Packing For Kids For Vacation.

I am a lover of vacations.

I love planning for them and packing for them.  

For the last six years, we have taken a road trip every summer.  At first, it was pretty simple to get ready.  Bird packed his bag, and I packed for me and Isaiah...then me and Isaiah and Izzy...then me and Isaiah and Izzy and Eva.  It's gotten more and more complicated as the kids have gotten older and started having an opinion about what they wear, and adding kids certainly hasn't helped ease the process any.  I'm not a huge organization junkie normally, but when it comes to our trips now, I have to be.

Enter: my packing process.  This can work for one kid or twenty, and it's certainly the easiest and most organized way that I've found to travel, so I just wanted to do a quick blog just in case this might help someone else.

First, I start with two lists.  The first list is everything I know the kids will need for the duration of the trip we are taking (clothes, bathing suits, diapers, sippy cups, ect).  The second list is my list of exactly what clothes I'm taking for each day for each kid.  When I'm making the second list, I tend to pull all the clothes I might possibly take and then whittle it down.  

Next, I take each outfit I've put together along with all the extras (like undies and socks) into individual Ziplock bags.  I add in a post-it note with what is inside each bag as well as which child that particular outfit is for.

There are so many reasons I do this.  First, when I pull all the air out, it makes for tons of extra space in the suitcase.  Next, I can keep entire outfits perfectly together so there's no unfolding everything as I rifle through the bags.  I can ask Bird to grab an outfit for one of the kids, and with everything labeled, there's no guess work.  But the biggest and most useful reason I do this is so that when the kids have worn an outfit, I can put it back into the bag and the dirty clothes will never touch the clean ones.  This is so huge for us because our little ones make big messes.  I love knowing that the chocolate cake on Izzy's dress isn't going to get on the clean shorts Isaiah is wearing the next day.  

I also put all shoes in Ziplock bags to keep everything neat and clean.

Once all the clothes are in, I fill in any gaps with all the little extras we will need as I cross them off my list.

In all, when I pack this way, I can get about ten days worth of clothes and accessories into a single carry on bag!

I hope this helps you if you are planning on taking a trip with little ones this summer, and if you have any tips that you think might help me, please feel free to let me know!  

Why I Hate Homeschooling.

Recently, I was talking to someone about homeschooling, and I was telling her all the wonderful things about it.  I mentioned the freedom our family has with scheduling, the joy my kids get from only doing school for a small portion of our day, the ability we have to pursue whatever actually interests our kids- I could go on and on.  I could talk all day long about why we've chosen this way of life, but she hit me with a question I haven't gotten as often as you might expect.  She said, "What about it do you really hate though?"

Hm.

I have often said that though we love homeschooling in our family, I would never say that it's something everyone should do. Some days I might even lock myself in my bathroom and cry and wonder if we should even be doing it...

Pssshhhht....No I don't....

On the reals, though, I totally do.

For the sake of fairness, I just thought I'd put together my list of reasons I hate homeschooling just so that if anyone is genuinely considering it, they can have a true account of the not-so-pinteresty side of it from someone who has actually done it.

1. My kids aren't anti-social, but I am.  This is a harsh truth about me, but it may not be the case for everyone.  I'm pretty anti-social even if you take kids out of my equation, in all fairness, though.  You can ask all my tens of friends.  I have been so careful to make sure our kids are involved in a church and a co-op and family and anything we can do to get them around people, especially kids, that I have not taken the time to foster relationships with other adults. This bums me out, and it leads me to my second point...

2. Homeschooling can be very lonely.  Golly jeepers this is true for me, and from what I've read, seems to be true for most homeschool parents at one time or another.  I spend my days surrounded by tiny humans, and that means I have little adult conversation throughout the day.  This would probably bother me much less if I didn't tire so easily of the same three knock knock jokes and faulty logic in Disney Junior shows. There are days when I feel like I might as well be a million miles from any other human beings over the age of 6.  There are lots of fixes for this that I just haven't pursued, I'm sure, but hooray for Facebook on those days! (And hooray for my mom retiring!)

3. It can be repetitive.  It can be repetitive.  One of my most favorite things about doing this with my kids is that we have the opportunity to explore and do things together.  The problem, however, is that we don't always...or even nearly as often as I'd really like...okay, rarely ever.  It's very easy to get into a rut, and when we do, it's tough to get the energy to pull ourselves out of it.  Because why should I put on real people pants and head to the library when my husband's old sweat pants are so cozy?  Oh look.  Here's another worksheet.

4. It's easy to spend a lot of money.  When you consider that I don't have an income, that already limits us financially.  We are fine with that, and it was always our choice to have less stuff but more time with the kids.  Homeschooling itself, however, can quickly get expensive if you let it.  There are an endless number of things you can buy for it or places to go.  Budgeting has become our rule of thumb, and I've found that we can't do everything I'd like to do.  If I had my way, we would have a complete library...and I'd build an entire school building next to our house...and we would visit every single country we studied.  Turns out, things cost money, even if it's for education.

5. Goodbye "me" time. Because I don't have any time during my day that I am without kids, I don't have any time during my day without kids. (how's that for swell logic?)  But seriously.  None.  I am fortunate enough that my dad is retired and lives just a mile or so from me, so he often watches them so I can go grocery shopping or something, but my day in and day out is spent with my little cutie patooties.  We have discovered that movie time while Eva naps tends to keep Mommy from throwing things, so that's nice.

6. I'm not as brilliant as I think I am. Oh my my my...this has never rung more true for me than when I try to remember what I learned in first grade but have to look at the teacher's manual to recall what a "fact family" is.  I'm sure as my kids get older, this is going to become more and more apparent.  Because my mom has a Masters in education, I have a great resource to fall back on, but I will for sure be looking into what options we have when we get to Algebra.  Once math has letters, I'm out.

7. Oh my Gosh.  I'm in charge of educating my kids. This is the biggest, scariest, heaviest truth to homeschooling for me.  Let us take a moment of silence and meditate on this truth...are you as freaked out as I am??   It's on me.  All of it.  If my kids learn how to read, that's on me.  If my kids can write an essay, that's on me.  If my kids are 18 years old and have no idea how to write their name, well, that's on me.  Thankfully, I have found that if I take it a day at a time and do as much reading as I can about what they should know when and use a great curriculum, this daunting task doesn't feel so overwhelming, but even right now, literally as I'm typing this, I'm finding it difficult to breathe because sweet Jesus that is a big, scary, heavy task.

So that's it.  That's my gigantic list of the dark side of homeschooling. But even with all of that, I love love love doing this, and I pray on a very regular basis that God allows us to keep it up.  I wouldn't trade anything in the world for having this precious time with my children, and watching them grow in every way and really being a huge part of that is sincerely the greatest blessing ever. There's for sure way more good than bad in our days, and trust me, if I can do this successfully, anyone can do it.  It's work, but it's the most rewarding job I can even imagine having.

Earth Day.

We have been finished with school for the year for a few weeks now, and it's been such a welcomed break.

Don't tell my kids that their teacher needs a summer break, too...

I had decided, however, that we would venture back into the world of homeschool today to celebrate Earth Day.  My mom has always had so much fun with this day with her classes throughout the years, so I knew it could be a memorable day where the kids and I could learn a lot together.
Plus for a little extra awesome, today would mark the first day Izzy has really taken part in a school day activity!  

First and foremost, I wanted to talk about why Earth Day is so important, so we read Psalm 24:1 together.  We discussed the meaning, and talked about how this is the main reason we want to be good stewards of the world we live in.

Next, the kids painted pictures of the earth God made.  

While Eva napped, the kids enjoyed movie time.  They watched the Lorax.  If you've never seen it, this is maybe the cutest movie I've ever seen dealing with over consumption and pollution.  Okay, so it's for sure the cutest movie I've ever seen dealing with over consumption and pollution...

When their movie was over, I introduced our word of the day: conservation.  We talked about how everything we have comes from the earth.  Just like in the Lorax, if we don't conserve what God has created for us, the world would be a yucky place to live. We talked about how everything that we have and use originally came from something from the earth.  Paper coming from trees really blew their little minds, so I found a youtube video where they could watch the entire process.  They were super into it, and they both decided they didn't want to use paper anymore today to help save some trees.  

Next, we took a nature walk in our own yard where the kids used chalkboards to draw pictures of things created by God and found in nature.  They drew trees and flowers and even bugs.

We discussed how we can conserve energy by not turning on lights or by doing things that don't require electricity, so we spent the rest of our day playing games and doing things that we could do while we practiced conservation.

When it got dark, we lit candles and kept the electricity use to a minimum.  We read Charlotte's Web by the light of glow sticks, and ended our day outside enjoying a lovely spring night.

Earth Day turned out to be such a wonderful day to hang out with my babies with little distractions while we praised the Creator for such a beautiful creation.