October Chit Chat! - Page 3

[wendizbaby]

Originally Posted by SierraBella 

Time is sneaking up on me! I am 31 weeks already and feel like I am not prepared at all for this baby to arrive.

Yesterday I got ambitious and organized all the baby/kid clothes, put them in boxes, labeled them, and rearranged the closet in the kids' room! I really only need NB, 0-3, and 3-6m clothes.. all of those that I had got donated to a friend- who is planning on giving them back as soon as we're able to meet up.

We really need to buy a van. Not only is DF carless at the moment, but there is just no way we can fit an infant seat in our car we have now (infant + convertible + booster). So we have about $1000, give or take, to work with. Anyone have a cheap older van that doesn't need repairing all the time, they'd recommend? We could use that $1000 for a down payment, but I just don't want a car payment and more expensive insurance.. financing isn't totally out of the question if we can't find a decent van in our pricerange.

My neighbor just bought a 2000 Honda Odyssey for around 5000-ish?  It's in great condition!  Runs great and still looks great!  We ended up trading in our new(er) Outback for a nice 2006 Toyota Sienna and we love it.  That cost us about $18,000 total though, but we were able to pay with cash with the trade in.  So those two vans seem to be very reliable in my experience.  
 

[onetwoten]

Two of my relatives have montanas that they really like, although Wendiz is definitely right-- when you go into any big discussion about the best minivans-- the sienna and odyssy seem to come out on top every time. 

[insidevoice]

I have a caravan I adore.  It's older though- with high miles, but has a brand new transmission (replaced when I bought it) and an engine replaced the year before I got it.  I factored the cost of a new transmission into the cost of the van.  The total cost was about $1500. 

We will probably finance a 'new' (as in within about 2-3 year old) van sometime soon, but for now the 'old' van works well and I really love not having a car payment.  Also, the insurance is a whopping $43 a month. 

It fits the three kids easily, and has room for two more (though the back row would need to be carefully done with narrower seats) if needed. 

For these vans though- the transmission seems to be the weak point, so you'd want to know the history if it had a lot of miles. 

[LilMomma83]

I've seen really nice vans around here for like 4K-6K lately...I REALLY like rear AC/heat vents (ours does not have these) and I we have had 2 minivans over the years and I will say it we REALLY prefered the one that had 2 "pilot" seats in the back before the bench seat vs the one that had all bench seats in the back...much easier with carseats etc. We paid around 17K for our current minivan, a Saturn Relay, (it was practically new though and had some "extras" like a DVD player) but, our other minvan we had for a while (it was a Chevy Venture) was like 1700 and it was still under 100K miles...it just kept breaking down and we didn't like the bench seats so we ended up selling it fairly soon after buying it. As soon as we save enough $$ we are hoping to get a second minivan again...we would like to pay around 5K (give or take) for one that is right around 100K miles (obviously less would be better lol) and the pilot seats...don't really care about the other "extras" too much. But, for a while we are going to be squeezing 3 carseats in the back of our VW Passat (wagon) lol...since we are fortunate enough to have 2 vehicles right now upgrading a minivan isn't our priority just yet...

Oh yeah....we have payment on our Saturn and it sucks and I would totally have gone with something else had I known how much it sucks to have a car payment (and also how it effects insurance costs and everything else)...but, since we have it I do love it haha

[mamaecho]

We paid 9000 for our 2002 Honda Odyssey that had about 64k miles. I think it was a pretty decent deal.

[Ruthiegirl]

Originally Posted by SierraBella 

We really need to buy a van. Not only is DF carless at the moment, but there is just no way we can fit an infant seat in our car we have now (infant + convertible + booster). So we have about $1000, give or take, to work with. Anyone have a cheap older van that doesn't need repairing all the time, they'd recommend? We could use that $1000 for a down payment, but I just don't want a car payment and more expensive insurance.. financing isn't totally out of the question if we can't find a decent van in our pricerange.

We bought a used Sienna 4 years ago and I am crazy in love with it. We paid about 15K for it and it is almost paid off.  The payment stinks, but the reliability is outstanding.  We have replaced the battery and nothing else.  Nearly 100K miles and still running strong.  

[Amanda Williams]

S.B.

Have you considered Radians for all three of your kiddos in car seats? We have had great success with fitting three across in the back of our van. (With the middle one rear facing for the newbie.)

[glorysmom]

We are looking for a  van as well.  It is making me a little anxious as our family will not fit in our car.  (this will be our fourth child).  I am looking for an Odyssey, late 90's, less than 150,000, around 4k.  The reviews are great and I love Honda's.  Happy hunting!

[EuroMama]

We have a GMC Van year '94 and its perfect for our family.

I know its not as good looking as the new vans and everything, but it fits our family, its paid off, it works, its good on gass.

[mammamo]

Also, love my Sienna!!

Mamaecho- that's is a great price on that van! My g-ma has 2 Odyssey's and the older one (idk the year) has 350k miles on it!!!

[SierraBella]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone :)

If we financed something, we would still only get about a $5-6k price range vehicle. I really don't like having car payments and expensive insurance! And we would probably pay it off with our tax return ASAP. I can't sell the car I have because it's trapped in my divorce proceedings, although it would really help if I could. But, we need 2 cars anyway. I thought about getting the radian carseats, but I really want room for more than 5 people, and we'll probably have another LO sooner or later anyway so we might as well get the van.

[BennyPai]

I may not be accepting that tomorrow will be 30 weeks for this pregnancy.  Seems to have flown by.  We have so much to do to our house, etc. before this babe arrives.   The girls had a 4-day weekend thanks to a teacher's workshop piggy-backed with Columbus Day.  DP and I both had a nasty head cold Saturday and Sunday and accomplished little more than feeding the family those days.  Let's hope I go to 42 weeks again...

[SierraBella]

Originally Posted by BennyPai 

I may not be accepting that tomorrow will be 30 weeks for this pregnancy.  Seems to have flown by.  We have so much to do to our house, etc. before this babe arrives.   The girls had a 4-day weekend thanks to a teacher's workshop piggy-backed with Columbus Day.  DP and I both had a nasty head cold Saturday and Sunday and accomplished little more than feeding the family those days.  Let's hope I go to 42 weeks again...

LOL.. I will be 32 weeks by the end of this week and also feel like time is flying by. The first several months really dragged on, but now that he is 7-11 weeks away from arriving, I am feeling the time slipping away! I'm hoping for 41-42 weeks too.. but because my EDD is FINALS WEEK! 

--

We drove around dealerships looking for vans yesterday. I saw an Odessey online for 4k but they didn't have it anymore. We found a 01 Sienna for 7800 that we might try to get. Its a little over our budget for financing, but it only has 102k miles on it.. so it should last us a while, if we did get it. 

[mamaecho]

Ugh! I'll be 33 weeks Saturday> I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm incredibly frugal but I'm considering hiring a guy in our neighborhood just to help DH get some stuff done in the house before the baby comes! DH works hard, and tries really hard to meet my expectations, but we are coming down to the wire! We still have to complete our guest room (for my mom to stay in when the baby comes)... I mean, it needs trim put up, painted, a desk installed, we need to find a bed, etc, etc, etc! Ugh! I feel like we are SO running out of time! Let alone all the other little things.. on top of that, just the regular gotta get this done before winter stuff.. like my poor little house.. has half purple, half brown shutters! Over the summer we pulled down most of the shutters to paint them purple.. well.. the front four got done on the first floor, but the second (and attic) are still ugly brown. Driving me insane! I told hubby that I wouldn't come home from the hospital until they are done. hahaha

I at least got a head start on christmas.. picked up the boys matching pj's

like this:

http://www.target.com/p/JUST-ONE-YOU-Made-by-Carter-s-Infant-Boys-Stripe-Union-Suit-Brown/-/A-13578345

except they are brown, blue and orange :) Granted, the smallest size they had was 6 months and the highest was 5t (my oldest is 6..) but whatever, I'll get at least one good picture lol

[insidevoice]

Aww- my three year old is sick.  He was ok yesterday until he suddenly threw up all over my computer chair in the early evening.  (That chair is now in the dumpster.  It needed to go anyway, and quite frankly, had I not been pregnant I might have gone through the effort of cleaning it and disinfecting it despite the cracked pleather on the seat, but while pregnant?  Pft.  Not happening.)

He spiked a high fever last night then insisted on being held all evening. He did manage to get some sleep, then spent the night flitting between my bed and his big sister's.  It was actually very sweet to see him gravitating to her to help him feel better, and reminded me again why, for our family, we have decided to have more than the 'normal' 2 kids.  He's still feeling pretty down and is lazing about watching PBS kids this afternoon from the couch. I managed to get him up for some food a bit ago and snapped a picture- pale and pasty, but upright!

 

As for me, I'm run down, and really running out of energy lately.  However, I know that the end is near, and I'm beginning to get antsy for that. :)

[EuroMama]

Awwww I hope he feels better soon! He doesn't look like he is feeling good at all! He's still adorable though. :)
 

Originally Posted by insidevoice 

Aww- my three year old is sick.  He was ok yesterday until he suddenly threw up all over my computer chair in the early evening.  (That chair is now in the dumpster.  It needed to go anyway, and quite frankly, had I not been pregnant I might have gone through the effort of cleaning it and disinfecting it despite the cracked pleather on the seat, but while pregnant?  Pft.  Not happening.)

He spiked a high fever last night then insisted on being held all evening. He did manage to get some sleep, then spent the night flitting between my bed and his big sister's.  It was actually very sweet to see him gravitating to her to help him feel better, and reminded me again why, for our family, we have decided to have more than the 'normal' 2 kids.  He's still feeling pretty down and is lazing about watching PBS kids this afternoon from the couch. I managed to get him up for some food a bit ago and snapped a picture- pale and pasty, but upright!

 

As for me, I'm run down, and really running out of energy lately.  However, I know that the end is near, and I'm beginning to get antsy for that. :)

[EuroMama]

I can't believe I am 2 weeks away from week 30.

I am way too relaxed this pregnancy. We were going to rush and turn our family room into our master bedroom before the baby is born so that DS can go in our bedroom and the baby in the one he is in, but I told DH that the baby is fine in our room until we can get it done. He works hard, even on weekends.

Really, our DS didn't even have a bedroom the first year of his life, he was in ours until we moved until a bigger house.

[jesusfollower]

I can't wait to hold my little one, but at the same time I think I'll need all the time I can get! There is still soooo much to do on the house... I haven't finished unpacking all the boxes yet. Granted, most of that is because I needed furniture (can't unpack my clothes until I get a dresser, etc), but I really need to get it done! I can't hound my poor DH, though, because he's working crazy hours... their project is behind. Oh well, all the overtime turns into more time off when Junior gets here!

[dsb76]

Today my daughter had day care all day so I was able to have some "me" time.

I went to a yoga class, then the chiropractor, then I had moxibustion and an acupuncture treatment for carpal tunnel.  Then I had groceries DELIVERED!  That was awesome.  I may never go to the supermarket again.

For some reason I am still completely exhausted.  And my belly is really achy.  I wonder if the babies were flipping around more then usual (which would be good).  I have so much organizing to do before these babies come.  I guess I should be preparing my hospital bag just in case as well.

insidevoice -  I hope your son is feeling better today.

[onetwoten]

33 weeks today. It is feeling so so close. And I'm trying to remind myself that while I anticipate going about a week late, I could easily go a few weeks early too... so she could totally be here in as little as 4 weeks. yikes.

Our big accomplishment this week has been getting started on framing our basement. We wanted to have it completely done before baby, but that was when we thought we'd be starting in like... July, not October. But... we bought more materials, and got the first wall framed, as well as the first section of the next wall. It should go quicker now that we've worked out how to do it the best way. I'm anxious for it to keep going, because all nursery/baby progress hinges on us having room in the basement again to empty out the baby's room.