Traveling with a Toddler....

We have done a lot of 2 hour Michigan car trips and not much more in the last 16 months. Some have been great, some good, some not so good and some horrible. But hey, it's just two hours, anyone can survive that.
So when the thought of a 4-5 hour trip JUST ME AND THE GIRL and 4-5 hour trip back in a 5 day period was approaching I was thankful that I had read these blogs and jumped on these ideas.
I hope these ideas help you as well and please feel free to leave me more ideas in the comments, I can use all the help I can get since we do not have a DVD player and soon we will have two - eeks!

So when I started packing for the trip, I kept in mind what I learned here - ideas for an 18 month old for a 14 hour car trip (EEKS!)
She listed out four categories of things she packed, including toys, snacks, activities, music and I learned a lot as far as how long with each item and alternating and what to pack.
I did a lot of this with alternating between books, interactive toys and snacks.
Definitely read this post - VERY helpful
http://smamak.blogspot.com/2012/05/surviving-mamaland-land-travel.html
Oooh and she just added 2 new posts after another longggg trip, hooray!
http://smamak.blogspot.com/2012/07/gators-jellyfish-and-cockroaches-oh-my.html


I also came across this blog post - although it is for airplane travel, the ideas were helpful as well:
http://laurengreensblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-travel-buddy.html

And last but not least, I pinned this on pinterest last night - 101 toddler activities for car trips, I will definitely read for next time we travel!
http://ayearwithmomanddad.com/2011/08/101-toddler-activities-road-trip/

Here are a few things that were huge for our trip and again - leave suggestions or tips if you have any!

took the legs off and let her play with this:

 favorite finger foods seem to last her a long time with eating and working on them

 these snack cups are genius - she kind of has to figure them out and work at getting each snack - also helpful in the car - takes time! :)

And mostly - prayer seemed to be the best thing! I couldn't believe there were no tears or screams shed the whole ride down to Taylor. Very thankful for all the people who were praying for the trip :)