Minivan Mama

It's official...we are minivan owners!  Ryan still isn't so sure about this, but I think he's beginning to come to grips with the fact that this was the best decision for our expanding family.  I got to that point a long time ago, so I'm happy we finally have our van.

Boy, it was an emotional week of trying to get this van.  A quick recap: we found one via private party and looked at it on Monday.  He was asking way to much for the base model, so we continued our search.  We looked at another one on Tuesday evening and we both loved (as much as Ryan could love a minivan) it.  It was a 2008 and top of the line model in really good condition.  We called the guy back on Wednesday morning and he wouldn't accept our offer because he owed more money than we were offering.  I was bummed, but understood.  I found a great deal from a dealer on Wednesday and spoke with a sales rep and he said he had people coming to look at it that night.  I called back Thursday morning and the van sold Wednesday night.  I was again really bummed.  Thursday night we looked at yet another van.  This one was promising - within our price range and in fairly good condition.  The only problem is that the AC didn't work.  The salesman said he would have it looked at on Friday and let us know.  We even negotiated a price with him.  Very surprising for a salesperson, but we had to call him.  He gave Ryan the runaround, so I spent a good portion of Friday night looking for more options.

Oh boy, Friday night was fun.  I ended up finding a really good deal about 1 hour 45 minutes away.  I called the dealer and, of course, it sold 5 hours earlier.  I continued my search and found 9 vans for Ryan and I to vet.  We crossed off a decent number and picked 1 that we thought was a "too good to be true" deal in Elgin.  It was a 2008 with only 30K miles on it.  It was a little steep on our price range, but given the low miles, we were going to take a look at it Saturday.  I spoke with the dealer and he said they would run it through inspection first thing in the morning and we could come around noon.  Perfect!

Saturday morning around 9a, I received a call from one of the dealers I contacted in Joliet (about 1 hour away).  They had an 2006 with 72K miles on it and it was on the lot for viewing despite the fact it hadn't gone through inspection yet (they just received it two days earlier on a trade-in).  I asked how much and it was surprisingly very much in our price range.  So, Ryan and I decided to call the Elgin dealer and postpone our visit until the later in the afternoon.  We wanted to see this one in Joliet first since it seemed to be a better fit financially.  Turns out, we really liked it and bought it!  We both love the color (officially, Slate Green Metallic Ocean Mist Metallic, but it looks more like a very light grey/blue color) and both the exterior and interior are in good condition considering it's 7 years old.  We negotiated with the dealer and were able to walk out the door paying $200 more than our goal.  Not too shabby for dealing with a car dealership.

Minivan Mama (as Ryan now calls me)

One Step Closer

This post is a few days overdue, but oh well.  Life gets busy and I get tired by the end of the day!

A little back story before I answer what the "one step closer" means.  So last week, we had Claire with us while Andy and Katie were on a missions trip in Haiti.  I didn't want to have the Aerobed set up all week because it takes up too much room.  Ryan and I decided to remove the front railing of Reagan's crib and let Claire sleep in his bed while Reagan slept in Kyleigh's crib and Kyleigh slept in the pack-n-play.  A little musical beds, but that's okay.

Fast forward to Saturday, July 13...Claire leaves our house.  Ryan and I decided to leave the railing off the crib and let Reagan take a nap in his "new" bed.  I wanted to test this out with a nap before a whole night that way if he fell out and woke up screaming, it wouldn't jolt me out of bed in the middle of the night!  To my surprise, he took his normal 2ish hour nap, no problem!  He didn't get out of bed and play with toys and he didn't fall out of the bed.  Whoo hoo!

On to bedtime.  We put him in the bed and reminded him of the rules: no getting out of bed and no jumping on the bed.  It was rest time.  He went right to sleep and I thought for sure I'd hear a clunk in the middle of the night, but I didn't!  I couldn't believe how well he did.

We are officially one step closer to moving Reagan out of a crib.  Craziness!!

Here he is Sunday morning, so proud of himself and his big boy bed!

June 2013 for Reagan and Kyleigh

Here are the notes I took for June 2013 for both Reagan and Kyleigh:

Reagan

• Enjoys putting his feet up on the dining room table
• Fights tooth and nail about eating his carrots
• He's a total book worm!  Loves, loves to read (Thomas is his primary favorite, but we read Jesus and Clifford, too)
• Loves to play in his "piece" (translation, police) car the Lehmanns gave us, but he always afraid there are bugs inside
• Likes looking for airplanes when they fly over
• Really enjoys listening to "moosic" on my phone
• Really aggressive with Kyleigh

Kyleigh

• Walks to the right inside of in a straight line
• Walks swinging her left arms like crazy while her right arms stays relatively still
• Loves to eat, especially carbs and cheese
• She doesn't really like her milk, but is getting better at drinking it
• 8 teeth now
• Grunts at everything to communicate; so funny!!

A little update

It's been sooo long since my last post.  So much has happened and I've been meaning to post, but honestly, I just haven't been up to it.  This will be a quick update on the past 6 weeks.

At the end of May, we were supposed to go on a one night family camping trip.  We were very excited to go, but pulled the plug at the last minute to due to weather forecast.  Unfortunately, the severe weather we were expecting never came to fruition so we cancelled our plans for no reason.  Grrr....

Kyleigh's first birthday came next.  We had a little celebration here in IL on June 1st with the Lehmanns and Sue.  I wanted to make the most of the decorations I'd been making for her big celebration in CA, so I decorated the house for our little pizza party here.

On Kyleigh's actual birthday, we didn't do too much.  We had her 1 year pictures taken at Lake Arlington and they were great.  It was a little cold outside, but we still got some really great shots.  Kyleigh's favorite part of the night was digging into her birthday cake and stuffing it into her mouth ;)

A few days later we left for CA for a week.  The trip was awesome.  We had such a relaxing time (other than Kyleigh's birthday party).  It was really nice to be in CA other than during the holidays.  It was such a difference.  Although I was stressed during Kyleigh's party, it went really well.  We had nearly 30 people there and of course, it was 106 that day.  Plans changed and we moved the party inside, but it all worked out.

The rest of June seems to be a blur.  I don't remember much, other than celebrating 7 wonderful years with my fantastic hubby.  We got a night out at Stoney River and truly enjoyed talking about our life together and dreaming about our future.

Ok, that's it.  I've got nothing else for now.