It’s Shark Week! Who has been watching? Raise your fins 🙂
But we aren’t afraid (ok maybe a little) and are planning a beach vacation. We try to go to the beach every year and have yet to introduce our newest addition to the great big blue sea. Since Jeremy’s dad already locked down the location, all we had to do was plan out activities for the kids and get our hineys down there. Speaking of traveling to vacation spots…do you guys use a method for a great car experience? We have done a lot of long road trips and this time we were gonna try something new. A friend recommended getting little gifts for the boys to open for each hour of the drive. We aren’t doing it for good behavior (let’s be honest, three kids four and under in one car for over an hour is like a shark attack)….just more like a distraction for the six hour drive. Since we already get little goodies for the boys, this is just a fun way to give them something to look forward to…ya know, besides the beach itself.
Everything had to have an ocean theme. And I spent right around $100 total on everything. I started at the beginning of the summer and patiently stalked the sales and clearance rack and hit up the dollar store when the summer-time stuff came in.
We usually buy the boys two suits per summer. This year I waited to get the second suit and I am so glad I did because (selfish motive) hopefully they will look good for any beach photos.
When it came to water toys, I let Will pick. He told me that the ‘shooters’ were his favorite thing and then I picked out the fish loofahs to make bath time a little more ‘beach’ themed.
Some of you may not understand this but I literally screamed when I saw all three of these outfits on the clearance rack at Gymboree. I’m not kidding. The check out lady was like “oh you found all three sizes, didn’t you?!” and she and I had this eye-locking moment of pure unadulterated joy. The best part was the price. The shark sweatshirts were all under $9 and the shorts were $3 each. I gave myself a high-five and didn’t care who saw my nerd side.
I fully expect the stickers to eat up an hour of the car ride. Weston LOVES stickers. Also….Swedish fish & Lifesavers….get it? The dolphin plates are one of those weird things that will be fun and functional. I think we will use them when we do our crafts (we want to do Elmer’s glue designs on paper with sand, painting shells and mini shell mosaics) and if the boys need a snack 🙂
Are my boys the only ones that get excited about new jammies? My boys go nuts about them. Jammies and chewy vitamins. It’s weird. And it seems like we never have enough. So we found these fish and submarine bedwear that is perfect for a special treat.
Over the course of the summer, I collected cheap goodies…dollar flip flops, couponed sunblock, an additional $2 swimshirt for LJ (it matches his first bathing suit so it’ll be like two outfits for one). The accessories are not real expensive but I think they will be useful when it comes to getting beach ready. Oh and I also bought one of those MagicCool towels….for Jer….I might steal it though. I get heat head aches really easily and we will probably end up arguing over who gets to use it….and then make up of course 🙂
The activities that we bought are just in case it rains or we have an evening in. I got pirate masks, a sticker mosaic, trident glowsticks (see what I did there?!), Magic Grow sea animals and a three ring pool for under our umbrella. I fully expect this stuff to be chum to our little sharks. Since we won’t have our normal toys, these activities will eat up any fussy time that might creep in. Vacation sometimes just feels like relocation…everything is the same (kids cry, babies need fed, meltdowns happen) but you don’t have your own prepared space to handle it…so it can even be harder. I’m hoping that this method will give me enough activities to keep their little hands busy and their brains distracted.
I plan on handing one gift out every hour in the car per big boy. I even wrapped them and labeled them with washi tape so they are ready to go. Yes, they look like prepared meats….ironic since that’s what little sharks devour. And that my friends is how you do a post full circle 🙂
I loove that Old Navy one piece rashguard for babies. I’ve been looking for one for my soon to come little boy, but unfortunately, everyone else seems to love them too.
Cute! We luckily live 2hours from the beach = 1 Frozen and 1 episode of Arthur or Sid the Science Kid. The fussing starts as soon as Frozen is done.
I ended up buying those cooling towels, but they make hats now too. I got both for the adults, makes live so much nicer. And baby powder gets the sand off so easily. I used that to clean the kids off before coming inside or getting into the car.
Have fun!!!
Yesterday I was at Target and picked up these “scratching” pictures in the Dollar Spot… they are like coloring pages, covered in black stuff that kids scratch off to reveal the color underneath, awesome! They kept my two year old busy for a solid 30 minutes last night while I made supper!
We took a wagon which was a backsaver. The kids didn’t ride in it but the stuff did. Have fun!
For the car, check out Sparkle Stories! (www.sparklestories.com) David is an amazing storyteller and there are several series. You can try a story for free from iTunes to see if it sparks (see what I did there?) the kids interest. Have fun on your vacation!
We are preparing for a 12 hr drive to the beach. I too am doing the gift idea, but not for every hour. We planned our trip so they would be napping during part of it. I’m also making some busy bags they can do in the car. Just finished button snakes today and laminated some roadways to play cars with. Wishing us both luck!
I LOVE the shark outfits and don’t blame you one bit for screaming.
When my bro, sister and I were 10, 6 and 2 we drove with my parents and grandparents from San Diego to Florida (no idea what they were thinking). My mom did something really similar and gave us each a little treat at each rest stop.
On another long road trip when everyone was a bit older, she set a kitchen timer for 15-minute increments, and if your behavior was appropes you got a poker chip when the timer went off. Then you could trade your chips to “buy” treats during stops.
This actually worked really well until we woke up the last morning of the trip to find a bear tore out our minivan window to get the bag of poker chips on the dashboard.
Anyways, have a great time with your little sharks!
We just did a 12 hour trip a few weeks ago and did the present thing. I went a step further and numbered them. Then when it was time to pick, they just picked a number (I had written the numbers all down on index cards to pick from, if that makes sense!). It eliminated all the ‘but I wanted that one!’ arguments. Also I got some cheapy little cookie sheets from the dollar tree for coloring, eating, playing with magnet letters, etc. They both loved that and was a more stable surface (mine are 3 and 1.5).
Fun mommy! Lucky boys! My son is 10 now so he can finally handle longer car trips. But, when he was little we used to tie a string across one end of the back seat to the other. (Up toward the ceiling – from those hooks or handles where you hang your dry cleaning.) We’d measure out the miles of our trip and load the string with the right amount of beads to represent each 25 mile leg of the journey. Every time we went 25 miles, my son would get to move a bead from one end of the string to the other. Every 3 or 4 beads, he got to choose a little gift from a mystery bag of goodies like the one you’ve put together. I tried to make most of the gifts things he could do in the car (to pass the time between “present” beads)! You would think he only enjoyed the “present” beads. But, even moving a bead without a present represented progress and gave him something to be excited about on the long drive. And it cut down on the “Are we there yets?” because he could see exactly how many beads we had left to go. It’s a bit of up front work (and math!) for mom. But, it definitely made car rides a breeze! Have fun with your sweet family! Love your blog!
I have 4 kids under four. We just did a road trip that was 20 hours each way! No gifts, just snacks and movies.
We just got back from beach with an almost 3 month old & 5 year old…the cool towel (frog tog) was perfect for the baby. I laid it out on top of beach blanket & he’d nap on it so he could stay cool.
I love how you said the thing that I feel like I’m always trying to express. Yes, vacation is just relocation and sometimes it makes ‘doing life’ with kids so much harder! We don’t want to miss out on making those memories but we don’t get oh-so excited for every vacation because it is hard work with little kids. Good luck! I hope the boys enjoy their goodies.
My best advice for road trips is to leave in the middle of the night! We drive over 18 hours to get to our favorite beach- this year we left at 2:30am. By the time the kids woke up we were already 6-7 hours into our drive. My husband is an early riser so this works for him as well- and there is less traffic to fight. We use this technique for all our road trips!! My kids are 8 & 17 now but no matter how old you are- road trips are just long especially without wifi!! LOL I also did the little gifts this year for my 8 year old- funny thing was my 17 year old asked where his were!! oops..I just figured he would listen to music or keep himself entertained.. #mommyfail
Have a great time at the beach!!
Well that escalated quickly… haha, hopefully the bear only got the poker chips and nothing else!
This bead idea is kind of genius. I would do that just for myself.
You know what kept my kids busy forever? Those squeezy fan bottles. The blades are foam so I felt ok giving it to my big girl. Well until she tried to stop it with her tongue. True story. For another time. After that, mommy just used it to make it “drizzle” on them in the car…which they thought was far more amazing than is…but heck, it worked!
Great idea! I borrowed it from the inernet earlier this year when we flew from Brisbane, Australia to Singapore (stopping for a night – going to the waterpark for the day!) then on to London with a 3 yr old and a 1 yr old….. I still have a few gifts that weren’t opened as my 3 year old loved the fact he had his own remote control for his individual tv on the plane.
I wrote what was inside each gift too and we spelled out the words …. every.minute.of.activity.counts !!!
Had to comment on this “Vacation sometimes just feels like relocation”. This is totally true for you for now but in the near future just over the horizon you will go away with your children and you and your husband will be able to sit in chairs, enjoy each other’s company, and watch the kids off in the distance with a proud and truly relaxed smile on your face. I just hit it this year with the kids 8,6, & 5 and it is glorious. 🙂
JEALOUS (just a little!).
xo – kb
I love your ideas on keeping kids busy on long car trips! When my little one gets bigger I will definitely be stealing the whole wrapping gifts to give out idea. Thank you for sharing!
-Lara
Haha. Spot on my friend.
xo – kb