Last year In December, I planned to take my 9 children overseas for the first time, it was a daunting thought at first but once I got my mind into positive thinking, I didn't worry about it.  When booking your flight take into consideration the time of the flight as

you do have to be at the airport 3 hours before hand to check in.  Working around your kids waking schedule can be very benefitial, as dealing with grumpy kids very early in the morning can be awfull.  Also make sure the airline you fly with are totally family friendly, my airline of choice is Emirates, they are awesome.  Not only do they have the individual tv screens for kids, they also offer wonderful nutritious kids meals and  a great snackbox.  For babys we were given baby food, a little bag with wipers, bib and rattle and each of the little kids were welcomed on with a cuddly toy, colouring book and pencils.  Also they do not count your pram or carseat as part of your luggage kg total. 

In the lead up to our date of departure. I firstly  made sure I packed everyones luggage at least a week before departure. The day before, I instructed every little person under 5 to pack a little back pack of their favourite toy, and book for the trip.  I made sure everyone was showered the night before and went to sleep on time so there would be no grumpiness in the morning. In my backpack I packed extra snacks of chips and bikkies, not to mention wipers, babys nappies, formula, bibs and baby food and of course last but not least the passports and tickets.  Making sure that everything is ready the night before, ensures you are not running around the next morning looking for things. 

I took along one stroller for baby Kordell to be pushed along in and the rest of my bunch walked in single formation.  I ensured we arrived at the airport 3 hours prior for the check in, and while waiting, I filled out all our departure cards, believe me doing this for 10 of us took some time (lol).  Once they checked us in, I requested the kidz meals for the 5 little kidz, the elder ones had the normal adult meals.  Families are boarded first with all airlines which is great.  Once on the plane, I buckled everyone in, we took up 2 rows!!  The life saver was definitely having the single monitors for each child to watch either a movie, music video etc, once we had each of them watching their favourite movie, they quietened down. They also were very happy colouring in.  Our flight left at 11am so after lunch was served at least 3 little people went off to Noddy land, my 3 eldest kids were happy watching the latest music clips and ordering juice to their hearts content.  The food was great.  The snackbox they gave the little kids was scrummy, most of the yummys ended up in their backpacks for later consumption. Making the landing a bit of an adventure makes it exciting for the little ones, so they quickly put up their tvs, sat up straight and quietened down when the hard boiled lollies were given out.  For fat baby I gave him a bottle of juice to suck on, it seemed to do the trick, no one complained or cried from sore ears.  Once the plane landed I explained to everyone that we would wait for everyone else to get off the plane before we actually got off, this worked well as we didn't get pushed or shoved.  And by the time we got to the baggage area, our bags were going around the carousel, not to mention there was no que at customs.

The most important thing is to keep explaining to your children for at least a few weeks leading up to leaving what the trip is going to be like, describe the plane, the noise it makes etc, the fact that there will be lots of other people on board, and that they need to use their inside voices and manners all the time.  They get so caught up in all the excitement that to them it is an adventure and it sure worked for me, we had a great uneventful trip there and back, and next year in April I am doing it all over again.  I am always saying to people if I can do it with 9 kids, anyone can do it.

Happy travelling to everyone out there, go and have an adventure, it is worth it