things to do, right?

Bwahahaha!  Stay tuned for the final Disney reveal, coming tomorrow!