As I’ve mentioned many times, we went on a road trip in October. To read more about it you can click here. But, what I haven’t shown you yet is how we kept the kids entertained for 3500 miles.

We don’t have DS’s or ipads or any other gaming device to take with us. When I first started planning this trip, I thought I would go buy a Kindle fire or something similar. But, as the time got closer & I still hadn’t bought one I really didn’t see a reason to buy one just for this trip. So I didn’t. We did bring a laptop so they could watch movies. As it turned out, though, they had no desire to watch movies. We tried watching a movie two different times & both times the kids didn’t even watch it more than a half hour. So, we didn’t watch any more movies.

I planned for months putting together activities to keep them busy. I knew I was asking a lot of them to behave in a cramped car for 15 days. I expected a few meltdowns, but I thought if I planned ahead & kept them busy most of the time they’d be too active to notice they were bored and still in the car. It worked surprisingly well. The boys (ages 7 & 9) did awesome, almost no complaining at all. Farm Girl (age 4), though, was more difficult to keep entertained. She had plenty of stuff to do, she just didn’t want to do it. She did fairly well until the last two long days of driving to get home when she just wanted to get out of the car.

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GETTING READY

The month before we left on our trip, I put up this countdown. The cars were cut using the Boys Will Be Boys cricut cartridge.

My months of planning was condensed to this bin, which fit perfectly in our car.

WHAT WE DID

COUNTDOWN CLIPS
I made these clips with different activities on them that attached to the passenger side visor. My idea was that every half hour we’d remove a clip & change activities. I was also hoping this would eliminate a few of the “How long ’til we get there?” questions. They would know each clip equaled half an hour. As there were fewer and fewer clips they would see we were getting closer. Truthfully, these were not needed. They were a waste of my time & energy. By day 2 or 3 we quit using them.

BAGS
I gave each of the kids their own bag. Inside the bag was a binder, cookie sheet, book & the boys also had math wrap-ups. The bag was also a good place for them to put the things they collected along the way.

BINDERS
The binders were full of activities:
I gave the kids 2 dry erase markers in their binders to do a variety of activities. There were mazes, games, lego mini fig, pictures of themselves and more. But, they kept losing the dang markers. They’d drop it and not be able to reach it, then forget about it & it would end up covered by other things or kicked under the seat, etc, etc, etc.

It wasn’t all fun & games. I threw in a bit of school work, too. I didn’t bring any of their curriculum with us, but I brought things they needed extra help with. Farm Kid2 knows his vowel sounds well, but when he spells words he often mixes up the i and e. So, I made a few simple worksheets where he had to pick the vowel that fit in the word. He was only given 1 sticker for each vowel. Then he wrote the word on the blank line.

Before we left I put together simple journals. They kept their journals in the pocket of their binder.

Also, in the binder pockets were games.
Left: License Plate Game I printed from The Dating Divas. This was a hit. The kids (and me too) loved looking for different license plates. We even saw some from Mexico & Canada.
Top Right: In our daily running around town the kids like me to pick a color, then they have to find something outside that is that color. I was hoping this spinner would cut down on the number of colors I was going to have to pick.
Bottom Right: These tins held crayons perfectly. Each of the kids had one in their bag.

COOKIE SHEETS
Cookie sheets from the dollar store were brought simply because they’re magnetic. And, magnets are always fun. I also thought the trays could be used as a surface for their snacks or game playing. The trays worked perfectly. But after 15 days in the car the dollar cookie sheets were tweaked & bent.

Top: A few of the cookie sheet activities were number matching for Farm Girl, money counting for the boys & pattern blocks. A fun idea I found at Creative Juice was printing pictures of themselves on magnetic paper and adding magnetic props.
Bottom Left: I made worksheets for counting money & making change using the money magnets I found at the dollar store. Click here to read more about the worksheets.
Bottom Middle: Playsets printed from Disney Family.com, then I added a magnet to each piece.
Bottom Right: A few more ways they were able to use their cookie sheets. It made a good surface for rolling dice & doing crafts.

SURPRISE BAGS
I admit, most of the surprise goodies didn’t come in a bag. Most came in a manilla envelope. But, it’s not quite as fun to say, “Here’s your surprise manilla envelope.”

I searched all summer for fun stuff to add to the surprise bags. Much of it is from the Dollar Store or dollar section at Target. Two big hits in our car, not in the dollar realm, were Mad Libs and the game Rush Hour. I loved both of them because they were compact enough to easily bring with us & also somewhat educational. I brought sticker books for each of the kids, but they were not as in to them as I thought they would be.

Another thing I did was separate many activity/coloring books and only add the pages I wanted in the places I wanted them. Some of the books I did this were hidden picture books, a What to Doodle book by Dover, Bright Idea coloring books with the black pages & milky crayons & a few workbooks.

I used this as a good excuse to tear out & actually do the various activities in magazines we subscribe to. Most of the magazines usually have a maze or word find or book to put together. Typically we don’t do those things. But, I added those things to the different envelopes.

Each envelope had a theme. This one is obviously a dog theme. The items in this bag were hidden pictures, a velvet poster, Scooby Doo coloring book, coloring sheets & a dog shaped paper doll from Making Friends.

Moth & Butterfly themed envelope
This envelope had a couple worksheets, flashcards, mosaic craft & a lacing butterfly

OTHER STUFF

They each collected smashed pennies along the way, which gave them something to look at and talk about in the car.

We went to 5 National Parks. They finished the Junior Ranger program at each one. This gave them something to accomplish as we were driving through the park & gave us a good excuse to learn more about the plants & animals at each park.

As it turned out, I brought too much stuff to keep them busy. I didn’t even get some of it out of the bin. They liked many of the activities and wanted to play with them longer than I had anticipated. I certainly can’t complain about that.

I don’t know if it’s because of all the stuff I brought along, but the kids did so well on this trip. There were only a few arguments & not many complaints. It was a great vacation. I’m ready to go on another road trip!

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As part of our road trip that I keep talking about we spent three days at Disneyland. It was a surprise to the kids. You have no idea how ecstatic I was that it was able to stay a secret. I thought for sure some how they would find out. I figured by the time we drove up to the hotel they’d have it figured out. But we got to the hotel late & apparently we wore them out that day. They had all fallen asleep in the car. We stayed at the Best Western Park Place Inn. This is our second time staying there & I think it’s great. The rooms are nice & clean, the breakfast is good & it’s literally right across the street from Disneyland. From the parking lot to the room the kids couldn’t see any Disney stuff. So, they didn’t know where we were until morning. It was a great surprise! And, as happy as they were with the surprise, I was just as happy (if not more so) that we were able to give such a fun surprise to our kids.

Each day the kids got a few goodies before heading to the park.

DAY 1

The first day in Disneyland was Mr. T’s birthday. This was going to be a different birthday than normal since we were a few days into our road trip and no where close to home. He knew we were going some place fun, but he didn’t know where. That morning the kids actually were sleeping in & I woke them up by jumping on their bed singing, “It’s your birthday, get up! Get up, it’s your birthday!” A few minutes later there was a knock on the door. I told Mr. T to answer it & surprise, there were Grandma and a cousin joining us for whatever fun we had planned for his birthday. The surprise destination was Disneyland!

I know a day at Disneyland is plenty for a birthday shin dig, but I wanted to do goodie bags as well. Of course, most everything in the goodie bags were Disney themed: coloring books & posters to keep them busy in the hotel, activities to keep them busy once we’re on the road again & glowsticks to use at the park once it gets dark.

The bags also had the autograph books I made.

And, Lego Star Wars t-shirts. I chose these shirts because three out of the four kids were boys & I wanted to get them shirts they would actually like & want to wear again. Also, we were wearing Star Wars costumes the next day & I like stickin’ with a theme. They would wear the shirts again when we went to LegoLand a couple days later.

DAY 2

Again, another surprise. The kids obviously now knew we were at Disneyland, but today’s surprise was that we were going to Mickey’s Halloween Party. We were going trick or treating at Disneyland!

I had been making Star Wars themed costumes for the kids, but they had no idea I brought them with us on our trip. So, that day’s goodie bags included their costumes & light sabers.

I also included Halloween Mickey items I found at Joann’s and printed a few of the playsets from Disney Family.com. After cutting out the pieces I added a magnet to the back so they could play with it on their cookie sheet during the rest of our road trip.

DAY 3

No goodie bags for the last day. But, they did each get a Mickey tshirt.

Three days was not near long enough at Disneyland, but we made the most of it & crammed in as much as we could. It’s probably a good thing we don’t live closer. I think I love it there more than my kids.

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On our road trip one of the stops along the way was Disneyland. I still remember when I was a kid loving to meet the characters and get their autographs. I wanted my kids to have the same great experience. So, I made them their own autograph books.

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THE AUTOGRAPH BOOKS

I made four books. One for each of my own kids & one for my nephew who met us at Disneyland as a surprise for the kids. Each book is the same size and design, only the color choice is different.

For the cover, I used my cricut  with the Mickey Font cartridge to cut all the pieces, glued them in place, then laminated it.

INSIDE PAGES

All the inside pages are the shape of Mickey’s head, again using the Mickey Font cricut cartridge. These pages are not laminated.

BACK COVER

The back cover is cut on patterned paper, then laminated.
Each page was hole punched and connected with a binder ring.

GETTING AUTOGRAPHS!

Once at Disneyland, the kids just flipped to the page they wanted the character to sign, handed the character a sharpie with the lid off, got their signature & posed for a picture.

I am unsure why I love this so much, but I could probably spend an entire day at Disneyland just meeting the characters.

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Some years I make costumes for Halloween; some years I don’t. It just depends on what I feel like doing or what the kids want to be. This year proved to be a bit tricky, but came together great. I knew we were going to Disneyland for Mickey’s Halloween Party. But the kids didn’t.

I wanted their costumes to be Disney related, but still be manly enough for the boys. I decided on Star Wars since Disneyland has the Star Tours ride & Jedi training. I know nothing about Star Wars. I never watched the movies as a kid. And still have only seen part of episode 1. But, since I don’t live under a rock it was easy enough to come up with characters. Farm Kid2 quickly agreed to be Yoda. I planned on Farm Kid1 being somebody handsome such as Obi Wan Kenobi, but he chose to be the mean, old Emperor. Farm Girl had no idea who Princess Leia was, but since Leia was a princess she agreed.

I searched online for costumes, but didn’t find anything that worked. Eventually I decided to make them. Luckily I found a super simple jedi robe pattern online. I used the pattern on all the costumes, including the robes I made for the 3 adults. The kids costumes, though, have a few additions. A pattern almost doesn’t get easier than this one for the jedi robe. It really was simple. Although, it did require many yards of fabric.

I needed the kids to try on their costumes so I could make adjustments. I told them I was trying to get their costumes done before we left on our trip because I wouldn’t have enough time before Halloween to make them after we got back. They totally fell for it. I snuck a bag full of our costumes, makeup & light sabers in the car. Thankfully they never cared what was in that bag. I was able to keep the fact that we were trick or treating at Disneyland a surprise until the day of the party.

I wish I would have taken pics as I was sewing these to show how I put them together. But dang it! I didn’t.

I used a variety of different materials. They all held up well to the elements. But, they were hot. I mean uncomfortably hot. It was well into the 90’s when we were in Anaheim. Even at night, these were not cool costumes. They were perfect for trick or treating Halloween night here in the Pacific NW, though.

THE EMPEROR

This should be a two part costume. The black tunic underneath & a black robe. I thought I’d be smart & save myself a little material by making this a one part costume instead of two. I sewed the tunic into the robe to appear as a separate piece. But, Farm Kid1 needed a way in & out of the costume so I used little snaps at the top. They didn’t work well & kept coming undone. I should have sprung for the extra fabric & made it two separate pieces.

YODA

Yoda’s costume is two separate pieces. It’s basically two of the jedi robes. The only difference is the brown one isn’t cut open in the front. It does have a slit half way down the back, though, held together with snaps. This, and our adult jedi robes, were the easiest for me to make.

I made Yoda ears using one of Farm Girl’s headbands. This was fairly easy to put together. The headband is covered in green fleece. Each ear is two pieces sewn together, with an extra smaller piece of fleece in the middle to stiffen the ears just a tad. Luckily Farm Kid2 didn’t mind wearing the ears. I was afraid they’d be uncomfortable, but they didn’t seem to be. I also was concerned that the ears might flop. But, Farm Kid2 wore this costume three times & the ears have held up.

PRINCESS LEIA

The Princess Leia costume was a bit tricky. When I googled this costume in the movie it had both a higher neck, like a turtle neck, and also a hood. That meant I wanted to add both to her costume. Figuring out how to sew that and actually get her in & out of the costume was a waste of time. It really didn’t need both. She hated the turtle neck part. Luckily it velcroed in the back so I was able to undo it. And the hood, she only put on once. There had to be an easier way to sew that part of the costume. The back is quite a mess of velcro, snaps & safety pins.

I bought sparkly white material for the dress & sewed on silver ribbon around the arms & bottom of the dress. The belt is a separate piece. It’s not fancy. It’s two rectangles sewn together, with silver in the front.

This costume isn’t perfect, but she was so cute in it that it was worth the effort. She even won first place for her age group in the costume contest at our church harvest party. Yoda won for his age group, as well.

JEDI

The Jedi costumes for the three adults were quick & easy to make. Their only downfall is that they were too heavy & hot for California weather.

STAR WARS FUN @ MICKEY’S HALLOWEEN PARTY

We had a lot of fun trick or treating during Mickey’s Halloween Party in our Star Wars costumes.

Pluto signing our autograph books.

Of course, we had to do Star Tours that evening. We also ate at the Tommorowland Terrace & took pictures with Storm Troopers to keep with our theme.

The effort was all worth it. This will go down as one of my all time favorite Halloween’s ever. My mom & nephew met us in Disneyland & all 7 of us wore costumes. I’m sure the kids would have had fun even if us adults didn’t dress up, but I think it made the happiest place on earth even happier.

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