Summer On-the-Road Survival Kit + Free Paper City Printables

LE and I are spending more and more time away from the house now that the sun has decided to stick around Madison. There are a few extra things to keep in the car for impromptu park visits, outdoor naps, and play stops.  Since John and I switch cars back and forth a fair amount in the warmer months (we both prefer the one with the sun roof), we needed a solution to make the switch easy.

My favorite way of keeping things organized with all of the extra stuff for LE during road trips is by using a big clear plastic bin, labeled with the contents inside the lid. While we're away from the home, we use the bin as her play center and then when it's time to go, we can always make sure that we leave with everything that we arrived with.

It only made sense to create a bin to transfer from car to car. filled with  the summer surplus. That way, we'll always have our Summer On-the-Road Survival Kit with us without going through the effort of taking out everything one by one.

Here's what our kit includes:

• small blanket to cover the grass for picnics or outdoor naps
• towel for after we splash in the water or get dirty
• swim diaper-- you never know if the splash pad calls our name when we're out
• sunscreen
• first aid kit
• point & shoot digital camera
• snacks
• umbrella to shield the sun at picnics or naps
• book 
• token toy
• bucket
• insect repellent wipes
• diaper clutch
• sunhat

What would you put in yours?

If LE were a year or two older, I'd be inclined to keep paper cities with us, too. Not just for the summer, but really any time that there's a possibility of being away from the home with limited entertainment.

Have you seen the paper cities at Made by Joel? He has free printouts for cities, people, helicopters, cars, etc. The kids color them in, cut them out (or you do), crease them to get it to stand, and then they have a super portable city to play with! He has a lot of inexpensive, creative ideas for imaginative play time. You should go check it out if you haven't already.

All paper city photos are from the Made by Joel website.


Here's where I linked up!

Organize Your Diaper Space

Apparently, I'm not the best at being a consistent blogger. I'll work on that.

I've seen some blogs where people ask how others organize their diaper changing area and whether or not they use a changing table. I read before we had Lauren that changing tables were one of those things that you can opt out of if you're looking to save money. John questioned my idea of loading her bottom dresser drawer with diaper supplies and changing her on the floor, but it's worked out well. We also have a basket that holds diaper supplies downstairs, too, so that we don't have to go upstairs every time she needs to get changed. I think my favorite part is that everything is easy to access yet tucks away to leave no evidence of diapering (see the downstairs basket in the image below).

Upstairs, we put her dresser in the closet instead of out in the room. It's not a particularly pretty dresser, and we considered painting it... but when it came down to it, the closet seemed like the best place. Plus, I like having the space on top as a drop-off point to put her clothes that still need to be hung up but time doesn't allow at the moment.

The drawer and basket each have the following:

1. A cheap cloth diaper (used as a rag and not as a diaper)
2. Waterproof cloth
3. Supply of diapers, stacked
4. Diaper rash cream and/or barrier cream
5. Wipes
6. Lined trash can nearby

You can see the cloth diaper and waterproof cloth folded and stacked on top of each other. In actuality, we keep the cloth diaper folded inside the waterproof cloth so that we don't have to unfold them separately. The waterproof cloth unfolds to a couple of feet to protect Lauren from the floor and the floor from Lauren (from now on called LE (pronounced "Ellie") in the blog). The cheap cloth diaper goes just under her butt to catch any waterfalls and such that may occur during the change. That allows us to launder the more expensive and sensitive waterproof cloth about once a week instead of about once a day.

In the photo, you see just disposable diapers. We are using up the last of our supply of those as we integrate the hybrid diapers into the mix. Our downstairs basket has the supply of hybrids whereas our upstairs drawer just has disposables. Eventually, we'll just have hybrids in both places. Future generations, I'll be waiting for my thank-you card.