packing: a nightmare before vacation...!

i hate packing. i always have. i am a last minute packer and pre pea i've just filled the biggest suitcase i could find with everything i thought i might want to wear on vacation. i got very close to or exceeded the weight limitation of my luggage but it worked for me.

not anymore... since we also have to bring stuff (and i mean LOADS of stuff) for pea, my way of packing had to change drastically.

so this is what i do now: i pack ready outfits for each day! apparently other people think that's the normal way of packing but for me it is a nightmare!!! how am i supposed to know what i want to wear next wednesday for dinner?! but i have no choice. that's how it has to be done. so i started this morning with putting down my outfits on the bed. after several hours i have monday day time and evening, tuesday day time, wednesday day time and evening, thursday whole day (this is the day we attend a wedding so it was actually an easy one), friday evening, saturday nothing yet and sunday the travel home outfit...

at about 4 o' clock i decided to rather start with peas stuff as he would be in bed by 8 and i couldn't access his room anymore. if you think 4 hours is more than enough to pack: you don't know me... after staring at his clothes for an amount of time i had a great idea! how about taking pictures of all his outfits so to not mixing the wrong clothes and not having matching stuff in the end (yes, i'm serious.). so this is what i did.

on top of this i have 4 extra t-shirts, 4 extra onesies and 2 pyjamas (plus all the other stuff like swimming stuff, muslins, sleeping bag, dummies, jelly shoes, sun screen, sun hats, milk, dummies, nappies, etc...) ok, it might be weird but at least it helps me not to mess up packing completely. also it prevents me from taking 7 suitcases for a weeks vacation.

so this is what i do before i go back to my stuff: