Packing, Again

Every time we decide to go somewhere I have my children pack their own outfits (seven is old enough!). This is how we do it:

I tell them how many days we will be gone and therefore how many outfits they will need. One outfit consists of a top, a bottom, underwear and socks.

One pair of jammies for every two or three nights.

Shoes, usually one tennis-type and one something else.

Bathing suit and other one-off items as well as an extra change of underwear and socks or two.

This works out well for everyone because they decide on the outfits to wear, I just bat clean up by making sure that everything is in each set, that each outfit matches (at least to some degree), and then load it all into the suitcase.

Well, usually what happens is that we do all this work and in the suitcase the outfits get remixed and at the end of each trip the children end up with outfits made up of what they have not yet worn and usually there are some really mismatched (read "glaring") outfits.

So, this time after inspection I had them load each outfit into a little baggie so each outfit will stay together and they can just pull the baggie out, get dressed and then we can reuse the baggie for the next trip. Of course, Sissy's are all labeled and divided into categories and Max's well, his are packed!

Happy travels!