Packing For Vacation: Keeping It All Organized

I am not a person who is good at organization.  But, there's no doubt about it when you have a large family, staying as organized as possible is very helpful.

We have taken vacations in the past where one of the children has only brought one pair of pants to last a week or they have forgotten to pack any underwear.  I was determined last week as I was getting ready to pack all of us up for our Disney World vacation last week, that we were going to have everything we needed and keep it neat and tidy as possible in as few suitcases as possible. I decided that I would pack for everyone except Nick (12) and Chelsea (17.)  They were bringing their own bags and I figured they could handle it (although I did double check what Nick packed just to make sure!)

What I decided to do was to pack each child's clothes for one day into a zip lock bag and label it with their name and what day of the week it was for.  Each bag had a pair of pajamas, a pair of socks, underwear, a shirt, and a pair of pants.  Then I made a bag labeled "extras" for each child which had extra socks, underwear, a long sleeved shirt, and some shorts since we were going to Florida and the weather was going to be 80's some days and 60's some days.  I also did 2 bags labeled "backpack" for Lily and Emmie since we were using a backpack instead of a diaper bag at Disney World.  Since we were stopping halfway at a hotel, I made baggies for each child for our hotel stop and put them in a separate suitcase so we would not have to drag 5 different bags into our hotel for the night.  We ended up bring one suitcase, 2 small duffle bags, and 2 rolling duffle bags for 9 people with a week's worth of clothing each plus extras.

It took me 4 hours to pack for 7 people and fold the remaining laundry, but it was well worth the effort! This worked so well!  It kept all the clothes organized and helped the children be able to find their own clothes for the day.  It also helped me to know who forgot to put on clean underwear as we were hurrying out in the morning.  And, it came in very handy to have the extra plastic bags in the backpack when Emmie's diaper leaked and I needed something to put the wet clothes in.

I will definitely be packing this way again in the future!