We just got back from a last minute trip to the East coast. A month ago we found out that my mother-in-law along with other family members were headed over to visit some of our family who live in Pennsylvania. We knew it would likely be grandmas last trip so despite it only being a month away we decided to go and bring our little girls along. We found each girl a little suitcase and backpack along with their sleeping bag. About a week before we started getting everything packed and ready to go. It definitely took all that time to get everything together.
I started with their clothes first. I like my girls to match, especially on trips, so I have a technique that makes so every day they look cute together. First, I make three rows of outfits, one for each girl, starting with my favorite of each of their clothes. Then I find clothes for the others that match the favorite of the ones. For example, I have a floral pair of pants and a pink shirt for Sonnet I love. So I grabbed a floral pair of pants (as close to matching as possible) and a pink shirt for Ever and then a floral onesie for the baby.
Another example, I had a dark blue striped shirt for Ever and gray leggings to go with it. I grabbed gray leggings and a striped blue (different blue) for my biggest and a striped blue bodysuit for the littlest. This way in pictures they look great together and they look like I put a lot of work in finding matching outfits. In reality I picked a few favorite outfits and picked similar colors and patterns to go together.
Next, we made a trip to the store. My husband came up with the idea of getting some cheap $1 toys to bring along with. The idea was that if they weren’t their favorite toys from home, losing them wouldn’t be a big deal. Another reason was that if they were new toys the girls would be more excited to play with them. His last, best idea was to wrap them up like presents so that it would be a fun experience every half hour or so that would keep them distracted, happy, and engaged the entire flight.
Lastly, we read the rules on the TSA site regarding food and drinks. There are no limits on the amount of snacks one can bring on the plane but there are certain things that are never allowed. For example, anything liquid or paste is part of the 3-1-1 rule and you can’t bring opened packages, water, or partially eaten foods.
Beverages such as juice are allowed as long they are in see through containers or less than 500 ml. Otherwise, they will need to be tested. Something we got to experience but it wasn’t too annoying besides that it required the juices to be opened. This made it more difficult to bring them onto the plane so we had the girls drink them before boarding. I just filled up their water bottles with water and we were just fine.
The morning of the flight my husband grabbed a package of carabiners. They were indispensable to getting all of our luggage, including an infant car seat, and our double stroller through the airport. We checked the car seat and the double stroller but we brought everything else on board. Through the airport we were able to drag multiple suitcases in a train thanks to the carabiners.
On the flight I sat with my big girl and my baby. My husband sat with the two year old. It was a fair balance. Overall, the flight went smoothly as Sonnet loved the presents and Ever slept almost the entire flight. The presents were lots of fun and about every thirty minutes was about perfect. She’d open one, play a while, and then about five minutes to the next one she’d be bored. We brought zipper bags to put the wrapping paper and other trash. Everything went very smoothly for the flight out. Our girls acted decent, our seat neighbors were considerate and patient, and we got there without any big hiccups. All of the preparations went a long way toward such a nice flight.
It was challenging to bring the girls with us but it was definitely worth the extra work. It was a lot of fun to travel across the country with my best friends and experience tons of new things with them.
xoxo
Faith
