Kirchhoff Packing Lists

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Tomorrow we embark on our first mini road trip vacation as a family of four. We're driving all the way to Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, TX! Okay, so it's not hard core. (We live only an hour away.)

I figure a self contained vacation is the best option for our first go at it. (The hotel room and water park are in the same building. Can't get too chaotic, can it?) Plus, Miss P is only three, and Addie is 3 months now. P loves the water, and Addie loves to smile, nurse, and toot as long as she's not too hot. Both can be happy at this venue.

But I'm still a little Type A, OCD about it. I want to prevent forgetting something but also hate to over-pack. I've seen these family binders out there to keep things together and wanted to make a Kirchhoff Family Vacation Binder to keep all paperwork, maps, etc. together. In it, I also wanted to include packing lists to make sure we don't forget anything at home or at the hotel when we leave.

I found a few nice lists and posted them on a Pinterest board. But none of them were exactly what I needed. So using those as starting points, I made my own lists. 

Grant is the hubs and daddy in the house. His list is pretty basic. Go here for the PDF version.

My list, of course, is the lengthiest. Here's the PDF version.

Presley is our 3-year old. The challenge with her is to make sure we have enough items to keep her busy without  bringing too many. Here's her PDF.

Finally, we have Addie's list. She's the 3-month old. It doesn't look like much, but her stuff will take up the most space. Click here for the PDF.

And these are things I want to have access to in the car. A few of the Kid Activity items overlap the carry-on items in previous lists. If we were traveling by plane, I'd amend this a bit. Here's the PDF for this one.

I tried to make the lists generic so I could reuse them. The idea is that I put each one of these in a sheet protector and use an Expo to mark off items as we pack and repack them to get home. I also included this list of photos to take while on vacation so I don't forget to actually take photos. (I usually remember on the last day of the trip to get out my camera.)

p.s. The backgrounds for all of these came from this DIY Printable Party Collection that I recently purchased for my sister's wedding shower that's coming up in August. But you can find cute, free backgrounds all over the blogosphere by just searching "free digital paper."

What else should I include on my packing lists? What is indispensable to you when you are traveling, especially when you're traveling with young kids? Is there something on my lists that I probably won't actually need?