Prize provided and fulfilled by by Killington Resort.
If you live in the New England region are looking for fun, affordable family getaways this summer, look no further than Killington Resort in Vermont. But wait, isn't Killington a ski resort? While that is very much true and what it is known for, in the warmer months Killington now offers their new Adventure Center, with activities for all ages to enjoy.
The new Adventure Center features 8 new attractions including an Alpine Mountain Coaster (opening late July), Skyride zipline, Terra-Maze and so much more. Each activity may be purchased individually but for maximum savings you can purchase an Adventure Center Day Pass.
Adventure Center Day Pass
$39 (ages 7+); $15 (ages 6 and under), includes:
Three rides on the Skyeride
Skye Ropes Course
Terra-Maze
1 round of disc golf
Snowshed scenic lift ride
Add three rides on the Beast Coaster for a total of $59 (ages 7+.) Beast Coaster opening in late July.
Add a round-trip K-1 Express Gondola ride for an additional $15
My family is headed there next week for some fun outdoor adventure and we can't wait! I am looking forward to some much needed nature time with my boys away from screens and electronic distractions. Though the procrastinator in me does need to scramble and get us some hiking shoes before we hit the trails. I myself am looking forward to the scenic rides up the mountain and then hiking our way back down and the Skyride zipline sounds awesome. My boys will most definitely enjoy the Terra Maze, with 5,000 square feet of feet-on-the-ground exploration fun. And I think I can get my ten year old to give the Skye Ropes a try (I'll watch from the ground, thank you very much). We're going to try and hit as many of the activities as we can that the kids meet the rider requirements for, so be sure to look for my review later in July!
Giveaway
Would you like to spend a day with your family at Killington's Adventure Center? Enter here for your chance to win a 1-Day Adventure Center Pass for a family of four. Your pass will include:
K1 Gondola Scenic Rides
Mountain Biking (height restrictions)
Segway/ATV Tours (height restrictions)
Disc golf
Skyeride Zipline
Skye-Ropes Race Course
Terra Maze
Roaring Brook Mine
Travel, meals and lodging are NOT included in this giveaway. Giveaway is open to US residents only and will end on July 12, 2015 at 12:00AM EST. Winner will be notified via email and has 24 hours to claim prize before it is forfeit and a new winner is drawn. Please use the Rafflecopter form below to enter.
This is a compensated campaign. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Are you running out of ideas to keep your kids active during summer break? Now you can tips from experts and other mom bloggers like myself in the National Wildlife Federation's Be Out There eBook!
In my section, I discussed ideas for summer nighttime activities with your kids. Here is a snippet of what I wrote about:
One of our eight year old’s favorite activities is star gazing. We head out onto our deck with his telescope and my iPad to sit down and wait for the stars to appear. A child’s telescope might not be super strong, but they still like looking at the moon and stars through it. The perfect accompaniment to this is using a constellation app on your mobile device. For 99 cents I downloaded the Night Sky app onto my iPad and it was money very well spent. We just hold it up to the sky and the app will show us which stars and planets we are looking at as well as outlining the constellations. If you start your star gazing around twilight, only a few stars may be visible. Those are the brightest ones. For us, the only star we could see initially was Vega (thank you app for telling us the name!). As the sky darkened, more stars seemed to pop up. My son was really excited every time he spotted a new star. Ultimately, watching the stars and learning about them proved to be a great activity not only for the kids, but us parents as well.
By 1:00pm this Friday (June 21) my children will officially be done with school until they return for the start of the next year at the end of August. The two months of summer break is something I both look forward to and dread at the same time. I enjoy having my kids home and I really enjoy not having to get the four of them ready for school everyday. I dread the nonstop sibling fighting that will ensue after the first week (or first day, who am I kidding?) and coming up with ideas to keep them active and entertained. It is so easy to fall into the trap of handing them an electronic and telling them to have a good time, but I try my hardest to not go that route. I want my boys to get outside and be active and healthy.
The National Wildlife Federation's Be Out There Initiative wants to help us all get our kids off the couches this summer and out into the great outdoors? Here are just a few reasons why:
Children are spending half as much time outdoors as they did 20 years ago. (Juster et al 2004); (Burdette & Whitaker 2005); (Kuo & Sullivan 2001)
Today, kids 8-18 years old devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes using entertainment media in a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). (Kaiser Family Foundation)
In a typical week, only 6% of children ages 9-13 play outside on their own. (Children & Nature Network, 2008)
Children who play outside are more physically active, more creative in their play, less aggressive and show better concentration. (Burdette and Whitaker, 2005; Ginsburg et al., 2007)
Sixty minutes of daily unstructured free play is essential to children’s physical and mental health. (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2008)
The most direct route to caring for the environment as an adult is participating in “wild nature activities” before the age of 11. (Wells and Lekies, 2006)
The bottom line? It is healthy for your kids, for you and for our planet if we all spend some more time outside. As part of this initiative, the National Wildlife Federation is putting together an e-book that will help parents find solutions for getting outdoors with the kids during the summer. Some of the ideas in this book will be coming from mom bloggers, including myself. They have asked me to contribute to the Be Out There e-book and I am so excited to be a part of it!
The theme for my contribution is "Nighttime Activities" - how you can avoid the heat of summer days by getting outside with the kids when the sun goes down. So I want to know: what does your family like to do outside at night together? Share your favorite activities in a comment below, and you just might make it into the e-book with me!
This is a compensated campaign with The Motherhood and the National Wildlife Federation. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own. If I use your idea in my e-book contribution, you will be credited accordingly.
To us! It is kind of amazing that ten years ago today I was marrying my husband. On one hand it feels like it was just yesterday, while on the other it feels like it was forever ago. I quickly scanned photobucket to see f I had and wedding photos I could share here and luckily I found a few.
It is somewhat depressing looking at my much thinner self before four kids utterly destroyed my body. One of these days I'll get back down to that weight... or at least pretty close.
Our wedding ceremony took place outside, overlooking a lake in Western Connecticut. The day started off with some overcast, but we were lucky it turned into a perfect, sunny day.
Cheers to our first 10 years together and here's to many more yet to come!
Every November I put myself through the pure torture of trying to get
a family photo for our Christmas cards. Now way back in the old days
when we had just one child it wasn't so bad. We'd get the little guy
dressed up in his cute holiday outfit and head on over to the mall for a
photo session. An hour later we would walk away with a decent photo.
Well then we went and had twins and went from one child to three. Suddenly trying to get a family photo became nearly impossible. First, I'd spend way too much time (and money) hunting down matchy outfits for the boys. Then instead of having a somewhat peaceful photo session now utter chaos broke out. One child would sit nicely, another child would keep trying to run off while the third child would just cry and scream. By the time we were done, I was the one in tears and I would vow to never do it again. And of course the next year I would be right back in the same spot.
Two years ago we changed tactics and had a photographer come to our house. The result was probably the best family holiday photo we ever had and doing it in our own home made it so much less stressful. Then last year I decided to cut myself and my husband out of the Christmas photo and I took a picture of just the four boys myself. Greatest picture ever? Absolutely not. But it was free and I didn't have to set foot in a mall. So to me, it was perfect.
Since I still have a very uncooperative toddler (a.k.a. the devil) on my hands, I am steering clear of mall portrait studios again this year. To venture in there now would just be pure torture again. Maybe in a few years when everyone is older and behaves, I will try again.
Every Friday we get pizza for dinner, my break from cooking. After dinner, we pop some popcorn and lay blankets on the floor for the boys so we can watch a movie together. I have been trying to make the best of Netflix Streaming, so this past week we watched Jumanji. Not something we will watch again.
Our oldest son, W, is seven. A little over a year ago he lost his first tooth and I thought I was a darn genius for the Tooth Fairy gift I left him. I had read stories and statuses of children getting like $5 and $10 bills from the tooth fairy and that just wasn't going to happen in our house. Especially not with four kids and four mouths full of teeth. So I came up with the oh so brilliant idea of a re-gifting tooth fairy. You see, I have two big boxes in my attic full of my "vintage" LEGO Star Wars sets. And by vintage, I mean about 12 years old and no longer made. That night when he lost his first tooth, the tooth fairy left him a shiny new $1 coin and one of my LEGO kits. He was thrilled and that made me happy.
Two nights ago he lost his sixth tooth. And by lost, I mean my husband yanked it out because it was dangling. For every one of the six teeth that have come out, he has received one of my LEGO Star Wars sets and a $1 coin. Because once you start something, you can't stop. Now in theory, this is not a bad idea. It reuses old toys in the attic, costs me nothing (except the $1 coin) and makes the child very happy. I still think it is a good idea... if you have just one child. Maybe two.
After the tooth fairy placed the recent prize under his pillow is when it hit me. I don't have one or two kids, I have four. I know I have enough LEGO kits to get through all of W's baby teeth - but then what do I do with the next three kids? I am not running out and buying new LEGO sets for all of them, but if they don't get the same things their big brother got, they will be devastated. I have completely set myself up for disaster. I wish I had started off with just the $1 coin and no toys at all. Me and my big ideas.
So now I am rethinking this and trying to come up with a better game plan. What do your kids get from the tooth fairy?
Next month our twin boys will be turning five, and well, I can't believe it. It feels like just yesterday they were little infants in my arms but yet it also feels like it was so long ago. It has been a long five years as we worked through speech delays and developmental delay and now finally, this August they will be heading off to kindergarten. I am nervous, but not like I was for my oldest. It is not like sending off your first born to school for the first time. I am nervous about how well they will transition from 2.5 hours of preschool to 6 hours of kindergarten. Nervous about moving from a preschool class specifically for preschoolers with needs and delays, to a traditional classroom. I know they are going to do great, but it is my job as a mom to worry.
Then there is a part of me that is insanely excited. It has been almost five year since they were born, and that means it is also been almost five years since I stopped working outside of the house. We had all of our children close together (four under four = CRAZY) and so while I enjoy being home with them and wouldn't change a thing, it is a lot of hard work. All moms know that our job title doesn't come with sick days, holidays, nights and weekends off, or vacation time. Being a mom is a 24 hour a day job, 365 days a year. So yes, I welcome the fact that in a few months from now, I will have three children in school full time. Leaving me with just one little monkey for most of the day.
I look forward to doing so many things with him. We are going to go to the library for story time, to the park for play time and anything else free that I can find for us to do. Things I never did with my oldest because he was in daycare all day while I worked. Things I never did once I stopped working because as crazy as I am, I am not quite crazy enough to bring four kids to the park alone.
And I must admit, I am looking forward to the quiet. Six hours of no fighting over LEGOs or Star Wars figures. Six hours of no whining about who did what to who. Six hours without constantly hearing "mommy. mommy. mommy. mommy." Six hours of just one child, which is a piece of cake when compared to three or four. I am excited for it. I can't wait for it. I probably should feel guilty about it. But I don't. Not even the slightest. I think I've earned it.
How did you feel once all of your kids started school?
Can you tell I have 4 kids? This is typically what our family room looks like by the end of the day. Actually, this is not nearly as bad as it can get. And 90% of the disaster is caused by the two year old. The other three are pretty good about cleaning up after themselves.
Please tell me I am not the only one who's house looks like this. Do your kids trash your house too?
Well this isn't a topic I thought I would be discussing with my kids just yet. Or at least I was hoping it would take longer for it to come up. The other night, after putting all of the kids to bed, I was sitting on the couch with my laptop (of course) and I heard a noise coming from upstairs. I walked over to the bottom of the stairs and looked up to see our seven year old standing there and looking quite upset.
"Mommy, I'm laying in bed and I can't stop thinking about when I get older I am going to die." {starts crying}
Say what? Where the heck did THAT come from? I was totally blind sided by this. I quickly made my way up the stairs to give him a hug. When I asked what made him think about it, wondering if a classmate had mentioned someone dying to him, he just said "my brain." I had no idea what to say. Not a clue. I wasn't prepared for this conversation. So I just continued to hold him and told him it was OK and not to think about it. I brought him back to his room and turned on his radio so he could fall asleep to some music. He was out shortly after.
No I did not handle it all that well. But I really had no clue what to say. I didn't want to lie and say he won't die but I didn't want to say yes you will die someday either, because that just seems way to harsh for a 7 year old. I needed to find a happy medium of the two that would calm his fears.
The next night while my husband was reading a book to him at bedtime, he brought it up again. Thankfully, my husband was much better at handling this. Daddy told him how his own grandmother lived to be 95 and that some people even live to be 100. And since he is only 7, 95 and 100 are a long time away. This really seemed to connect with him and he calmed down. Then the following conversation took place, which is both comical and well a little painful for me.
W: "But daddy, what about mommy?"
Daddy: "What do you mean, what about mommy?"
W: "Well mommy's hair is turning white."
D: "It.s OK. Mommy's had white hairs for a long time."
Nice. Really nice. So I guess my seven year old has noticed the increase in white (I prefer grey thank you very much) hairs on my head. And yes, I got my first one when I was 16. I thought they were fairly well hidden as they are mostly in my temple area and underneath a layer of brown hair. But I guess its more obvious than I thought. I'm not ready to dye my hair just yet though.
Have you had to talk to your children about death yet? How old were they and what approach did you take? I need to be better prepared for the next time he brings it up.
When we were in Disney, we had the boys pick out their own mouse ears to wear. I of course had to get a picture of it and I thought this was pretty cute. They are looking up at the castle which I didn't get in the picture. Doh!
Way back in December, my friend Sheri over at Kidsumers.ca hosted a giveaway for a three night stay in a Global Resort Homes vacation house. At the time I was in a giveaway entering mood, so I gave it a shot. You can imagine my surprise when on January 2 she emailed me to tell me that I won! I honestly couldn't believe it. I never win anything, never mind something so big and awesome. Funny thing is, I met her a week later at the Ford auto show event in Detroit.
So here myself and my family had an opportunity to go on a memorable trip to Florida. Global Resort Homes was kind enough to let me extend my stay to six nights for a review and so we began planning our vacation to Walt Disney World. When I was sent the listing of the house we would be staying in, I once again went into shock. It looked absolutely gorgeous.
After a long drive down from Connecticut, we arrived at the Windsor Hills Resort in Kissimmee, Florida and were anxious to check out our vacation house. And trust me, it did not disappoint. First, the resort is a beautiful gated community with a large recreation center that has a fitness area, community pool, playground and more. The home itself was absolutely gorgeous, immaculately clean and very nicely decorated.
When you go inside you walk into a great room that consists of the living room and the dining room. The large dining room table was the perfect size for my big family of six, where we enjoyed breakfast and dinner every day. I loved the pass through into the kitchen which made meal serving and clean up a lot easier.
Right around the corner is the family room with super comfortable couches and a large flat screen television. The kids enjoyed Disney Junior every morning ass we got packed and ready for the parks. In addition to this TV, all six bedrooms also have flat screen televisions for a total of seven TVs in the house. My kids were certainly spoiled this week with having their own TVs in their rooms. All of the rooms had cable so the boys got to see something other than PBS for a change. During the nightly bath routines they would chill in their rooms watching The Clone Wars or Ninjago while they took turns washing up.
The family room opens up to a large kitchen with a breakfast nook. There are four seats at the table and another two seats at the island so combined with the dining room, you have seating for 12 for meals. While no one ate at the island, it was the perfect spot for my seven year old to do his homework. The layout and cooking area of the kitchen itself was great with tons of counter space and I felt right at home cooking our meals in here. The kitchen comes fully stocked with plates, glasses, silverware, pots and pans so there is no need for you to bring stuff from home or waste money on throw away tableware. They even had some plastic tableware which was great for the kids. When we arrived we were greeted by some tasty goodies courtesy of Global Resort Homes, including a much needed bottle of wine.
The sliding glass door in the kitchen goes outside to the screened in patio and private pool. This was probably our favorite thing about the house. I mean we loved it all, but the pool was the show stopper. The pool was crystal clear and heated (so awesome!) with large steps that walk into the shallow end. The elevated spa was enjoyed by all and the kids loved that little waterfall. You can't really see it in my photos, but we had a beautiful lake view from back here.
Now the first thing I think of when I see a pool is safety. I am absolutely terrified of kids and water. Thankfully, the pool has a fence that the kids cannot open. Heck, even I was too weak to open it, which is perfectly fine by me. The gate stretches closed and locks on top, out of the reach of little fingers. Every day when we got home from Disney, usually between 4:00 - 5:00pm, my husband headed out to the pool with the kids. This left me with a nice quiet house to cook in, which I never get at home. We of course also brought safety vests for all of them to wear. And since the pool was heated, once all of the kiddos were in bed, mama got to enjoy the pool too.
Up on the second level, the master bedroom and bath are the kind I dream about. A spacious bedroom with a king size bed and a huge bathroom with a walk-in closet, glass shower, separate oversize bathtub and double sinks. What I wouldn't give for double sinks at home. It was nice for my husband and I to have our own counter space: his was neat and tidy and mine was the complete opposite.
Our Windsor Hills home had a total of six bedrooms: one on the main level and five on the second level. It was awesome to be able to put the boys in their own rooms for a change. At home, the four year old twins share a bedroom with their 2 year old little brother. We put our seven year old in the bedroom with its own bathroom since he often gets up during the night; we put the twins in the room with the two twin beds and we put the little dude in a pack-n-play in the bedroom next to ours. I don't know if it was being in their own rooms or just the sheer exhaustion of all of the events, but they all slept later than normal every day.
The house had four full bathrooms all of which were quite spacious. One was on the main floor near the family room and the other three were upstairs. While two of the upstairs bathrooms were attached to bedrooms, the third was in the hallway and is what we used for the boys to take baths, brush their teeth, etc. All four bathrooms in the house had a shower and three of them had bathtubs. So if you have a full house, there is a place for everyone to wash up.
You know, it probably sounds weird for me to say that it was exciting to have a washer and dryer in the house to do laundry, but it really was. I guess that's how you know you are a mom, when things like laundry excite you. Have you ever returned home after a week long vacation with six people's worth of dirty laundry to wash? I have and it is not fun. Here we had a laundry room right off of the family room and I used it about every other night. The result is that I returned home with only one small shopping bag of dirty clothes to do. A very huge plus for me!
A really fun feature of our vacation house was that the garage has been converted into a game room which had a pool table, Foosball table, card table with cards and a dart board. I had visions of us tucking the kids in bed and then coming down here to enjoy a drink and shoot some pool at night. Sadly, it never happened. Not even once. After walking the Disney parks every day, by the time the kids were all in bed, I was ready for bed. This would be awesome if you had more adults on your vacation with you or even when the kids are a little older.
The location of the house and resort was absolutely perfect for us. It was just a few minutes to so many restaurants, the grocery store, Super Target and really everything we needed. But most importantly, it was close to Disney. Windsor Hills is less than 2 miles from the gates of Walt Disney World which equaled about a 5 minute drive each way. We could not have asked for a better spot.
I think its pretty obvious that we loved this house. A week later we are still talking about it and how much we miss it. Its funny, before this vacation, my husband and I had always said that we would stay at a Disney resort for the ease of going to and from the parks with their buses. But after our stay with Global Resort Homes, we have 100% changed our minds. Like I said, we were just minutes from the parks and this is so much more affordable. For us to stay in Disney and have a kitchen (we NEED a kitchen), it would cost us close to $5,000 just for the place. In off-peak season, which we were just there for, this house is $383 per night which is $2,298 for six nights. Even during peak time when its $500 per night, that is still nearly $2,000 less than staying in a Disney villa. Plus this house is big enough for multiple families so once you split that cost, its just that much more affordable. (Is my family reading this? Forget Jersey!)
Not to mention, everything about this was so much better than staying in a hotel. The private pool was amazing. We didn't have to worry about our kids bothering other people or be bothered ourselves by someone else's rowdy kids. We had so much space which allowed the kids to either hang out together in the family room or take a break from each other in their own bedrooms. Having a kitchen allowed me to cook meals and bring lunches to the park every day and not have to eat unhealthy fast food all of the time. It was all just so perfect. We are already planning our next trip down to Disney in two years when our little guy will hopefully hit 40 inches and can go on more rides. We fully plan on using Global Resort Homes again. In fact, we want the same exact house. We fell in love with it.
Global Resort Homes has nine resort locations in the Kissimmee/Orlando area and all are within minutes to area attractions like Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando and Seaworld. Consider one of their beautiful resort homes for your next Florida vacation!
I won a 3-night stay at Global Resort Homes and received another 3-nights for review. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.
We recently made the long car trip from Connecticut down to Kissammee, Florida with our four kids in tow and we definitely learned a lot from it. We had never done anything like this before, the longest trips we have taken have been to the New Jersey Shore every summer. Which is about 3 hours or so, depending on traffic. Door to door, the estimated drive time was about 20 hours, covering 1,183 miles. Yikes!
Holy long road trip Batman!
I was nervous about how this was going to go with the kids, especially the two year old who hates being confined in a car seat to begin with. Believe it or not, we survived and the kids did surprisingly well. The ride down went much faster and smoother then the ride back, which I will get into in a minute. These are a few tips that helped us with our trip, so I wanted to pass them along.
Drive at night.
We left on a Friday night at about 8:00pm, about two hours after dinner and a little bit after bedtime. Our thought was that the kids would sleep through the night allowing us to be able to drive for quite a few hours without a lot of stopping. Make sure your driver is rested and alert and take turns if needed. My husband slept the entire afternoon before we left so he was good and fresh. For the most part this worked perfectly. They woke up sporadically and didn't sleep soundly like they normally do, but we only had to make one pit stop for the bathroom in Maryland. By 7:00am Saturday morning we were at South of the Border in South Carolina. By 4:00pm we were in Orlando. A drive that the map says should take about 21 hours, took us 20 hours and that is with 3 stops in there. It was actually quite impressive. In contrast on the way home we left on a Saturday morning and didn't get home till Sunday night. We will never do that again.
Pack Snacks and Meals
Obviously packing a lot of snacks is a given since you can't be stopping every few hours to buy something. I packed things like granola bars, cereal bars, bananas, crackers, etc. and filled the kids stainless steel cups up with ice water. I highly suggest packing as many meals as you can as well. Having to stop for meals will cost you at least an hour if you have as many kids as I do. Even at a fast food joint. The day before we left I picked up some mini croissants and mini blueberry muffins from our Big Y supermarket for us to have breakfast Saturday morning in the car. While we stopped at South of the Border for gas, we enjoyed breakfast and were back on our way within minutes. On the way home I packed sandwiches for lunch.
Entertainment
Keeping the kids entertained and preventing them from becoming bored is the biggest challenge of a long trip like this. Each of our children had a backpack next to their car seats which included one small toy of their choosing, Star Wars travel coloring pack (mini coloring book, stickers and crayons) and Star Wars mini notebooks, both from the target $1 spot, plus their handheld video games. My 7 year old has a Nintendo DS and the others have Leapsters.They really didn't do any coloring, but the video games did keep them busy for a good amount of time.
Movies. Movies. Movies.
If you are going to being doing a crazy long drive with young kids like this, I personally feel that some sort of DVD player is a must. Our minivan has a rear entertainment system, which is awesome. If your car does not have a built in one, you can purchase a portable DVD player with screens that attach to headrests at places like Target and Walmart. Believe me, they are worth it even for just a single trip. Pack a portable DVD case with a nice variety of movies. I packed everything from Disney animated movies like Tangled, to my two year old's favorite Thor and of course, all six Star Wars movies. I figured we could do an Episode 1 through 6 marathon. Now this next tip is extremely important. After you put all the movies into the case, make sure you put the case in your car. Triple check yourself. Do NOT be like me and an hour into your trip realize that you left it on the kitchen counter. All we had for the entire trip were the three movies that were in the glove box: Toy Story, A Bugs Life and Marry Poppins. Nevertheless, the movies were still a lifesaver, especially for the toddler. No way could we have survived, especially the trip home, without movies for the kids to watch. And for the ride home we bought a new movie to throw into the rotation: Megamind.
Prepare for Sickness
One of our twins is prone to car sickness and unfortunately has thrown up in the car a few times over the years. Trust me when I tell you that cleaning that out of the nooks and crannies of a car seat is no fun at all. Even if none of your children have a history of car sickness, its best to be safe and prepare just in case. Anything can happen on such a long trip. My little puker sits right behind the passenger seat so that gives me easy access to him. I took a medium sized, plastic mixing bowl from our kitchen and double lined it with grocery bags. I also grabbed a handful of replacement bags. The bowl was in arms reach of me at all times. Sure enough, just two hours into our ride he got sick but because I had my bowl ready, there was no mess. Thankfully he warned me it was coming and I got the bowl right under his mouth. I tied up the bags and when we stopped for gas, into the trash it went.
Make Time for Learning
While I certainly packed along a lot of electronic devices to keep my kids busy for the trip, that certainly doesn't mean they have to be on the entire time. Let the kids unplug and use the opportunity to learn. For my oldest, I made math flashcards based off of the math problems he gets for homework every day. I made them nice and big so he could see them from the third row and we had fun practicing math skills. He also practiced his reading skills by reading road signs he spotted along the way. For the younger kids, you can talk about things you see as you drive, counting objects like signs and looking for specific color cars.
Making the decision to drive a long distance with little kids probably borderlines on insane. Because it is insane. But if I can do it, anyone can do it. These were just a few things that helped save us time and our sanity on our journey to and from Florida last week. I hope they can help you on your next trip.
Have you ever taken a long car trip with kids? What are some things that worked well for your family?
This post has been brought to you by Appliances Online, the UK's largest online kitchen appliance dealer.
Christmas morning was slightly insane in our house, and we loved every minute of it! This is what four kids worth of presents and wrapping paper looks like on. What. A. Mess.
The little dude, newly turned 2, off by himself with his presents.
Christmas Eve, after the kids were in bed, my husband and I spent the night getting all the presents under the tree. He assembled the bikes and then I neatly placed everything around the tree.
Then thanks to a giveaway I won from Dawn's Daily Diggs, I uploaded a photo to ICaughtSanta.com and downloaded my free photos of Santa in front of our tree. The kids got a kick out of it.
