Tuesday Talk: Family Road Trip Tips

My family of four loves to travel together.  Kevin and I have been road tripping together for our entire 12 year marriage.  He's always the driver, navigator and deal finder and I'm always the packer, snack planner, cooler girl and fun stop finder.  We started traveling with Olive when she was just a few weeks old and she ended up with nearly 40,000 road trip miles under her belt by the age of two.  She's a great traveler and we're hoping the same will be true for Fletcher.

We have learned a lot along the way and adding kids to the mix definitely requires more planning to makes trip happen.  Our trips are always adventures and aren't always the most relaxing, but we are making great memories together.  We figure we'll have time for relaxing vacations later in life :)

Here are my best 10 Family Road Trip Tips for YOU:

1. If you're worried about having enough room in the car get a ROOF TOP BAG.  We thought about investing in a hard shell one, but our car doesn't have the runners on top to attach it to.  So we opted for a soft sided bag that worked so well!  It's a Roof Bag and it lived up to all of the expectations - it stayed put while we drove thanks to a non-slip mat, was water proof and held a ton of stuff!  Put the bag on top of the car, secure the non slip mat and the straps and load the bag LAST.  We also learned that packing soft sided bags for everyone was the best idea.  We all have darling monogrammed bags and the soft sided kind allowed us much more room than bulky suitcases.

2. Bring COZY THINGS from home.  For us that meant blanket, bunny and her pillow.  We also dressed in comfy clothes, wore slip on shoes and brought sun shields for the windows.

3. Bring favorite SNACKS that won't melt in the heat.  Twizzlers, fresh fruit, chex mix, peanut butter filled pretzels and gummy bears are our standard items.

4. Make up SILLY CAR GAMES.  Bunny was a tight rope walker here.  We played a ton of I Spy, pointed out landmarks, named colors of cars, listened to silly songs, etc.

5. Make sure that everything you need is ACCESSIBLE.  This mirror was a life saver to see Fletcher as we drove.  I also turned around to hold in his paci, feed him occasionally and checked on his sleeping.  The snacks were at my feet, the cooler was handy and Olive's toys were easy for me to get to when needed.

6. Bring ENTERTAINING things for the kids and for the adults.  We had new playlists for us and we like to ask each other Would You Rather Questions when we get bored with driving.  I packed books, stickers, magic markers that only color on special paper so nothing else got colored on and jewelry for Olive to try on.  Below she fell asleep reading her favorite book.

7. CHARGE all of your electronics ahead of time.  We brought portable chargers, charged things overnight and were ready to go for the trip.  We bought a refurbished DVD player off of amazon for less than $40 and a couple of DVDs for the trip.  Our drive was 17+ hours so it was so exciting to pull this out about half way through our drive.  I'm convinced that it was a life saver :)

8. Don't push things too hard and stay at a HOTEL when needed.  We opted to stop once on each leg of the trip.  It was so nice to get out and stretch.  We didn't know exactly how far we'd make it each day so we reserved our room using price line just a few hours ahead of needing it when we had a better idea of when we were going to need to stop.

9. Bring ART SUPPLIES for the actual trip.  We packed colored pencils, coloring books, play doh and a few favorite toys so that Olive could play once we settled into our condo.  She enjoyed these things all week long and loved having some special projects to do.

10. Be FLEXIBLE.  Things are not going to go as planned, stops are going to take longer, you'll hit traffic, you'll take wrong exits, someone will likely not feel well, you'll have to make emergency Wal-Mart runes for forgotten items and you will make tons of great memories together.  Sometimes the stars will even align and both kids will nap at the same time, you'll get to have some adult conversation, you'll find exits with Starbucks and you'll have a wonderful time.  Stops will be more fun than you'd imagined and things will go smoother than you'd expected.  It's a roller coaster of emotions traveling with littles, but patience, understanding, snacks and smiles help every trip to go better :)

I hope these tips were helpful and make you excited to travel with your family!!

Do you have any travel tips to share with me??

Leave them in the comments below.

**GIVEAWAY WINNER**

BECKY GOEREND is the winner of the One Big Turkey book.

Watch for an email from me today!  Congratulations!! 

***********************

It's time to link up with my favorite Tuesday Talk ladies!!

Join us with you best posts of the week.

Beth at Our Pretty Little Girls | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram 

Liz at Chasin' Mason | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Jessica at Sweet Little Ones | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram
Ruthie at Rear. Release. Regroup. | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Stephanie at Wife Mommy Me | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Justine at Full Hands, Full Heart
Sarah at Abiding In Grace | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Becky at BYBMG | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Laura at Life Is Beautiful | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Christina at Waltzing In Beauty | Pinterest | Instagram
Meghan at The Adventure Starts Here | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Tina at Go Big or Go Home | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Whitney at Polka Dotty Place | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

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An InLinkz Link-up

My Most Famous Recipe

My most famous recipe is easily my Chocolate Chip Cookies.  

My students always raved about them, my family loves them and I bake them several times a month.  They're perfect for any occasion and I always have the ingredients in my pantry to make them.  They are easy, you can add a variety of mix ins and they're so good.

Whitney's Chocolate Chip Cookies

(adapted from the Toll House recipe on the bag)

2 1/2 c flour

1 t baking soda

1 t salt

1/2 cup softened margarine

1/2 c shortening

3/4 c granulated sugar

3/4 c brown sugar

1 t vanilla

2 eggs

2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips

(if I'm doing a mix in I'll do 1.5 cups of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of the mix in)

Bake at 350 for 8-11 minutes or until golden brown on the edges

Cream together sugars, margarine and shortening.

Add in eggs one at a time and vanilla.

Add in dry ingredients.  Mix in mixer until combined.

Add in chocolate chips last.

Scoop out dough with a cookie scoop so all cookies are uniform in size.

Grease your cookie sheet and bake in a preheated oven.

There you have it!!  My most famous, favorite recipe of all time.

Hope you enjoy it!!  Let me know if you have any questions.

I add in sprinkles, festive m&ms and other mix ins to personalize them.

What is your most famous recipe???

The Best Parts

We had a great week at our house!  Appointments, house projects, hanging out, good sleep, regular routines and enjoying playing outside in the slightly cooler weather.  It feels so good to be in our new house settling in and everything feeling homey.  I find myself just walking around and smiling that we are finally here.  I'm anxious to meet our new neighbors.  I'm hoping to bake them cookies and go say hello sometime in August.  We are looking forward to seeing some family and friend this weekend and enjoying the start to August.

The highlights of our week were:

// 1 //
SALADS

I've eaten some delicious salads this week!  I am doing a good job of eating a big salad for lunch most days, drinking lots of water and getting more sleep.

Peach & Pecan Salad - we have tons of yummy peaches so I decided to make a peach salad.  It's not something I've ever had before, but it was delicious.  Peaches, pecans, parmesan on spinach leaves with raspberry vinaigrette. 

Cherry Chicken Salad from Grand Traverse Pie Company.  The cherry vinaigrette was amazing!!  I can't wait to replicate this salad at home - grilled chicken, cucumbers, feta, parmesan, dried cherries, croutons, mixed greens and cherry vinaigrette.

Leftover salad - we had leftover fried chicken so I added it to a spinach and veggie salad.  It was so good and so easy.  Ken's Honey Mustard is my very favorite salad dressing.

// 2 //
COOK OUTS

We had two different cook outs with friends this week.  It was fun to host people in our new house and the kids enjoyed having visitors.  We grilled burgers both times, made yummy sides without turning on our oven and the kids helped me make our favorite Funfetti cupcakes.

 // 3 //
HOBBY LOBBY

I went on two Hobby Lobby excursions this week.  One by myself with a delicious Mocha Light Frap and one with my kids.  You can guess which one was more relaxing and fun :)  I picked up birthday presents for friends, wreath making supplies, scoped out possible nursery art for Fletcher's room and just strolled around the store.  It was lovely.

// 4 //
SUNFLOWERS

I made a sunflower wreath for my front door!  Sunflowers just seem perfect for this time of year.  I gathered all of the supplies at Hobby Lobby and LOVED how it turned out.  I only spent $40 on it and it looks so cheerful when you drive up to our house.  I talked more about it here

// 5 //
KID PICS
I snapped several cute sibling pics this week.  Fletcher has started smiling at Olive and watching her every move.  It's precious and Olive is enjoying the attention.  

Fletcher - TOES, well check weighing in at 17lbs and so much baby babbling.

Olive - negotiating, story telling and bargaining her way through the days.

Best Posts of the Week:

The best animal toys from Wal-Mart that have been played with for MONTHS

and a fun book GIVEAWAY!  Be sure to enter by Monday.

 

My August Goals

I hope you have a really great weekend!!

Do you have any fun plans in the works?

Linking up with ThoughtsforThursday, Oh Hey Friday!

 MeetattheBarre, HighFiveforFriday, FiveonFriday, Party at My Placeand Momfessionals

Teaching Together: Animals & a Giveaway!!

Olive's favorite toys lately have been these fun sets of animals from Wal-Mart.  My MIL bought them when we were in Florida a few months ago and Olive still plays with them almost daily.  The brand is Spark Create Imagine and we have the Safari and Farm Animals.  There are 12 in each set and they are so affordable.  You can find them in the toy section with several things in this same brand.

 My 3 year old plays independently with them by 

sorting - by color, wings vs no wings, color, etc.

organizing

pretending she's a zookeeper

animal conversations & noises

and lining them up all over the house

She shares them with her 4 month old brother.  He loves to chew on them and try to hold them.  It's sweet to see her naming the animals and showing them to him.  She's a cute little teacher making animal noises and asking what each animal eats.  This is one of the first toys they've played with together.

 The animals still look brand new after months of playing with them, they're squishy and we are having so much fun with them.  The learning opportunities are endless.  I'm planning to have Olive tell stories about them, to organize them by categories I determine and categories of her own, talking about where they live, counting them, lining them up, etc.  SO many fun options!!

 GIVEAWAY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been a while since I did a giveaway on the blog so I'm excited to share a DARLING Thanksgiving board book with you today.  I realize Thanksgiving is months away, but I got a copy of the book to review and a copy to give away.  This way you'll be way ahead of the game when November rolls around.  Plus all the craft stores already have out Fall/Halloween/Christmas so I'd say it's time to start planning.

To enter: 

Leave a comment saying who you'd like to win this book for and I'll announce a winner Tuesday, August 9th.  Be sure to leave your email address in your comment if you are a no reply blogger so I can get in touch with you.  If there's no email, I'll have to draw another winner.  Good luck!!

for US residents only

 

The book is called One Big Turkey by Anne Kennedy.  The illustrations are so cute and the Thanksgiving story is really sweet.  The lines rhyme, it's a counting book, there's new vocabulary to introduce your child to and there are so many things to talk about on every page.  My toddler loved naming the animals, counting along with me and though the story was funny.  We have already read it aloud several times and I know it's going to be a holiday favorite this year.  It's challenging to find cute Thanksgiving books for little kids and this one is perfect.  The book is very durable, colorful and I'd recommend this to anyone with little kids. 

 Linking up Beth for Teaching Together today.

Save or Splurge: Sunflower Wreath

 I love making wreaths for my front door.  I love having something cheerful on my door at all times and realized I didn't really have any great options for August/September.  I have a pretty Fall wreath, but it felt too early to put it out so I'll save it for October/November.

I started looking for inspiration on Pinterest and shopping around on-line.  Most sunflower wreaths I saw for purchase were around $100.  That's way over my wreath budget and I knew I could make one for cheaper than that.  Here were my inspiration screen shots all from Pinterest

 I loaded up the kids and we headed to Hobby Lobby.  That isn't the most kid friendly store in the world, but we made it work.  Their tiny carts only hold one big kid and there's no way a car seat would fit in there.  Plus there aren't any cart stalls in their parking lot so I'd have to lug both kids into the store.  I opted to do a stroller and have a pep talk with Olive about being a big girl so she's walk with me.  It's new territory for us to have her walking around freely in a store.  She's learning how to stay with us and to keep her hands to herself so I chalked the whole thing up to a good learning experience.  Both kids were good as gold so it was a fun outing for all of us.

All of the Fall decor and Fall florals were 40% off last week so I stocked up on them.  I picked out the wreath first and then started gathering flowers and other fun things for the wreath.  I used my Hobby Lobby app coupon to save 40% off the grape vine wreath since it was full price and then almost everything else I got was on sale, too.  

I got all the greenery, flowers, wreath and such for $42!!

5 large flowers, 3 sets of small sunflowers and several different varieties of greenery.  I used the leaves that were on the sunflower stems to add touches of green instead of buying additional greenery.  I also used some burlap ribbon that I purchased from Sams in the Spring.  I already had hot glue and a glue gun so that part was free.

The finished product!  

I love how it turned out, love the price and love driving up to my house to see this cheerful wreath on the door.  Olive told me, "I fink it has too many flowers" but I think that was mostly because she was hoping I'd let her keep some sunflowers to play with.  She helped me make the wreath and I gave her jobs like pulling flowers off the stem, let her cut up leaves I wasn't using and had her help me count things.  She loved it and I kept the glue gun far away from her since I can barely manage to do a project without burning myself.

It's not perfect, but I felt good about crafting for an hour during Fletcher's nap time and it felt good to spend my time making something pretty for the house.  I've mostly spent my free time unpacking lately so this was just the change of pace I needed.

Do you like to make or buy things to hang on your front door?

Other deal tips for wreaths: I've purchased wreaths in the off season on clearance, bought monogrammed seasonal things off of Groop Dealz and bought wreaths and Goodwill to redo for a great deal. 

Tuesday Talk: Summer Play List

I usually end up creating a new play list for each season or at least a few times a year.  I'll listen to the playlist on my ipod and typically go old school and burn a cd for my car.  When Kevin and I were dating in high school he'd regularly burn me cds of songs he'd think I'd like.  He's pick all of these romantic songs, his favorite songs and current hits and spend lots of time making fun cd covers for me.  They had cat pictures, hearts and pictures of us on them.  He'd make cds for my sister when she'd give him a list of songs and I still have my cds from him.  We didn't have a computer at home during high school and we thought he was sooo cool to have this technology at home.  hahaha  My how times have changed!!  It's one of my favorite memories so I secretly hope cds never go obsolete :)

(photo by Olive)

I thought I'd share my Summer 2016 play list with you today.  I usually mix up the genres and have a variety of things, but this summer it was very country heavy plus Adele and Justin Bieber.  haha  I find myself singing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song and other ridiculous kid songs so having a fun play list of my own definitely helps keep my sanity.

Summer 2016:

1. Blake Shelton - Sangria

2. Black Shelton - Gonna

3. Blake Shelton - Came Here to Forget

4. Sam Hunt - House Party

5. Sam Hunt - Make You Miss Me

6. Sam Hunt - Break Up in a Small Town

7. Jason Aldean - Lights Come On

8. Maren Morris - My Church

9. Tim McGraw - Humbe & Kind

10. Carrie Underwood - Church Bells

11. Eric Church - Record Year

12. Florida Georgia Line - Stay

13. Florida Georgia Line - Confession

14. Christ Young - Think of You

15. Dierks Bentley - Drunk on a Plane

16. Keith Urban - Wasted Time

17. Adele - Hello

18. Justin Bieber - Love Yourself

What songs have been on your summer play list this year??

It's time to link up with my favorite ladies!

Join us with your best post of the week.

Beth at Our Pretty Little Girls | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram 

Liz at Chasin' Mason | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Jessica at Sweet Little Ones | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram
Ruthie at Rear. Release. Regroup. | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Stephanie at Wife Mommy Me | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Justine at Full Hands, Full Heart
Sarah at Abiding In Grace | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Becky at BYBMG | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Laura at Life Is Beautiful | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Christina at Waltzing In Beauty | Pinterest | Instagram
Meghan at The Adventure Starts Here | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Tina at Go Big or Go Home | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

Whitney at Polka Dotty Place | Pinterest | Facebook | Instagram

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An InLinkz Link-up

August Goals

I can barely believe we are flipping the calendar to August today.  It seems like summer just started and now the stores are filled with back to school things, Halloween and Christmas.  We've packed a lot into our summer - vacation, work, house projects, moving and fun.  It's time to get busy and squeeze in our last few fun days and tasks to make the month a productive one.  We've made good progress on our Summer Fun To Do List crossing off 10 of our 12 items.  We have big plans to head to the pool, golf, try new local restaurants and settle into our new neighborhood.

We'll also be working on:

1. Finish unpacking.  

I've hit a bit of a wall as far as unpacking goes.  I'm kind of over it, but there are still boxes stacked in our bonus room.  It's mostly kitchen, holiday decor, clothes and kid things.  I need to unpack and then reorganize that room so that we end up with a holiday section for decorations, an office area for Kev and a craft area for myself.

2. Appointments. 

Olive to the dentist, me to the eye doctor, Fletcher well check, etc.  Some are scheduled and then others still need to be made.

3. Window treatments for every room.  

What a job this is!!  Our new house came with blinds in the bedrooms and that was it.  So we've had to tackle the project of buying curtains for every room to block sun and for privacy.  We have the family room done, master bedroom and need to finish measuring for blinds, hunting for curtains and buying black out shades.

4. Visit family.  

We have a few short road trips planned to visit family and friends before summer ends.

5. Haircuts.

Mine, Kevin's and a trim for Olive.

6. Yard work.

Kevin does 99% of the yard work at our house.  I'll help pull weeds or pick up sticks, but usually it's all him.  We have weeds to pull, things to chop, stones to move and I'm hoping to work on our yard for through the fall to whip it in shape.

7. Install new dishwasher.

We hadn't planned to buy a new dishwasher right away, but our original one couldn't be repaired.  I've hand washed dishes for weeks so I'm thrilled to have a new dishwasher.  We're slowly switching out the appliances for stainless.  So far we've done the microwave and dishwasher.

8. Invite people over to our house.

Kevin has students that were accepted into the program to work with him and do research with him for the first time this year.  We have friends to invite over, Kevin's co-workers and family.  I'm excited for all these fun hosting opportunities.

9. Exercise.

We have a wonderful new neighborhood to walk in and a giant park in our backyard so we are hoping to go on long walks most days from now through Fall.

10. Bedrooms.

Our living areas are unpacked and are waiting for things to be put on the walls.  Our bedrooms have furniture placed where they need go, but that's about it.  I'd like to organize all three bedrooms, remove junk and then hang decorations on the walls.  I'm anxious to get Fletcher's nursery ready for him only 4 months late... and to work on pulling together Olive's big girl room.  The master is in pretty good shape, but needs things on the walls.

11. Pictures.
I meant to schedule Fletcher's 3 month pictures to be taken last month, but that didn't happen.  So he's getting his pictures taken this week.  4 month pictures are just as good as 3 month pictures - right??

12. Church
Try out a new church or two with the intention of finding a church home where we can make friends and get involved.

13. Paperwork.
It's amazing the amount of paperwork it takes to get your address changed, mail forwarded and everything switched over to your new house.  I've updated about half of our things, but need to contact places to get everything current.

14. Eat healthy!
Lots of salads, colorful meals and grilling are on the agenda for this month.  Grilling really helps make dinner prep easier for me because Kevin does the grilling and I make the sides.
 

What goals do you have on the agenda for August??