I'd rather get excited!

I tend to get a little over excited about Disney.  This trip for the Disney Social Media Moms Conference is no different.  Actually, it's probably worse, seeing as how I've never felt the need to color code my attack plan.  Oy vey people, I need help:

My ical layout for the trip.

That is just the tip of the iceberg.  I have my favorite guidebooks (The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World and Passporter's Walt Disney World book) all marked up with dog ears and highlighters.  I have all my dinner reservations (ADR's in Disney-speak) written out and stowed away in it's own little folder - along with my outgoing info for Disney's Magical Express pick up service.  It goes on and on, and it's out of control.

Being that their mother is obviously certifiable, my kids tend to get a little excited about Disney too.  It has been pretty manageable this time around - because they only found out 3 weeks before the trip.

( I should interject here that we always have the best intentions of surprising the kids with the trip.  We have done it successfully with smaller trips, but we can never hold in our excitement for Disney, so we always end up spilling the beans.  This can be hard for a kid if you let them know as far out as we have - over 2 months before our first family trip to WDW.)

The problem, then, was how do you keep your kids from going mad with anticipation?  Our solution is a countdown calendar.

The first year we made it a big deal and did a huge scavenger hunt.  We gave them clue cards and had them go searching around the house for the items that matched the clues; sunscreen, a bathing suit, a camera, a disney coloring book, etc.  They were to piece the clues together to figure out what we were doing.  (They were clueless.)  We even took the hunt on over to Grandma and Granddad's house.  (They were one of the clues because they were coming with us.)  To end the hunt, the girls found a personal note from Tinkerbell in my parents mailbox.  She told them how excited she was that they were coming, and gave them a cute little box with cards and stickers so they could make a countdown calendar.

My eldest getting a little cheesy.  We pulled off that day's card, and kept going til they were all gone.

I don't even remember how we told them about it last time, but we did make the calendar together again. This time, I wanted something to be left on the board to look at as we got closer, so we did it a bit differently.  We punched out circles that were glued onto the board and decorated them with stickers, drawings, and photo's of us on our last Disney trip.  Then we added a number that indicated how many more days til the trip.  On top of those circles, we stapled more circles - punched out of pretty scrap paper, with a matching date - and then attached it all to the board.

I don't have a good pic of the bottom circles, so just imagine their awesomeness.

This time we are going high-tech and have downloaded a countdown clock for the computer.  Mac users can try: The Disney Trip Countdown from Apple.  PC users can try one of the many countdown programs available via a google search - including the Intercot Countdown Timer.

These calendars have really thwarted the "Mommmmmmmy, is it time yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet?" questions.

It does not, however, stop them from saying, "Mommmmmmmmmy, I want to go to Disney NOWWWWWWWW!"

But, then again, it doesn't stop me either.