Before/After Car Busy Bag for Younger Kids

It's that wonderful time of year! No, not Christmas unfortunately, but just as good! Summer is over and the kids are back in school! I love this time of year! This is when kids stop being at the grocery store and in the streets playing. When you go to the park, it's only little kids and not the older ones that run crazy and hog the equipment.

This year is our first year having a child go to school and it was emotional but amazing having him at school. It was just my youngest and I at home together with my husband coming home for lunch maybe. At our school, parents start lining their cars up in two rows 30 minutes before school starts. Pick up time is the same but there is six rows of cars instead of two and again it's best to start lining up 30 minutes prior to the kids being released from school. So an hour of waiting in the car each day, Monday through Friday for me and my youngest...what to do? So, like in everything I do, I always try to be prepared for any situation that might happen - like us walking out the door to pick up my oldest after school right after nap-time. So what if my youngest is hungry plus tired because I woke him up to put him in the car, just to sit and wait 30 minutes?

The first morning of dropping my oldest off, we parked and waited in the car because I was allowed to walk him up to his classroom just for his first day. Thank goodness we decided to have the dealership put in a DVD system in my car when we bought it a few year back, not that I allow it to be used very often, only on special trips or going far away (like over 30 miles away, not just to Walmart down the street). So when we parked, I turned on the DVD and just sat there quietly. After school that first day, I thought ahead enough to grab a few things on our way out:

Our Car Busy Bag Day 1: 2 Juice Cups (one for each kid), 2 Fruit Snacks, Fiber Bar (for me), 2 Cookie Snacks, My Fire Kindle, Calculator, Mini White Board and Pen, and Board book 

I grabbed a plastic grocery bag, threw everything in and...it looked terrible! The cups fell over (thank GOD they are spill proof!) and everything moved around and I didn't like it at all! And we didn't even need everything I had packed.

Morning car line waiting and watching cartoons

Day 2: See my boys up there? Mornings are pretty easy, we have our routine (another blog coming!) and once we get to school, I start the DVD player with Paw Patrol cartoons for the kids and I make sure they have their cups with chocolate milk (Carnation Breakfast Solutions actually; mom win!). They sit back there and just watch it while I drink my tea (mom's have to have caffeine in the morning!) and the book I'm currently reading (The Five Love Languages for Children).

For the afternoon I decided to pack a little lighter because honestly my youngest only wanted the food and my Fire Kindle. 

Our Car Busy Bag Day 2: Fruit snacks, Fiber bar, 2 thermoses of juice, 2 Paw Patrol containers with Goldfish crackers, Back up cheese crackers, Youngest "Baby" stuffed fox, white board and maker, my book, book for kid, calculator, and finally the Fire Kindle   

And again all in a plastic shopping bag 👎

So by the third day I had to do something different because that plastic shopping bag just was not working once I had picked it up. And then once I was in the car, it wouldn't stay up and it was super hard to get stuff out of! Not to mention that I'm the one carrying EVERYTHING when we leave the house because my youngest has to have both hands on the stair railing (which is completely fine but also annoying at the same time!). There had to be a better way!

May's mom had given me a Thirty-one Utility Tote for Christmas 2016 and it lives in the back of my car to help me carry in groceries, so I thought it would be perfect (at least until I get another bag from Thirty-one 💟!) 

Our Car Busy Bag Day 3: Sippy cups of juice, my water with Crush grape liquid water enhancer (because I hate normal water), cheese sticks, fruit snacks, Gerber Grabber (because my youngest slept through lunch), my Cool Clip Thermal Pouch from Thirty-one, calculator, Paw Patrol cups with Goldfish crackers, my Fire Kindle and my book  

Look at this! everything fits so perfectly! With room to spare! And for those wondering about the fan-it's hot and humid in Tennessee and my car AC has been acting up. 

And now there's no more room! My purse it HUGE! But this worked great!

It fits on my passenger seat and it was super easy to find what my youngest wanted and it is clipped to my Mommy Hook that's hooked to my headrest but again that's another blog coming!

The tote worked great! This will be what I use for getting everyone into the car in the mornings for school and picking up my oldest from school everyday. To find your own amazing totes or bags or thermals and a lot of other products you didn't know you needed in your life click HERE!

Parenting is tough! But it helps to have a plan and be ready for anything that may come your way because when it comes to kids the wisest things someone told me, "Hope for the best, be prepared for the very worst because chances are nothing will go as planned!"