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!

Start Spreading the News -- We're Back (from NYC...) ;)

We took a few days off to travel first to Long Island for my niece's 8th grade graduation (from the Catholic school that she has attended since Kindergarten!), and then it was on to New York City for the weekend, to attend a family wedding. We had a wonderful trip (although, the parking garage did a number on the side of our minivan -- not thrilled about that at all...)! We made it into a mini vacation and Grandpa and Gramby were wonderful enough to fly in for the weekend to watch the girls while we attended the wedding! They took the girls to see the Museum of Natural History (aka the "Night at the Museum" museum...) and they also took them to dinner at Ellen's Stardust Diner on Broadway -- a fun, fifties diner that is very family friendly! All of the waiters and waitresses have wonderful voices and they take requests and sing while they are working -- the girls loved it! We were able to get connecting rooms in the hotel, so while we were at the wedding Grandpa and Gramby put the girls to bed in our room, and were able to relax and watch tv or read in their room while the girls slept (or pretended to sleep, as the case was...).

On Father's Day, after having a lovely "day after the wedding" brunch with the family, we walked around the city and took the girls to FAO Schwartz. This is so much more than just a toy store -- there were exciting things to see, bigger than life toys, hands-on activities -- we all had a great time! We stopped to watch two men dancing along, playing the huge piano from the movie "Big" with Tom Hanks. I remember when my mom and I went to NYC for my first time when I was 17 or 18 -- we were so disappointed, because the "Big" piano was a SMALL version -- nothing like in the movie. This time it did not disappoint, and after the two men were done with their performance, they opened it up for children and adults to try it out. We took pictures of each of our girls on the piano -- too cute!



In addition to that fun experience, the girls enjoyed making crafts at one the many interactive tables around the store. There were lots of opportunities for the kids to try out different toys -- surprisingly, we did not go crazy on souvenirs! I think each girl walked away with 3 souvenirs, and that included a dress up outfit for my little one to wear to her princess-themed birthday party, and my older daughter picked out a Gryffindor scarf, a stuffed dragon, and some Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans from the Harry Potter section of the store.

After FAO Schwartz, it was back to the hotel for a (brief!) nap and then off for a nice dinner before heading to Broadway to see "Mamma Mia!" This was our girls' first Broadway show and while many people would think "Mary Poppins" or "The Lion King" for our girls, we knew that "Mamma Mia!" would hold both of their attentions! We have the movie and it is a favorite of both of the girls -- even our little one knows ALL of the songs! They were both very good at the show, and afterward, when we were heading back to the hotel (after dessert back at Ellen's Stardust Diner!!) the girls saw the poster again and my little girlie ran up, hugged it, and started singing the title song, "Mamma Mia!" Too cute -- had to take a picture (but was longing for my video camera!!)!

It was a whirlwind, but it was a wonderful trip! My husband grew up in Long Island and he worked in Manhattan for quite a while before coming back upstate and meeting me! He loves the city and it has been such a long time since we have spent any real time there. This trip made us realize that the girls are old enough to enjoy visiting NYC, and we only scratched the surface of what it has to offer this past weekend. We are definitely looking forward to our next visit!

Child Safety Seats

I remember when I was pregnant with my first child and going to register for my baby shower -- I read so many different things about child safety seats and child restraint systems for the car! We were fortunate and we essentially received THREE different car seats / child safety seats that carried us through all of the years that our child needed a safety seat. We had the infant carrier with the base that stays in the car, the convertible child safety seat, and then the booster seat. However, just having the right types of safety seats is not enough -- you also need to keep track of how long your child should be in each seat, and when it's time to move on to the next level! Over the past 9 years, between our first and second daughters, I have found myself looking up child safety seat info on numerous occasions -- not just to see when I could move my girls into the next car seats, but also when we have traveled out of state. Different states have different requirements -- if you are traveling to another state, it is a good idea to look on that state's DMV website to make sure you are following their requirements. The information below is the current child safety restraint information for New York State -- please make sure to check your own state's Department of Motor Vehicle information for your area's safety restraint requirements.

Safety Restraints

Are child safety seats and child restraint systems required in New York State?

New York State law requires all children under the age of four to ride in safety seats. Before November 24, 2009, the law requires that all children ride in child restraint systems until their 7th birthday. As of November 24, 2009, this requirement applies to all children until their 8th birthday. Safety seats and child restraint systems must be certified according to Federal Motor Vehicles Safety Standard 213. Follow the instructions of the manufacturer of the seat or system, and make sure you install and use the seat or system correctly. The web site of the Governor's Traffic Safety Committee has a list of permanent child safety seat fitting stations in NYS.

How do I select the correct child safety seat or child restraint system?

To select the correct protection for your child, carefully read the recommendations of child safety seat or child restraint system manufacturers.  The recommendations tell you what age weight and height a child can be to use the seat or system.  The recommendations are normally printed on the outside of the package. 

An appropriate child safety restraint system:

- Is required for all children until their 8th birthday as of November 24, 2009,. (Prior to November 24, 2009, the requirement applies to children until their 7th birthday), and

- Must meet the size and weight requirements for the child based on the Federal requirements and the recommendations of the manufacturer, and

- Can be a child safety seat, a harness, a vest or a booster seat attached with the vehicle seat belt system, but not the vehicle seat belt alone, and

- Should not be used in the front seat of the vehicle.

These examples can help you to select the correct child safety seat: 

- Infant seats are normally for infants that weigh approximately 22 pounds or less, are 25 inches or less in length. Always place the seat in the back seat of the vehicle and make sure the child safety seat faces rear of the vehicle. Never put an infant in the front seat of a vehicle that has a passenger-side air bag.

- Convertible child safety seats are normally for infants or toddlers that weigh approximately 40 pounds or less. For infants, face these seats toward the rear of the vehicle. Follow manufacturer instructions to adjust the seat as the child grows. For the best possible protection, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) recommends that a child continue to face the rear for as long as possible up to the weight and height limits specified by the seat manufacturer. For toddlers, you can change a convertible seat to face the front of the vehicle.

- Booster seats are for children who have outgrown convertible or toddler seats. Booster seats are for children who are four to eight years old, weigh 40 to 80 pounds, and are less than four feet, nine inches in height.  You can use a booster seat until an adult seat belt correctly fits the child without use of the booster seat. Always use both the shoulder and lap belts with a booster seat. Never use only the lap belt with a booster seat. · Built-in child seats are available with some vehicle models.

- Built-in child seats fold away from the standard car seats. Do not use these seats for infants.

Always read the instructions and the information provided in the vehicle owner manual about the use of child safety seats or child restraint systems. Make sure you install and use the seat or system correctly at all times.  Never use an infant seat in the front seat of a vehicle that has a passenger-side air bag. Make sure that other passengers use their seat belts. Read more tips on the correct use of safety seats and child restraint systems.

I thought this was a great picture for this post -- I actually have 3 different-aged children, in 3 different safety seat / restraint situations -- in one picture! What are the odds! ;) This is my eldest daughter sitting in the car with a seat belt, our friend in the middle who is sitting in a booster seat with a seat belt and my youngest daughter in a convertible car seat.

Disney Vacation - It's the Little Things...

I thought I would share some of the little things that we did that worked out great:

Bringing a soft-sided cooler! My friend Kim who recently traveled to Disney with her husband and their triplets recommended this, and I’m glad I took her advice! We tucked a small, soft-sided cooler into one of our bags that we checked, but we could have used it as a carry-on, if we needed to. Having the house with the full fridge & freezer, we were able to buy cases of water at the nearby Super Walmart, and freeze the bottles of water to pack in our coolers. This was a great cost-savings with water at the parks being sold for $2.75 per bottle, and with the temperature in the 90’s we were going through water, well, like water! The other great thing about the cooler (and Super Walmart…) was that we picked up Lunchables, apples & grapes to bring for the girls – this was after getting lunch for each of them (kid’s meals ran about $4.99 - $6.99) and combined, our girls did not eat enough to make up 1 kid’s meal! This was not even about the money savings, but the desire to have our children eat something other than ice cream and popsicles!

Speaking of Super Walmart, on the way to the parks the first day, we stopped in to pick up autograph books – $1.50 per spiral bound Disney autograph books – not as fancy as the ones I bought two years ago for $15 (!) but, they more than did the trick! Around the Orlando and Kissimmee area, there are tons of places that sell Disney souvenirs for less money than you can buy things inside the park. Now, my husband will tell you that I am the FIRST one to buy souvenirs at the parks, but I would rather spend my souvenir money on snuggly, adorable stuffed animals that my kids will love and cuddle with, as opposed to $15 on an autograph book that will sit in their memory box.

This trip and our last trip, I bought a few inexpensive Disney souvenirs in preparation for the trip, and brought them along to surprise my kids. This is something that my friend Kim also did for her kids. It’s a little touch that helps to make the trip special for your kids, and it can also significantly cut down on the amounts of souvenirs that you buy at the park. The week before we left, I lucked out, walking into Target to find their $1 section filled with Disney princess pens, pencils, notebooks, sticker books, and even socks – I picked up a few things for each of my girls, handed them out here and there on the trip, and they loved them!

If your kids love to dress up in costume – bring a costume with them to Disney! There are tons of kids walking around in princess costumes, Jack Sparrow costumes, you name it! We were able to bring Minnie Mouse for my littlest one and Tinkerbell for my older daughter (their costumes from Halloween two years ago!). My little one wore her Minnie costume all over the park and was very happy! My older daughter wore her costume from the rental house to the Magic Kingdom, and then just as we got to Main Street USA (you know, 2 feet into the park entrance…) she decided it was itchy and decided to change! Imagine how delighted Mom and Dad would have been if we had gotten there without a costume and fell into that spell of “oh, ok, we’ll buy you one because they look so cute and everyone else is wearing one!” and THEN she had decided not to wear it! You know your kids – if they like to dress up, it’s worth looking for an inexpensive costume at home, pulling one out the closet, borrowing one from a friend… And, you know I’m a sucker for pictures – another great photo op!

In this age of digital cameras, I was concerned about running out of space on my camera’s memory card. For $20 I purchased a 2GB memory card for my digital camera and this was WELL worth the expense! Previously, I was able to take about 100 pictures on my digital camera. With the new memory card – over 1000!! And as I mentioned in one of my previous posts – I ended up taking over 570 pictures! This is one of those trips that you will not want to miss taking pictures of your kids – their faces when they see the characters, the castle – it’s a magical place! I was happy that I thought to get that card prior to leaving – I may have been able to buy it at one of the parks, but I would have paid a fortune for it, and I would have hated to run out of memory and miss a great photo opportunity!

This one I didn’t plan – just lucked out – but next time I will do the same thing for sure! I had packed lots of clothes for us, and when I unpacked at the house, I realized that I had lots of options for matching shirts! The first day I did this, my husband said dryly, “Really? We’re going to be one of those matchy-matchy families?” Yep! But in the end, he didn’t mind and played along (except for pink shirt day… he just didn’t have anything with him to match!). It ended up being great for a couple of reasons – first of all, it’s a GREAT way to keep track of your family! One of use was always with our kids, but if he or I went to the bathroom, the Fast Pass line, to get the stroller, we could easily find our family again in the crowd! And an added bonus? We looked cute for pictures! Disney is a GREAT place for family pictures, and who knows, maybe you’ll end up with next year’s Christmas card photo! I was showing my pictures to our intern at work, and she mentioned that her family did the matching shirt thing when they went to Disney – but they had fun with it, they made tie-dye shirts – a different color for each day, and they got the kids in on the fun of making them!

There were lots of little things that worked out well on this trip, but these are the ones that really stuck in my mind and helped us out a lot! What ideas do you have for making traveling with the kids easier?

Disney Vacation - What We Did Right - Planning

As I mentioned, we just got back from a wonderful trip to the "Wonderful World of Disney" and there were some things that we would do differently (which I'll address in a later post), but there were many things that we were happy we did. Here are some of the things that helped us plan our trip:

1) Flexibility - we were able to be fairly flexible about when we took our trip. This helped with expenses, because originally we talked about going in March or April and airfare was VERY expensive at that time. Ideally, we would have gone during our daughter's school recess, but for the 4 of us to fly during that week would have cost us $2400. We weighed our options, fortunately our daughter is a good student, and we spoke with her teacher well in advance and were able to get the work that she was going to miss. Being able to be flexible on the dates saved us a lot of money, which was great!

2) Pre-planning - we knew well in advance that we were going to make this trip to Disney and that along with our flexibility on travel dates, allowed us the time to watch the airfares and buy tickets when they were at their lowest -- we flew roundtrip, all 4 of us for $708! BIG difference from the $2400 I mentioned earlier! We also had the time to check out a lot of different options for our trip - I priced out regular hotels, Disney hotels, rental houses... I also checked out different rental car options, Disney ticket pricing options -- all of the "big ticket items" for a trip to Disney. It's great to have the time to do a little research and make sure that not only are you getting the best price, but that you are making plans that make sense for your family.

3) Booking a house instead of a hotel - now, this is a personal preference and of course, not everyone feels the same, but one of the best things that we did was to book a rental house instead of a hotel room. We traveled with my brother-in-law, his wife and their 2 young children and we talked about staying at a Disney resort, which we had done once before prior to having kids. It was nice, but it was still just a hotel room. When you have kids, you get back to the hotel room at night or for naptime, and you aren't going to leave them on their own -- so you end up sitting in the hotel room with them, either trying to be quiet (low talking, low tv) so as not to keep them awake, or it's early to bed for you too! The house we rented (through Orlando Villas) was a 4 bedroom home with 2-1/2 baths, laundry, game room, screened-in pool right off the living room, with a piercingly loud alarm that went off if anyone opened one of the doors to the pool -- perfect for kids! We were able to put our kids to bed in their room, and either go into our own room to watch tv or make a plan for the next day, or we could go downstairs to the living room, game room or pool and know that the kids were safe and sound -- just like at home. We were able to have breakfast at the house every morning, we were able to come back after a long day and relax in the house or in the pool, we made dinner in at least one night, and everyone had a room to sleep in -- we didn't have to have 4 people in one room keeping each other up. We also had a laundry room and did our laundry as we went along -- which was great! We packed a lot, but not as much as we might have... And also, we happily threw loads of laundry in at night and folded it and when we got home we did not have tons of laundry to do! And my husband pointed out that while it is nice and sometimes convenient to stay at a Disney property, he thought it was great to get us and the kids out of Disney a little each day/night -- let them unwind and get out of that crazy, overstimulating atmosphere for a little while!

4) Shop around for rental cars - in my preplanning, I had looked on www.expedia.com for a rental car. It looked like we were going to pay about $450 for a car from Sat - Mon (10 days). I plugged this into my budget and was fully prepared to pay this amount. When I finally went to book the car, I did a search for rental cars and I tried Hotwire just for the heck of it. Well, I found that I was able to rent a full-sized car (just like on Expedia) for $287, all things included and for the same amount of days! I asked around about Hotwire, and heard good things about them. The only "catch" is that you have to book and pay before they tell you who you are renting with -- but, they guaranteed it would be with Alamo, Avis, Budget, Enterprise or Hertz -- all companies I was familiar with. We decided to give it a try and it worked out great -- no hidden costs (I double-checked with my car insurance carrier and confirmed that my insurance would cover us in the event of an accident, so no need to get the extra insurance) and we ended up with an SUV just because that's what they had -- and no additional cost for that.

WHEW! That's a lot for one post -- even for long-winded me! Those are the big travel planning-related items. Stay tuned for more!