New Stuff

We've bought lots of new items recently. It was a combination of getting a huge tax refund from having 2 babies in one year, and also from Barry's year end bonus that didn't come until the end of February.

The biggest purchase was an '08 Toyota Sienna (mini-van). It is a golden beige color with tan interior, has leather seats for 8 passengers, sliding doors on both sides, a power sliding door on the passenger side, and an aftermarket DVD player. Of course, the DVD player doesn't do us any good this year while the babies are in rear facing car seats. We comfortably rode to church Sunday morning with 5 adults and 2 car seats in the van. The car seats actually fit next to each other across the middle seats when access to the back seat is needed. The only drawback we've found is that there's only about 1 inch clearance on each of the side mirrors when you pull into our garage, but we'll just be really careful.

The next item I'm very excited to have is a side by side double stroller for the twins. They sit up in it, and it has a 5 point harness so they don't flop around even though they are still wobbly when they sit up. The seats recline fully, and the canopies extend to a large range to block the sun. It is easy to steer, and fits through most standard doors. I already took it to church and it fit through the door nicely, and on our walk it handled the bumps and corners very well. My thanks to my cousin Lana for the recommendation of the Combi brand stroller. I love it.

We also purchased a Bright Stars "Fun Around We Go" as a second toy for them to stand up in. It is a small round table with lots of toys and noisy buttons on it with a seat attached to the base that they can walk in a 360 degree circle around the table. When they learn to walk, we can remove the seat and still have the table as a toy for a couple years.

The other playtime purchase was a floor mat of 12 colorful foam squares that piece together. Each square is 2 sq. feet, so it covers 48 sq. feet of our living room. We want an area rug to go there, but this was much less expensive for that large an area, and we haven't found a rug we like yet.

We also went to the store closing sale of a local furniture store. We purchased a 2 end tables and a coffee table for the living room, and a bedroom furniture set for half the already marked down prices. We don't actually need the coffee table, but it only came as a set. We were looking to replace our current end tables that are just 3 leg tables with table cloths on them. They aren't very baby-proof. Getting the bedroom furniture will put off our getting a new computer for a while, but we've been putting off getting the furniture for 5 years. We decided it was a sacrifice we were willing to make.