How do you pack for five months?

We are leaving in eight days, and since we're definitely not getting much use out of our summer clothes in this arctic climate, we figured we might as well start packing. It's proving to be a more difficult task than we originally anticipated. How much stuff do we really need to bring? There are quite a few unknowns: what size will William be in a couple of months? When will I stop looking four months pregnant and be able to fit into my regular clothes? Do our daughters really need four bathing suits and six pairs of shoes each? They would argue that they do.

We like to keep things as simple as possible, and even though our baggage allowance would allow us to bring a total of six checked items, we are thinking about attempting to get all our stuff into one smallish suitcase and one hockey bag. Maybe that's crazy, but in my mind the less stuff we have to drag around various airports the better. Dave is currently downstairs lovingly handwashing his hockey bag and treating it to a nice fabric-softener rinse. I believe he is even blowing it dry as I type. We'll see if this works.