December 2021 Roundup

We never have a full December at home due to holiday travel, but somehow manage to pack it all in anyways. Here are a few highlights from the month:

Amarillo actually has pretty cold winters for Texas, but we always get a few random days where you can wear shorts and play outside! 

Griffin spends his days oscillating between naughty and nice, but either way he's pretty cute

Dave picked a terrible day to not close the garage on his way to work

A giant tumbleweed blew in front of our car at school pickup and Sophie jumped out to catch it. She begged to take it home but I said no way. Then a few house down Davey grabbed one of his own!

I took Sophie to Canyon High School's production of The Little Mermaid. We met up with our friends Candice and Emery to make it a fun girl's night.

Davey picked out this cute ornament craft kit at Michael's. No gluing, cutting or sewing needed. He was able to complete it all on his own. So cute!

Another instance of Charlie on the floor instead of bed

I got all the kids dressed and ready for church on time AND took a picture all by myself

Our army of "reinbeers" ready to be gifted to friends and neighbors for the holidays

A very Texas Christmas house

Visiting Santa at the ward party

I hosted the letter C at our house early in December. We had everyone wear Christmas pajamas, ate cheese and crackers with chocolate milk, and played other fun games!

Our annual walk down Candy Cane Lane. This year we did it in pajamas! Griffin clearly had more excitement about the activity than the other boys.

We found a little free library on our walk that had wrapped several of the books in the box, which I thought was such a cute idea

We got a new car!! It wasn't a premeditated move. The Ford Focus was having issues, and when we took it in, the mechanic said fix this part to make it sellable and then get rid of it ASAP before this long list of other things goes wrong. So we did. And due to covid, new cars were in short supply, so we walked into a Hyundai dealer and bought the literal only 5 passenger vehicle on the lot. A mini SUV Santa Fe and luckily it's been a great car so far!

School Christmas parties - I arrived just in time to watch each kid eat a treat and throw away their trash

Griffin, who is always in need of a bath for one reason or another, received these fun jellies as a gift and had a blast sticking them to everything

Video: November and December 2021 Clips

Back to Back Van Mishaps

One of the kids left a brown crayon in the passenger seat of the car and, in the heat of the summer sun, it melted all over. I cleaned up what I could with baby wipes while we were out, but there was still lots stuck to the seat. A friend suggested that I use a steamer to help melt the wax and it worked great! I spent a very hot night in the garage steaming and wiping the seat on repeat until I was able to get almost all of it off. There is still a few residual stains, but at least whoever sits there won't look like they have chocolate or something worse on their rear end!

It doesn't look like a huge mess, but more and more kept lifting off every time I steamed and wiped. I went through so many paper towels!

The very next morning we had another incident. I went to check on how the van seat looked after everything had dried during the night and Griffin climbed into play. I let him mess around while I cleared the breakfast dishes, but then when I went to get him out, I made the mistake of closing the passenger door before going around to the driver's side to get him out and found that he had locked the doors! Ahhh Griffin! Of course he is too young to understand "press the button" and our spare keys were no where to be found. 

Luckily it was early morning so he was not at risk of overheating, but he was still not happy to be trapped and I was powerless to help him. I found a locksmith that was able to come right over and the technician was able to force the door open in just a few minutes. He refused payment, but I tipped him anyway to show my gratitude. If we ever have another situation like this, I have since learned that the fire department will also respond to get a child out of a locked car, but I hope I don't have to test that out.

This was taken a week before the incident when he first learned to climb into the car

He stopped enjoying playing in the car once he realized he was trapped. Dave brought me some books to read through the window to him while we waited for the locksmith.

Goodbye Escape, Hello Sedona!!

When we found out a third baby was on the way, we knew it was time to start car shopping. Both our cars were still running fine, but neither could could fit three car seats across without a lot of manhandling, and since our kids are young and we will be in the car seat phase of life for a long time, we knew an upgrade was needed. Our two options were a three-row SUV or a mini van, and after shopping around, we decided that a van would be the best fit for our family.

Our research and dealership visits went really slow, because it was the holidays and we were busy with a lot of stuff. Then one day in February one of the sales reps we had worked with at the Kia dealership offered to bring by a 2017 Sedona van for us to look at. It was super cold that day, so we pulled it right into the garage for inspection. We really liked everything about it, and then took it for a test drive around the neighborhood, which also went well. Costs were discussed, and then after some negotiations, the van was ours!

Here are some stats and things we liked about the van that made us go through with the purchase:

• 2017 Kia Sedona with 22,000 miles. We looked at new, but with the recent house purchase and upcoming baby bills, we decided pre-owned was a better financial choice. It's two years old and was a rental car in it's previous life. It is certified through the dealership, though, so we still have the rest of the warranty in case things go wrong. 
• And speaking of the dealership, it's located in our neighborhood! We could theoretically drop the car and walk home if needed, which is super convenient. 
• We got a really great price. When the manager heard about it, he looked Dave up and saw that he is a business professor with an emphasis on negotiations. He asked Dave to come meet with him later that week for a chat and down the road they might trade negotiations training for car services. We'll see what happens....
• The second row has a middle seat that can be removed to make a walkway to the back. Right now we have it in, but when the baby comes we'll take it out and have Davey and baby in the second row, and move Sophie to the back. The third row of seats also folds down completely into the trunk, which is nice if we ever need to transport something large, or if we are going on a big camping trip or something where we have a lot of gear. 
• Since it's pre-owned, there are a couple minor dings and scuffs so no one has to worry about putting the first mark on the car :)
• The kids love the automatic sliding doors and so do I. Amarillo has crazy winds and I was always afraid once of them would open a door and it would go flying into a car next to us. In fact, Sophie was not allowed to ever open her door unless we were parked on an end spot because I was so nervous about denting another car. 
• We've never had a back-up camera before and it's been nice. Sophie wished there was an entertainment system, but sadly that was the next trim level up. We'll survive. 

Old car - Dave with our Escape that we traded in towards the purchase of the van. He took it to the dealer for an appraisal, and ended up leaving it there to take the van home. It was a good car, and I wasn't expecting to never see it again so I told Dave to take a photo with it before leaving. 

New car - the kids absolutely love the van, especially Davey. If you even mention the word "van" he will run to get his shoes and go out in the garage. I have also enjoyed driving it more than I though I would. It's comfortable and has everything we wanted in a car!