Tag Archives: traveling with kids

Traveling — With Kids! (Guest Post)

11 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by in family

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It’s Guest Blogger Month at Lemon Drop Pie! Today I’m pleased to introduce you to OneMommy. She has so many great ideas on her blog. Here’s just a few!

Are you planning a vacation this year with the kids?

Need a few ideas on how to keep them occupied in the car without playing videos the whole way and turning them into zombies?

Here are some tried, and kid-approved, car activities to make your trip more enjoyable!

1. Spiral notebooks/coloring books, crayons (I prefer the twist
up kind in the car; if you lose one it won’t melt all over your seats
before you find it!), and stickers. The younger the kids, the
more stickers I’d bring! With young children it is amazing how long they
can occupy themselves with stickers. (If they still have trouble peeling
the stickers off themselves, save yourself and them some frustration by
peeling the excess sticky paper off, leaving only the actual stickers
stuck to the sheet.)

2. Magnets. Simple ABC magnets or just some fun-shaped
refrigerator magnets can be fun on a small cookie sheet or cake pan (see
number 3). There are also some really cute character magnet sets out
there. I try to stick with magnets large enough that if they are dropped
they won’t be lost forever. (Also, make sure they are large enough not to
be a choking hazard, and if your child is one to put everything in his/her
mouth, then skip this one!)

keeping kids happy while traveling

Okay, the LPS one has pieces I would usually say are too small for the car, but it is so adorable and my daughter loves it!

3. Small Cake Pans and Favorite Toys. If you have a car-lover,
then a small cake pan works wonders as a place to push little cars around.
The sides of the pan keep them from rolling off. And if the child is old
enough to worry about where the road is, you can draw one on a piece of
felt to be stuck inside the cake pan. A cake pan can also keep other
small toys (like Littlest Pet Shop characters) from falling off small
laps.

4. Felt Board. Don’t have one? Follow these simple directions to
make your own felt board. Cut out simple shapes from
felt and kids can use them to create their own designs. Or make felt
cars, felt dolls to dress, or nursery rhyme characters they can use to act
out stories.

5. Water Wow Doodle Books. Fill the special pen with water and
“paint” the pages to reveal the pictures. Let the pages dry and you can
re-do them over and over again. (I found ours at Big Lots for $3 each and
they have seen A LOT of use.)keep kids entertained in car

6. Tin Foil Surprises. Who doesn’t like surprises? Wrap Dollar
Store finds, small cars, etc. inside foil for them to open. Not only do
they have the fun of opening a little gift, they also can play with the
foil later

7. Books. Even children who don’t read on their own yet can
flip through old favorites. (Mine also love taking their Leap Frog Tag
Reader books while traveling.)

8. Dry Erase Boards. Got an older child? Dry erase boards
allow creativity that can be erased and done over and over. Or they can
be used to play Hang-man, Tic-Tac-Toe, etc.

9. Etch-A-Sketch/Magna Doodle. If you don’t yet trust your
child with a dry erase marker, how about a Magna-Doodle? They can draw
and erase mess-free. If they are a little older, and Etch-A-Sketch will
challenge them a bit more; plus, it’s fun to shake it to erase your
picture!

10. Plenty of Car-Friendly Snacks. (I like to stick to dry items
in the car for less mess!) Cheese crackers, raisins, pretzels, dry
cereal…

** Remember to plan extra time at rest stops to allow kids to stretch
their legs and run some energy out. Plus, use that time to change/rotate
their books, toys, etc. at each stop. This keeps things fresh and
interesting.

Happy traveling!

OneMommy can be found at There’s Just One
Mommy, where she blogs about life as a SAHM to her 3 year-old son and
4.5 year-old daughter. She writes about the funny things kids say/do,
simple kid crafts, and more. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

 

 

signatureFor more traveling tips, read one of my past posts: Fuzzy Buggy. Thank you, OneMommy, for giving us so many great ideas! My next guest blogger will join us on Monday, June 18.

 

Car Trip! {Spin Cycle}

23 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in family

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Note: I’m also guest posting today…will you do me favor and visit Esther, too, at Laugh With Us Blog? Tell her Ginny sent you! Thanks.

I didn’t fly in a plane until the summer after I graduated from college. Before then, the only trips I had taken were mostly car trips with the family.

Our family had four kids, so the six of us would pile into a wide car with bench seats. Us kids had assigned places so we wouldn’t fight each time we had to go somewhere. Dad drove. My little brother would sit between my dad and my mom in the front. In the back seat I was behind Dad, then came my little sister and my other little sister. This was mostly possible because my young siblings were not required to have car seats back then.

We always had to wear our seat belts even though that wasn’t a law yet, either. My parents always said seat belts were the best invention, because that kept kids from roaming around in the car. As if there would have been room to roam around with all six of us packed in like sardines.

Traveling before my little brother and sister came along

Our vacations revolved around visiting family: my mom’s family in Iowa, and my dad’s family scattered around the Midwest. Every summer, we went to meet my dad’s sisters and brothers and their families at “The Lake”.

“The Lake” was Lake Huron. We would drive up to the tip of the thumb of Michigan. The family rented a group of cabins by the beach for the week. The morning our trip began seemed to last forever. And we wouldn’t even be driving yet. Our cabin was very basic so my parents had to pack everything. Food, sheets, towels, clothes, even toilet paper! To equip a family of six for a week was a big job. Dad had a big old car carrier with the picture of snail on it from Sears. It certainly felt like our vacation was starting at a snail-like pace.

Finally, with the trunk and car carrier filled to capacity, we were able to hit the road. While the drive was probably only about six hours, to us it seemed interminably long. Our favorite place to stop will seem silly now, but back then eating at Wendy’s was a novelty. There weren’t any in Illinois. We loved sitting at the tables adorned with replica Victorian newspaper ads. Eating a Frosty with an almond-colored plastic spoon was like heaven on a hot July day. As a kid, I knew of no other place that could provide such a cold, delicious treat. It was only when I was an adult that I realized a Frosty was nothing but chocolate soft-serve ice cream in a cup.

Even though our car had air conditioning, it tended to get hot riding in a car with six people. When we arrived at The Lake–the glorious, wide blue lake that stretched all the way to Canada–we would jump out of the car and wish to dash off to the beach! But if wishes were horses, we’d all ride for free. We were not allowed to dash off until the entire car and the car top carrier was unloaded. And then, only then, were we allowed to greet all the cousins (who had usually arrived before us and had already unloaded their respective cars) and dip our feet into the icy cold water.

Of course, the drive home was even worse than the drive to The Lake. Saying goodbye to all our cousins was hard. We would be tired and perhaps a little sun-burned with grains of sand still between our toes. Our week at The Lake was over.

On the plus side, however, there was less toilet paper to unload once we got home.

Spin Cycle at Second Blooming Go on a Car Trip with Gretchen at Second Blooming–visit her blog for more Spins!

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