Hi Sandi!
I can understand your dilemma absolutely! Adding the Park Hopper Option to your tickets does increase your flexibility daily for such things as dining options inside the parks or splitting a final day between kids' favourite parks or attractions, but it certainly does add to your overall cost.
If you're planning on spending full days at each park and are happy with dining options inside each of those parks for the day you're there, (remember also that you can pop down to Downtown Disney for the evening any time as well to mix things up ... this works especially well on an Animal Kingdom park day) you'll likely find that a Hopper isn't necessary and you may have an 'extra' on your wish list that you can instead spend that extra on like Disney's Family Magic Tour at Magic Kingdom, Behind the Seeds at Epcot or even a 'Date Night' out for dinner or a dinner show while the youngsters are checked into one of Disney's many
Children's Activity Centers.
I used to always, always add the Park Hopper Option to our family's tickets, but have found in the past three or four visits that we can easily make do with one park daily, even though we enjoy the Deluxe Dining Plan!
My recommendation would be to go with the five day base ticket to allow yourself that extra day or partial day in an additional or second park, and save the extra for something additional that's fun & exciting that you may have otherwise overlooked!
Wishing you a simply Magical time on your Walt Disney World vacation Sandi!
Kirsten