Road Trip, Part 1

Today is a sad day. Our vacation is officially over. Justin and I had 2 weeks off of work for a road trip to Lake Tahoe, where we stayed at my MIL’s family’s cabin. The vacation itself was slightly more eventful than desired, I will share more on that later. Today I wanted to talk about a successful 10 hour drive with a 1 and 3 year old.

Needless to say, I did some excessive planning prior to the trip. I wanted to have lots of stuff for the boys to do. I wasn’t so worried about Thad, he really does great in the car, but 10 hours is a LOT for any 1 year old. But even with that intention, Thatcher was still the harder one to plan for.

Here is what I did:

I had 2 boxes of goodies: One with toys and one with books. Each box fit perfectly on the floor of the car beneath their feet. Our trip was a total of 8 days, which required a lot of packing, so I tried to keep entertainment stuff pretty compact and not take up a ton of space.

For the toy box I had a bunch of either pencil boxes or pencil bags that I got at Walmart for a buck apiece. Perfect size for filling with kid supplies, and easy for them to open and close.

The pencil bags were stuffed with random collections of items: simple puzzles, matching cards, noise makers, animal figures, Memory, etc. The orange bag was Thatcher’s favorite; it had a random collection of items that I got from one of the I Spy pictures that my mom made for Thad. The black bag was for Thad only, it was a “small things” bag with a bunch of little stuff in it: a magnifying glass, a mini microscope, a mini measuring tape, some silly putty, a mirror, some I Spy cards and a little purse full of tiny figurines (again, taken from a I Spy picture that mom did).

The pencil boxes were little sets of things to play with. The goal with these was to have toys that they could DO something with.

Cars and Roads Box (and pom pom trees :). The roads are painted popsicle sticks with magnets on the back, so they can be used on a small cookie sheet (that I got from the Dollar Tree). I got the idea here. I actually wish I had done more stuff with magnets, it worked so well on the cookie sheet, especially because it kept stuff stationary and not slipping around.

Construction Box filled with the most fought over toys we have: construction machines. They fight over these so much that I broke down and did something that I am morally opposed to…bought a second set and gave up on sharing. Also included was a bag of little rocks to push around and scoop up. Again, this was an activity for use on the cookie sheet, which has a nice lip on it.

Play Doh and Dishes Box. Yeah, that’s right, I let them play with Play Doh in the car (on the cookie sheets). And yes, it made a mess. But it also kept them occupied, and only required a quick brushing out of the crumbs afterword. I consider that a win. I made a quick batch of Play Doh a day or so before we left and stuck it into some baby food containers that fit into the box perfectly. I put a set of dishes in for each child along with silverware.

Animals and Blocks Box  Part of the idea with these boxes and bags was to put things together in new combinations and keep it interesting. The animals are always a favorite in our house, and that was true of the trip as well.

Writing Implements Box. This one was just filled with pens and crayons and a pair of scissors. The crayons are really cool because they are twist up, so you can’t break them. Thad doesn’t like to use broken crayons (coo-coo) and Thatcher likes to rip the paper off of crayons, which really bothers me (coo-coo). Crayons are great in the car too because they don’t write on other things like pens do. On that note, I brought some of those Crayola markers that only write on special paper, thinking that Thatcher may like to color and wanting to keep destruction to a minimum. He promptly ate the tip off one of the markers and threw the rest on the floor of the car. Fail.

Speaking of coloring, I also brought a binder full of different paper activities. Some pages pulled out of coloring books, plain construction paper, lined writing paper, worksheets, sticker pages, etc.

Sorry for the evil looking clown. It’s a color-by-number page. It looked less scary when it was colored in. The nice thing about paper activities is that they take up very little space, but can occupy lots of time. The downside is that Thatcher’s coloring privileges quickly went in the toilet after the pen-eating incident. He really isn’t old enough. But great for older kids.

Another topic of entertainment was CDs. Don’t just think about music CDs, there are lots of different things you can get: picture books on disk, full length books on disk, music books on disk, etc. (We don’t own most of these…got them from the good ol library)

Along that same line, the book box was full of….books. (Duh) But again, a variety of different stuff. Books to go along with the music disks (Like Wee Sing, and Driving my Tractor) and picture books for the books on disk (Pete the Cat, The Little House). Lots of new story books from the library, along with some non-fiction books from the library. And, of course, I included some of our trusty travel books that Thad has been known to look at for an hour at a time, like this one:

I did bring lots of picture books, but we have been reading chapter books too, which is nice as a change of pace for the reader, to just read and not have to show pictures. We are currently reading The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

Some of the books that I got from the library had paper activities to go along with them:

And JUST IN CASE you don’t think I’m crazy yet, let me tell you about my new purchase: a laminator. A week before the trip, I panicked, thinking that all my activities would be useless unless we had this magical item: a lap tray. I bought 2 from amazon. They are nice and we will definitely use them, but I really wanted it to work for Thatcher because he has a hard time keeping things where they need to be. Unfortunately, his car seat is reclined enough the the tray really is at an angle towards him and doesn’t give him a flat surface. So really they will work better as the kids get older. BUT, at the same time, I also ordered this laminator. I had a bunch of stuff that I wanted to print and laminate, and was planning to do it through Kinko’s FedEx, but it is SO EXPENSIVE! For one color printing on cardstock with lamination it would be $3.00! Too rich for my blood. So, I spent $35 on a laminator and 100 sheets of laminating folders (the price on the laminator went up since I bought it….sucka!) So now I can laminate to my heart’s content, and was able to make lots of fun stuff. (These will all have links in case you think they are as super cool as I do)

Matching cards: Animals and their tracks

Butterfly wings for matching

Matching animals to their silhouettes

Matching seasons to clothing

Matching whole fruits to halved fruits

The seasons

Number puzzles

And of course, the life saver of all life savers….a DVD player. (Thanks to my friend Ashley for letting us borrow this!!) It truly came through for us more than once. A little bit of screen time is not going to kill kids during a long car ride. Embrace it. My sister told me you can borrow these from her library. Something to look into.

Oh, and I made both boys some neck pillows from this template. They literally took maybe 15 minutes to make. You can see what they look like with my handsome model. Clearly, he is fast asleep here.

Well I think that’s about it. It may seem like a lot, but it was fun for me to plan and put everything together. I definitely don’t feel like I did too much. Not only did we use this stuff for the 20 hours in the car, but we were away from home for 8 days….that’s a lot of time to kill. They played with a lot of this stuff while we were there, too. One thing that I would do differently in the future would be to make more things magnetic. The Dollar Tree cookie sheets were awesome. They worked way better and were more useful than the $15 lap trays. They would have been even better if we had more things that STUCK to them. The only things that were magnetic were the car roads and the matching butterflies. After we got back, I found this site, which has tons of printable roads/farms/racetracks/dino lands/pirate maps that we could have done on the cookie sheets. If you have girls that aren’t into this stuff….sorry. I’m not sure what to do. Bring dolls or something. Kidding.

Anyway, that’s my road trip prep in a nutshell. A large nutshell. More on the trip itself to come!

Picture Recap

Since I just did a pretty text-heavy post, and have another one planned, lets throw in some pictures to break things up a bit.

Memorial Day weekend / my Birthday in Coos Bay

We headed to the ‘ol in-laws for the weekend. We had kind of off and on good weather with rain thrown in, but still managed to play outside a lot. My birthday almost always falls on Memorial Day weekend, so I get a 3 day weekend to celebrate. Yea for turning 31 (AKA, BOOO)

Thatcher’s first “real” haircut.

And by that, I mean me cutting his hair in the kitchen. Probably could use another one already. Don’t let the picture fool you, he did not look this happy the whole time.

Trip to local farm for some strawberry picking

This was actually really fun. The boys basically ate strawberries and dirt the whole time, but it was very low stress for me for whatever reason. Until a few days later when Thatcher got the most raging bacterial eye infection and then spread it to Thad, for which they both needed oral antibiotics. Other than that, super fun. We will do it again next year, and just try to rub less dirt on our faces (Thatcher, I’m talking to you).

Funny picture of the boys wearing reading glasses

My sister put together a cute box of “eye exam” stuff for Thad for Christmas, so they were playing with that. Don’t worry, I (their eye doctor) approve of them wearing readers, won’t hurt a thing. Plus, it’s funny.

Thad’s first night in a big bed

Sadly, this night ended tragically with him waking up at 4am throwing up, and continuing to throw up for the next 12 hours. We are working on re-doing both their rooms, and will possibly have it done this weekend. More pics to come.

Weekend trip to Redmond

Justin’s sister and her fiancée bought a house in Redmond last year, and we just went to go see it for the first time a few weekends ago. Thatcher had a little bit of a hard time sleeping, and it was HOT, but otherwise a fun trip. We hung out at their house, went to a river, and swam in the hotel pool of some other family members that were coincidently in town for sports stuff.

4th of July

All of my 4 siblings live in the Pacific NW with the exception of my younger brother, Seth, who lives in the LA area with his wife and their son. They usually fly up here twice a year, once in the summer, and once for the winter holidays. Whenever they are up here, we obviously try to spend as much time with them as possible since we don’t get to see them much. Cutest bunch of kids you will ever see. You’ll note that there are 3 handsome young boys all about the same age; the one with straight hair is my sister’s, the curly one is mine, the super curl one is my brother’s.

Setting off a small fireworks show in the driveway. Dad made fun of Oregon’s fireworks. To be fair, they are totally lame. Clearly, the one pictured was purchased in Washington, where they don’t care if they blow off body parts, or set their state on fire.

Making s’mores with Gpa, Thad eating his with Uncle Seth, and Thatcher is blowing on the fire….safety first, you know. Don’t be alarmed by the police car in the background, It’s my dad’s.

Getting out of the house and heading to the playground, and Ashlyn and Thad helping me make Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries (Try ‘em, they are super simple, fast, and delish. Kid friendly and adult friendly)

And wwwhhhaaaaaaaaa? Second family picture in a 2 week time span. We are on a roll, ya’ll!

I love you, family!

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

What I walked into my bathroom and saw the other day. If you have some explanation, do tell. I am at a loss as to what is going on here. At least the seat is down.

Happy summer. Next up for us: A road trip to Tahoe to stay at Justin’s (distant) family’s cabin. Yes, that’s right, I said a 12 hour car ride with a 3 and a 1 year old. Yikes.

Moving “Up and to the Right”

This post is one that I have wanted to write for a long time. Or, at least, I have been thinking about it for a long time. I wanted to share some thoughts on what I am doing to help my kids to know Christ. Obviously, there is no right or wrong way, and if there was, my thoughts may not be on the “right” list. But after lots of thought, prayer and advice seeking, I have come up with a few things.

This whole topic started weighing on my mind a couple of months ago. Justin and I host a small group for our church at our house. We meet either weekly or every other week, depending on what’s going on, and discuss a book that we are all reading, a sermon series, etc. We have great couples in our group and we really love doing it. There are 4 couples, including us, and 6 kids ages 4 and under. The problems is: what do you do with 6 young kids while trying to have meaningful conversations with other adults. Our solution: we don’t know. Anti-climatic, I know. The solution to that question is not really the point of this post. What we TRIED to do, was shoo the kids to the boys’ bedrooms and expect them to play together happily for an hour. Not sure how we expected that to work. My own TWO kids can’t play unsupervised for more than thirty seconds before hell breaks loose and I have to go put out a fire. (Not literally…..yet). Our ridiculous expectation led to frustration on the parent’s part, and then ultimately, the realization that, DUH, we are asking way too much of them.

And, yet, I still was trying to figure out, how can we distract these kids so we can have some peace and quiet and get something out of this time together. And then it hit me. Why in the world are we trying to un-include our kids? What about my life purpose? Remember this post? You know, where I said my LIFE PURPOSE is to teach my kids to know Christ? Where does it say I should send them away while I talk to other people about Christ? That thought changed my entire mindset about how to approach things. We don’t have the perfect solution for what to do with kids during small group, but it totally changed my perspective on the direction that should head. More than that, it made me think about our lives in general, and what we are doing to teach them about Christ. How are we showing them what it means to live a life following Christ?  What does that really look like for a 3 and a 1 year old? What do you do? What do you say? So here are my thoughts, they fall into 2 general categories:

(Please note: I most definitely am not trying to tell anyone how to raise their kids. The point of this is to encourage and maybe give some ideas to others who may be thinking about this same stuff)

LEAD BY EXAMPLE:

Probably the biggest factor here is that I need to be spiritually on track. This one is interesting because in some ways, I waver back and forth between thinking that as the mom, I have a lot of say in how my kids think, are raised, and how they turn out. But, on the same token, they are ultimately in the hands of God, in His control, not mine. Keeping that big picture in mind is important. So while my job is to fulfill my purpose, the ultimate responsibility does not lie on my shoulders. I need to do all the things I am supposed to, but God is in control.

• Spending daily time with God is, for me, invaluable. Reading, praying, verse memorzation, etc. I like to do it in the morning before the kids are up. It helps me to start my day in the right mindset and keep things in perspective. In my internet searchings on this whole topic, I came across this post on how to create a successful quiet time which I thought had a lot of helpful hints.
• Pray for them. Probably a no brainer, but I sometimes feel at a loss for WHAT to pray for. This is a cool list that has helped give me some structure and broadness for how I pray for them. 
• There are probably a gazillion Bible verses that pertain to being a mother, but for some reason, this one has really struck a chord with me:

“Using a dull ax requires great strength, so sharpen the blade. That’s the value of wisdom, it helps you succeed”. –Ecclesiastes 10:10

That is maybe a bit obscure in how it relates to parenting, but in my mind, it means BE EFFECTIVE, sharpen yourself, and you will be a more effective parent. I want to be a wise, successful parent. So, my goal is to always work on sharpening myself.

• Be humble, be honest, grant yourself some grace when you screw up. I have to remind myself of that on a daily basis.

TEACH:

There are TONS of tools that you can use to help teach them the message of Christ. Do you NEED these? Of course not. But, I felt like I needed something tangible in my hands to use. Things to help me know HOW to say things at the level of a toddler.

• Kid Bibles: Thad has A Child’s First Bible, which is good, but I also got The Jesus Storybook Bible based on some recommendations from friends. I really like it, it tells the bible in short stories that have a beginning and end, unlike the Child’s First Bible, which is continuous. I just find it easier to have a start and stop point when reading to kids. For some tips and thoughts on reading the Bible (in any form) to kids, read this article.
• Devotionals: I had never really thought of this as an option for little kids but was inspired by this post about Gathering for Devotions as a Family. I LOVE this idea. I really needed some help in relaying Biblical info to them at their level, and a devotional has helped me do just that. I read lots of reviews on Amazon and ended up getting The One Year Devotions for Preschoolers and Five-Minute Devotions for Children. They are both really good, the One Year Devotions has short, simple stories that apply some Biblical principle, with a short memory verse and a rhyming prayer. If your kids love animals, the 5 Minute one is AWESOME. There are only about 25 devotions, but each one talks about a different kind of animal and describes how a certain trait of that animal is God-given and applies to us also. The illustrations are cool and it is super kid friendly. Thad loves it. We read the one year one in the morning after breakfast, and I read the animal one to Thad when we put him to bed.
• Prayer: Not only do I want to pray FOR them, I want to pray WITH them. This blog post has some great tips on Teaching Your Children to Pray. Want some ideas for kid style prayers at the dinner table? Here is a good list (from this blog post). She also has some good ideas for teaching kids The Lord’s Prayer, which our church is big on.
• Music: I have yet to meet a kid who doesn’t love music. What a great way to teach them about God! I use You Tube a lot at home, but haven’t really found a great list of kid-style worship songs, so we have stuck to Wee Sing Bible Songs, which has literally 62 songs on it and includes a book with the lyrics and hand motions for each song. Pretty much all you need (or can handle for that matter….kid songs get stuck in your head rreeeeaal quick).

That’s about as far as I have gotten. Big picture wise, I want to teach them to follow THEIR purposes (again, from The Purpose Driven Life, the 5 purposes are Worship, Ministry, Mission, Fellowship and Discipleship). So with that as our big goal, we will work on moving in that direction over time.

Some other great ideas, tips and resources:

Bible Lessons for Toddlers

Top 5 Bible Verses for Toddlers to Memorize

Truth for Tots

35 Service Projects for Kids

Anyway, just some thoughts to share. This has been a new effort in the last month or so, and I am still working on how it looks in our daily lives. It’s a starting point, and I just want to keep them moving in the right direction. “Up and to the right”, as our pastor would say. I want to raise good kids. But more than that, I want to raise kids with a good heart…a heart for God.