Woody and Buzz

Let’s just start this post out by saying it’s a good thing we aren’t planning a trip to Disney World any time soon. Between my obsession with photo ops and the boys’ apparent fear of large characters I think the trip would be a frustrating experience, and who wants to pay big bucks for a frustrating experience? Not me!

Yesterday we had the opportunity to meet Buzz Lightyear and Woody and while the boys were all super excited to see them, only Chase was willing to get close enough for a picture…. and I had to be with him.

(Thanks Jen, for snapping the picture for me!)

So let me back up here and explain the situation…

A small group of moms (from Parent Educators to Bloggers) were invited to TLC, which is an emergency shelter for abused and neglected children. TLC does more than offer shelter though – they also work with families and people in the community to educate them on how to work with children. Yesterday we were spoken to about Play Therapy.

Play Therapy was a new concept to me, so I was interested to hear more about it. We had a speaker at our mom’s group this fall talk to us about it, but she really only skimmed the surface. Think about how your kids play… I don’t know about yours, but my boys love to pretend and they especially get a kick out of re-enacting things they’ve done or seen recently. For the last two weeks they’ve been pretending to pack up the van, drive a little ways, watch a basketball game and then sleep in a hotel. Clearly our trip to Springfield 2 weeks ago left an impression with them!

Did you know you can also use play to help your child work through issues? Sitting with your child while he or she draws and asking about the picture can lead to lots of discoveries, if you let the child lead the conversation. The same thing can happen when you’re playing with various toys. Here’s a good synopsis of Play Therapy, thanks to Wikipedia.

While the moms were hearing about Play Therapy, the kids were working on a fun little project… Making Mr. Potato Heads!

(Nice scrape Ty has, huh? That’s courtesy of Jackson.)

Local TV Celeb Elizabeth Alex (from NBC) was there, as she’s recently joined the staff at TLC.

After hearing about Play Therapy for 20 minutes or so, they brought in the two characters all the kiddos were there to see… Buzz and Woody! Buzz and Woody were there courtesy of Disney on Ice presents Disney Pixar’s Toy Story 3, which is currently playing in Kansas City. They donated 100 tickets to TLC so that the kids there could see the show! Very cool!

Like I mentioned earlier, the boys were all super excited to meet them and all claimed they wanted to give them high-fives and have their picture taken with them. Yeah. You can tell just by the look on Tyler’s face here that was not happening…

I can’t say as I blame Tyler and Jackson… Look at how big these two are! Woody didn’t fit through the doorway!

Even though Jackson and Tyler refused to go near them (and I kinda figured that would happen based on previous “character” experiences), they still had fun. During their dinner prayer they all said “and thank you for meeting Buzz and Woody today” and that sentiment was repeated during bed time prayers.

Yesterday was definitely a fun experience and I got a kick out of being handed a name tag that had the title “Blogger” on it! If you live in the Kansas City area and are looking for ways to “give back” and volunteer, TLC would be a great option! They have lots of upcoming fundraisers and opportunities… just check out their website!