Hola everyone!  We’re blessed to be back in Europe this summer (Spain and Sweden) visiting family and friends.  With the craziness of the kids activities out of the way for the moment, I’ve got some more time on my hands to shoot and edit … so I’ll be (trying!) do air our weekly how to video on Tuesdays, a travel video on Fridays, and getting up my other posts as well.  Fingers crossed!

Last Saturdays flight from New York to Barcelona proved the easiest we’ve had thus far.  Surprisingly, my older kids spent less time arguing over arm rests and more time pitching in more with my younger girls.  Maybe we’ve reached that famous “tipping point,” after which traveling with kids gets easier.

What allowed me to survive this flight alone with the five kids?  Tune into my video to see us in action, and here are a few tidbits: books — plenty of them, sticker books for the girls, letting the kids plug into their movie screens as soon as these were available (I usually try to limit screen time, but on flights, forget about it!) and being clear with the boys about what I needed them to do: i.e. read to their sisters, not kick the seats in front of them — which never goes over too well, keep their voices reasonably low, and push the baggage carts without slamming into other passengers’ Achilles tendons.

One stressful element of international travel is passports, of course, since you know how crucial it is to keep them safe.  For this trip, I gave each of my older boys their own passport bag, which securely held the passport around their necks and under their shirts.  They will be flying home alone in August so I wanted to make sure they knew what to do, so we practiced that… watch and you will see how.

Anyway, for more on how to entertain kids on an international plane flight, how to preserve your sanity, and family’s our airplane trip to Spain, watch my video.

Thanks for tuning into Cloudmom and check back in next Friday for our next travel video, featuring some Barcelona travel destinations!

xo Melissa