Packing for my simple summer

Hi I'm Natalie and I get overwhelmed easily! So my mom confession of the day is I really don't like summer. Well I do but the last few years have been stressful for me. Don't get me wrong I love the pool and beach days, BBQs and tons of great weather activities. The last couple summers though, last year especially, come August my head is spinning like I've been on a roller coaster all summer and I. WANT. OFF. lol.

So in thinking of ways to make this summer better for all of us, I came up with this idea to pack for my simple summer! Let me back up a tad. I am a homeschooling mama so my kids are home with me most of the time, that isn't the issue. My issue is I STRUGGLE with house work/chores on any given week of the year. During the school year I can mostly manage because we have a routine and well friends do too. But summer comes and everyone is available and we get invited to great places with great friends. Problem with that is this struggling mama now has no time to keep up with chores and the craziness compiles. Thus overwhelming me and making our should be fun time not so much fun for us anymore because I'm a yelling Momzilla about cleaning the house and tackling the Mt. Everest pile of laundry because before we can go to Susie's pool party we need clothes!

Ok so back to my packing idea. A year ago we took a 26 day road trip with the 3 kids, a dog and a pop up trailer. It was the BEST, non stressful time for our family. I keep seeing my Facebook memories and it takes me back. As I was looking at some of these pics the other day I realized we packed for an entire month away from home and survived on said clothes even with swimming, hiking and camping! Two suitcases worth for the 5 of us and that was only because we had to pack for pretty cold times and pretty hot times. I did laundry every 2-4 days depending on location but it was no big deal. That is when the whole point of this posts idea hit me, I want to pack for our "summer vacation"!!

I don't know about your house and your kids but if they are anything like mine they tend to change their outfits about 150x a day, maybe more in the summer because they get wet every 10 minutes and decide they need fresh clothes... I applaud you mamas who have this under control and as much as I WANT to, I just do not. So here is what I am going to give a try! I am going to have the kids help me make a "packing list" for about a 5 day trip because well we home school and they might as well learn this skill too :D I am then going to have them pack said list into either one of their drawers or an actual suitcase, I haven't decided yet. Then we are going to pack away EVERYTHING else so it is not accessible. Oh did I mention this was going to include TOYS? On our road trip they had a few of their favorite toys with us but everything else at home and they did FINE :)

I told the kids of this plan last night and they seemed pretty enthusiastic. My 7 year old even asked if we could " pack up our bags, drive around the block and arrive at our "hotel" for the summer" hahaha. Kid if you want to pretend we are at a hotel all summer, I am all over supporting that idea! I just added there was no maid service at this "hotel" hehehe.

So there is my idea to help my sanity this summer. To simplify life and make time for the good stuff and to teach some life lessons along the way. Stay tuned for an update in a month or so! Now on to the hard part, deciding which running gear Im taking on this vacation!! (yes I'm included in this crazy plan because I don't like to ask my kids to do something I'm not willing to do :) )