Amanda Stanton

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Amanda Stanton Special Needs Parenting (Autism, CP & Moebius Syndrome), Kid Travel Tips & Mom Self Care

🎄Our Christmas Disney World Trip 🎄We loved having dining reservations at several different resorts and then getting to s...
18/12/2025

🎄Our Christmas Disney World Trip 🎄

We loved having dining reservations at several different resorts and then getting to see how the different resorts decorated for Christmas while keeping to the overall feel and theme of the resort. All of the ones we visited were so lovely and festive, but also so unique. If you’ve seen the decor at one Disney resort, you’ve seen it at only one.

Zoe loved seeing all of the trees and the lights, and that each resort plays Christmas music too (and still themed to each individual resort).

🎄Our Christmas Disney World Trip🎄Hollywood decorated for Christmas was beautiful! I think it felt even more decorated th...
18/12/2025

🎄Our Christmas Disney World Trip🎄

Hollywood decorated for Christmas was beautiful! I think it felt even more decorated than Magic Kingdom, which I didn’t expect.

It rained on us a lot while we were at Hollywood, but we still had a great time and we got to do/ride everything that was important to us this trip. And this was the only yucky weather day we had. There were a couple of chilly days, but we came prepared for the weather so that wasn’t an issue. Overall, it was a great trip with lovely weather.

🎄Christmas at Disney World 🎄The Polynesian has always been one of my favorite resorts to visit. The tropical decor is so...
16/12/2025

🎄Christmas at Disney World 🎄

The Polynesian has always been one of my favorite resorts to visit. The tropical decor is so pretty, but it also feels very casual and comfortable. It’s not a super quiet place, so it’s not nerve-wracking to visit with small kids who may be a bit excitable. And I love that the Christmas decor reflects that atmosphere and theme. 🌺 🍍

Dinner at Ohana was so good. The noodles were our favorite, and I can see why so many people talk about them. It was probably our favorite dinner of the trip. And since there aren’t characters at this meal (and we scheduled dinner at 9:30pm), there weren’t many little ones there at all, a plus for Zoe.

The Polynesian also has Abby’s favorite coffee spot at Disney, so we went by a couple of times to get her one on our way to other places.

🎄Our Christmas Disney World trip 🎄Zoe is usually pretty motivated to explore and clean our room when we first get there ...
16/12/2025

🎄Our Christmas Disney World trip 🎄

Zoe is usually pretty motivated to explore and clean our room when we first get there (even after 12 hours in the car 😅 ), but with so much space, she was busier than usual for the first day.

I want to stress that the room felt ✨ very clean ✨ Wiping down surfaces, dust mopping, she was picking up absolutely nothing, and we were really impressed actually.

It worked out that she was so motivated the first day because with our schedule for this trip, she didn’t have as much down time at the resort the rest of the week like we would for a beach trip. And these things were specifically on the is list of things she wanted to do while we were there, so I’m glad she got to do them without our having to modify our schedule to make it happen. ❤️

*We did not stay on property. We have before, but it’s way more expensive and we can have a longer trip, with more chill days in between those exhausting park days if we don’t. We have a timeshare that we pay for anyway, so it’s much cheaper for us to use it instead. I wanted to put that out there because I usually get several questions about which resort we’re in. This is Cypress Pointe, and it was great!

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And we’re off for a week at Disney World to see the Christmas decorations and celebrate Abby’s 18th birthday. 🎄🎂❤️It’s a...
13/12/2025

And we’re off for a week at Disney World to see the Christmas decorations and celebrate Abby’s 18th birthday. 🎄🎂❤️

It’s a very long drive for us to Orlando (about 12 hours), and we do it in one day, with just a few stops to refuel, eat and take restroom breaks. We’ve never flown with Zoe partially due to the sheer amount of stuff that we bring, but also because we prepare and travel with all of Zoe’s food for the trip, most of it frozen. I think we can make that work while also flying, but we haven’t tried yet.

Decorating trees is her FAVORITE. She could do this everyday and not get tired of it I think. 🎄This is a volunteer servi...
12/12/2025

Decorating trees is her FAVORITE. She could do this everyday and not get tired of it I think. 🎄

This is a volunteer service I think we should offer to people who want their tree up and decorated, but have trouble doing it themselves. It would have that imperfect, “kids helped with this,” feeling; people who need help decorating could enjoy having their tree ready for Christmas, and she would LOVE IT. ❤️

This is the second year in a row that we were going to be out of town for St. Nicholas day (Dec.6), so we did stockings ...
12/12/2025

This is the second year in a row that we were going to be out of town for St. Nicholas day (Dec.6), so we did stockings early again this year.

Grady and I wait on ours until Christmas Day. Getting the girls’ (and Ragland’s) together and ready this early is just about all we’re capable of, so we’re happy to focus on theirs first and then ours later.

It’s been a busy few weeks, but it’s a fun time of year. 🎄
12/12/2025

It’s been a busy few weeks, but it’s a fun time of year. 🎄

Easily Zoe’s favorite day of the year 🎄Zoe talks about our trip to the Christmas tree farm for MONTHS leading up to the ...
10/12/2025

Easily Zoe’s favorite day of the year 🎄

Zoe talks about our trip to the Christmas tree farm for MONTHS leading up to the day. If anything comes up at the last minute for that day, it’s a no for us. This is what we’re doing.

It’s a whole thing. We go pick out our tree, bring it home, put away all the fall things, put it up, add the lights and decorate while cookies bake. It’s a lot for one day, and I think I may try to start putting away fall decor beforehand next year just to make it less chaotic.

Black Friday shopping 🛍️ After our super low-key Thanksgiving, this was a lot of fun. We mostly go for fun, no schedule,...
10/12/2025

Black Friday shopping 🛍️

After our super low-key Thanksgiving, this was a lot of fun. We mostly go for fun, no schedule, no must-get items that we run after, fight over, or stand in line for hours to get.

We go and enjoy the holiday bustle, the festive music and store decorations. We’ll usually pick up a couple of gifts (usually clothes, the kinds of things you like to choose in person), and we’ll usually find a couple of items for ourselves. Mostly it’s a fun day; we look around and we eat a couple of times. ❤️

The girls were invited for the first time last year (it’s always been a grown-up event, mainly because we were shopping for them tbh). Zoe doesn’t come for the whole day, but she enjoys joining us for the last store or two and going to dinner with us. She spends most of the day doing fun things at home with her dad. This year I think they spent a chunk of that time installing her new bedroom ceiling fan.

Thanksgiving 2025 🦃 🥧 🍁 It was a very chill day, and we didn’t get one photo of all of us together. We had planned on fr...
10/12/2025

Thanksgiving 2025 🦃 🥧 🍁

It was a very chill day, and we didn’t get one photo of all of us together. We had planned on friends coming over to share it with us, but they had sickness at their house and we made the grown-up choice to let their kiddos rest at home and to keep the germs as far from Zoe as possible (and us too really). Sickness tends to hit Zoe harder than the rest of us, and recovery takes much longer, so not something we like to play around with.

It was a little boring, but we had a very calm, quiet day, filled with cooking. Grady made a trip to our friends’ house to swap meal components since we were making part of the meal, and they were too. That way we all had the complete meal to enjoy with our families.

🎄 Panama City Beach 🎄
08/12/2025

🎄 Panama City Beach 🎄

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