The New Bag

I haven't been happy with my purse/diaper bag situation lately.  My purse isn't quite holding everything that I need, but I really dislike lugging around the diaper bag.  I mention my favorite blog often - iheartorganizing.blogspot.com - because she always has really great ideas for organizing just about everything and wouldn't you know it, just as I am thinking that I need a new bag system, I read a post on that blog about her travel tote, so I decided to create my own.  Here is what I did:

I got this bag on sale at Target:



The outside is vinyl so it can get wet without soaking everything inside.  It's big enough to hold a bunch of stuff, but not too big.  And its pretty!

Here is what I keep in it...

My portable purse that holds the wallet, keys, chapstick, and cell phone that I blogged about here:

For the baby and toddler stuff, I got this fold over frame clutch from Target:

I put wipes, a few diapers, an extra change of underwear and pants for the big girl that is being potty trained, a onsie for the baby, a bib, some poop bags that I put the dirty diapers in, and a plastic freezer bag for possible dirty clothes.

I got a notebook similar to this one from Target as well to keep in the bag:

I tabbed it with a section for to-dos (since I always think of things to do while I'm not near my computer to do list), a section for work, and a section for 2 year old B's preschool class next year because I have somehow agreed to be the parent coordinator which is going to make for a lot more work and many more things that I'm going to need to remember to write down.  I also left an extra tabbed section for a possible errand or grocery list?

I bought these decorative files from Amazon that fit perfectly in the bag:

I use 3... 1 file for papers for B and baby M (side note... I'm just realizing that baby M is almost not a baby anymore!!), 1 file for work, and 1 file for B's preschool class (since I'm the parent coordinator I'm going to be hauling around a lot of paperwork for that class too - what did I get myself into here???)

So far my bag is working out great.  There is a zipper pouch inside where I keep pens and mints and other small loose items.  The tote isn't too big, yet fits all that stuff and there is still room to throw in sweatshirts or food/snacks or toys, etc.  If I am going out without the kids, I just throw that portable purse that holds my wallet and stuff into a bigger purse and I'm good to go.  The diaper bag is still around, but I keep it downstairs as a storage place for when I need to do changings, etc. downstairs.

Oh, and I got almost everything on sale so it wasn't too expensive to put together - yay!