I am a lover of storage cubes. In particular, I am a lover of THESE. I love that I can separate and organize all of our clothes, shoes and lingerie (well mine at least). I love that they provide ample room for everything and that they keep everything nice and will look the same way that I packed them when unpack the suitcase. I use one of the smaller to medium sized ones for 'day of' park outfits. On the days that we drive directly into the parks sometimes I have special outfits for the kids. For this trip, it was namely matching orange bird outfits, yes you read that correctly and if you are a lover of the Dole Whip, this already makes sense to you.
First, the outfits would be a mess if they wore them in their carseat 3 hours to get into the parks, secondly, Commodore occassionally gets car sick, and lastly I doubt that EV's would be very comfortable so having a riding in the car outfit and having them in a separate storage cube for them to change into once we get to the park's parking lot just makes things a lot easier. If I am drinking coffee on the carride up, and my plan is to wear a light-colored shirt, I will sometimes have my shirt with their outfits (I already know I am extra, you don't need to think it). Since we ended going up the night before, I just kept everything in their separate storage cube and kept it on top of everything else. It made getting them dressed in the morning super easy. I tend to pack the cubes with the days in mind so the last day is on the bottom of the cube and I work my way up to the first day. In doing this, it keeps me from having to sift through the clothes and make a mess of things that I packed.
I actually have two sets of the travel cubes which may be excessive to some as they come in a set of six (cue face palm emoji). I use one of the bigger ones for outfits that we plan to use for pictures. I have an incredible photographer Greg (VMP Photo) who has become an even better friend/family member and takes the most amazing pictures. He is located in Orlando and can pretty much meet anywhere in Disney. He is an all-around easy going person to be around and is phenomenal with kids which makes the experience that much more enjoyable and not stressful as some photography sessions can be (especially with time constraints). Having our photography outfits and accessories also in a separate cube also keeps everything from getting overly wrinkled and I do not have to worry about forgetting something that day. I can immediately put everything on a hanger when we get to where we are going and live out of our suitcase with everything else.
For Commodores's Birthday in June we have an outfit change (I wish I could say this is out of the norm, but we always do a fun outfitand then a nice family set as well). In addition, we are also doing a Capture the Moment at Animal Kingdom and have outfits for that as well. Because of all the different photography sessions and being nervous about not having everything together (hair accessories, mickey ears, etc.), I also bought THIS to make sure that everything stays nice together due to the excess amount of clothing.
Just to give you an idea of how I group everything together and pack...
Day-Of
Orange Bird outfits (HERE) for when we go to the park (including accessories and I pack shoes for the day) as well as their traveling clothes. We have the kids as comfy as possible in the car, so more often than not, they are sans shoes. The outfits, shoes, and accessories can all fit in this bag...comfortably too mind you.
The outfits below the orange bird ones are if they get hot or if the dress up outfits just become bothersome. Rather than them have a meltdown, I would rather be able to get them into something comfortable to enjoy the rest of the day. Speaking of excess, I have so many of those black bike toddler shorts above from the Cat&Jack line at Target (this I am kind of embarassed by). They are they are awesome, super comfy, and look adorable with t-shirts. If we are going from the house straight to the park these outfits will be what they wear in the car and after I change them into the other outfits (in the parking lot mind you), I will throw these in the small cube and either put it in the diaper bag or in the bottom of the stroller. Yes, the cube is that small and yes it still keeps everything nice. I can literally fit the other outfits (above) in this as well.
My orange bird t-shirt is from the always amazing LakeBuenaVisitor, I ended up going with a different pair of Lilly shorts though. Obviously this is prior to ironing as well...
Actual shorts I went with....they were a lot cuter and the pattern made the t-shirt pop....
Traveling to my best friend Mikey's made for an unusual packing experience. I wanted to have as little as possible in regards to our suitcase (my goal was to pack one for me and the kids), but also there was a lot of additional things that we were not used to packing, such as food, it was our first time in the parks in over a year and we were not sure how long we would be staying in the parks so we wanted to have food options for the kids if a lot of home time was spent. It is also a 3.5 hour drive so it needed to be food that could sit in the car (macaroni and cheese, juice, pediasure, veggie squeeze pouches, bread, peanut butter and a brand new jelly).
I apparently have no spacial recognition whatsoever because I thought their guest room was much bigger than it was in actuality. The beds that we had gotten for the kids HERE (they are amazing mind you) did not both fit in the room, so the Commodore was in one guest bedroom with Sean and EV and I took the other room. We will end up saving both beds for when we stay at the Dolphin for Commodore's birthday, I am excited to see if EV will actually sleep on it (we plan to day a sleepover prior to his birthday to test it out). Prior to leaving, we did make sure that there was nothing wrong with them and that they blew up nicely, EV seemed to be quite the fan, so fingers crossed she is just as excited to actually sleep on them and that Hubs and I can actually have a king bed to ourselves.
I will say that having to purchase two of these, yes they were a little pricey, but the reviews were excellent and I found after doing research that we could go cheaper (with a different brand or just a regular old air mattress), but that we would be making a replacement a lot sooner than intended so it wouldn't really be a savings in the long run. They fit crib sheets and we have multiple sheets just because of the Commodore's bed, so they are easy to pack up and then we bring a light blanket for them (I love THESE from Sweet Ellie Sue....she has a Labryinth baby blanket...nuf said) and something a little heavier just in case.
I love THIS Yoda makeup pouch set (it comes with three and I believe I got mine from Boxlunch). I actually use it for EV and mine hair accessories (bows, headbands and scrunchies) as well as my dry shampoo, SunBum hair mist (sunscreen for the hair and protects colored hair from drying out and discoloring) , moroccan hair oil and our wet hairbrush and then I use the small round pouch for her actual hair ties that I use for her ponytails.
THIS extra large cosmetic bag is from Vera Bradley and I pretty much use it for all the travel extras that we may never use, but may need. As you can see, it fits sooooo much and this is basically everything, but the kitchen sink. We keep this bag in a travel section in our pantry (along with travel tumblers, our travel bowls with lids, kids silverware, etc.) and it is always packed so all I am doing is grabbing the bag. When we return home, I do check the bag for anything we used and make note to reorder and restock if needed. For my curly/color processed friends, that travel Suave shampoo was incredible and I hate Suave. I actually went to Target when we returned and bought another four.
Yes it is a lot, but it all fits comfortably in the bag and I would rather have everything and not need it than to need it and not have it. Plus, again we were not staying somewhere where our normal day to day was going to be accessible so I didn't want to have to worry about placing a $35 order for a $2 item.
Is it weird that I still prefer the thermometer we got sent home from the hospital?
As per usual my amazing assistant wanting to show you how much can fit in this bag.
I was really impressed with the packing of my makeup bag as I have mentioned it can be really excessive and I ended up being quite conservative and actually used everything that I had brought with me. I will need to make sure that I replicate this for the future (see my post HERE to see what I took with me).
As far as outfits go, I kind of wish I had packed more (I know I know, I am the worst). We ended up at my amazing MIL's house on the way back and pretty much stayed an extra week (my job is virtual so where my laptop goes, so does my work), so I had to do two loads of laundry as a lot of what I brought for EV to wear in the parks, I do not traditionally put in the dryer, but hang. And by a lot, I mean the majority of...
I like to theme outfits for where we are going, so it was a little strange having their Animal Kingdom outfits transition to Battu. Again, #firstworldproblems, but this had been the first time we had been in the park in over a year so getting a lot of pictures was something I was really looking forward too. I had forgotten to take pictures of what I wore, but you can pretty much see everything posted HERE. But below is what I had packed for the kids and I and again, I pack from last day up in the storage cubes.
The Passholder shirt above was a surprise for my best friend and his partner that I made on the Cricut and because they have not announced anything yet, I cannot show it ;).
EV's clothes (a majority of which came from the Character Warehouse). I love THIS comfy Raya inspired dress from PresleyCouture. Almost all the dresses are $18 and are super comfy (how many times can I use this phrase) for day wear in the parks. We actually have quite a few dresses from them and EV loves them. They wash well and they just came out with the Mulan Warrior one (from the live-action of course) and we were shocked at how nice it was (we just recieved it yesterday. Mulan live-action movie night coming up (I just got the sword from the Character Warehouse for $7.99 today), so its been a win-win kind of week for EV so far.
Anywhoo....
I always buy the kids new Disney jammies whenever we go. The ones in the package come from GAP. I absolutely love their Disney jammies and during their sales, you can get them for about $12 which is a steal considering their quality!
The Itzy-Ritzy cubes that I use for the kiddos shoes. There is something about putting dirty kids shoes in with clean kids clothes that has me twitchy. If I haven't said it before or you cannot tell from this picture or the ones above, this cube set is REALLY small, however I love them and use them every single trip without fail. They hold up really well, still fit a lot of stuff (plus its nice to have the super small one for things that you do not want banging around in your bag like loose hair ties or hairclips, extra pacifiers if thats your jam) and they are a perfect fit for diaper bags, which is their intention to begin with.
I love those above Minnie shoes from Primark (personally just happy to have access to a Primark at all) and am totally bummed that they do no come slightly larger for me, so obviously I had to buy EV several sizes to make up for it. Seriously Primark...I just need them in a kids 4....one more size please and thank you since they appear to stop at a 3...
I was so proud that I literally packed for what was needed...nothing more nothing less... and then the extra week happened at my MIL's. I would say there is always June, but with everything going on, we know that is not going to happen....
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