Packing up Sanity

 As I have mentioned, this past week my brother in law was married.  We packed the kids for an eight hour road trip to join the festivities.  Andrew was his Best Man and the kids all had various parts as well.  As the mama, I had the daunting task of getting every little detail and item safely to Minnesota and then to Wisconsin.  Any mother can imagine what this entailed!

Sometime back, I read about a packing tactic, which I chose to impliment for this trip.  Oh. my . word.  I will never pack another way again!  Here's what I did.

On paper, I divided out entire trip into events, for example "Friday Play" or "Friday Rehersal".  Many days had multiple events and therefore required multiple outfits.  (Because you can't really have a three year old wear her flowergirl dress to lunch four hours before the wedding, right!?) 

I purchased a package of gallon sized ziplock bag and with a Sharpie, I labeled one bag, per child, with each of my plotted "events."  So an example would be "Christopher, Friday Play" (actually, I just put a 'C' or 'G' instead of the whole name).  Then I put in EVERY SINGLE ITEM that went to that outfit.  Going with our example, into the "C Friday Play" bag, I put shorts, a t-shirt, socks, and underwear.  Somedays, the girls got hairbows or the boys got ties.  Whatever the event, everything was right there in the proper bag.  No more searching for last minute belts and matching socks!

This also made it a snap to match the kids on any given day.  Most days the kids had matching or coordinating outfits, so we always looked nice, even if we were just hanging out for the morning. Each morning, I handed each child his respective bag, along with their "PJ" bag.  The children dressed and replaced their pajamas in the "PJ" bag to be ready for the evening.

This packing plan drastically reduced the frenzy that generally accompanies travel and major events!  My only regret is that I haven't yet figured out a way to impliment this in our every day at-home life!

(This post has been updated and linked at We Are THAT Family - Works for Me Wednesday)