Tip for Packing Children's Clothes for Travel

We are heading out this weekend to visit our family in Long Island -- to celebrate Christmas! (And then after that we are really done with the season for this year!!) We have been racing around finishing our Christmas shopping (crazy!) and making some homemade gifts for our Kris Kringle gift exchange with my husband's siblings -- I can't wait to show the two things that I made (found them from a fellow blogger's site -- loved them!!) -- I'll show you pictures and include a link after we get back! I grocery shopped on lunch today, took the girls for a visit to see my grandmother who recently moved into a nursing home -- one quick visit before we head out of town! -- my husband has been doing laundry, we've packaged up gifts, packed bags to entertain the kids (and me!) in the car -- you name it! My eldest daughter has a chorus concert tomorrow night so we are trying to get everything done and have the car packed before we go tomorrow so that we can get up and head out by 5:00am on Friday (yikes!).

I am a terrible packer of clothing -- my own and my children's. We're taking a short trip, but I don't know about the weather and we are going out one night and of course I hate everything in my closet -- so I'm bringing all of it in the hopes that I'll like it better when I'm looking at it in someone else's mirror... All week I've been throwing things into bags and every time we go on a trip I find that I a) over pack, and b) throw in weird combinations of clothes for my children "just in case..." Tonight, I took a deep breath and I decided to organize by outfit -- particularly for my 5-year-old. She counts on us to lay her clothes out for her, and tonight I thought the most organized way to do it would be to put together whole outfits -- top, bottom, underwear, undershirt, socks or stockings. Once I did that, I took the undergarments and the socks/stockings and I opened up the "top" for the outfit and I tucked everything inside. So in her bag, I don't have a sea of underwear and socks and undershirts -- I have complete outfits, ready to go! I even took the time to put them in order of when I planned for her to wear them. Jammies for the first night on top, outfit for a birthday party, outfit for Christmas celebration, comfy outfit for the car ride home. I did pack 2 spare outfits -- just in case. And on my dresser is an outfit for her all ready for the early morning car ride on Friday.

Sometimes I think I am saving myself time by grabbing things and throwing them in a bag whenever I have a moment to spare -- this time I took a little extra time, concentrated on what I was doing and organized her bag. It probably took me 15 - 20 minutes at the most and it will save me time and headaches on our trip!