A Big Van for a Big Family

As hopefully most of you know by now, we are expecting our fourth child due to arrive May 31st. We are happy to share that Audrey will be getting her first sister. 🙂 Audrey thinks her brothers are the best, but it will be wonderful for her to have a sister as well. Audrey doesn’t understand that a baby is on the way, but she is fascinated with babies, so we imagine she’ll adjust just fine. The boys definitely understand what is going on, and they are super excited to meet their new baby sister! They talk to my belly all the time and tell anyone who will listen about the exciting news.

The New Goose

We are pleased to introduce baby girl to be 🙂

As excited as we are to welcome our newest family member, we quickly realized that neither of our vehicles could actually hold a family of 6. I wanted to get something that could seat all of us plus have room for additional kids (in case that is in God’s plan), and I wanted to be able to transport more than just our immediate family (our current cars are maxed out by our family of 5, and it’s been frustrating not being able to take even one person with us when we go somewhere). I didn’t want to have to be constantly folding down seats to get to the back row since we would be using that row daily, and I didn’t want a vehicle that only had trunk space when the back row was down since, once again, we needed that row. We also wanted something as budget friendly as possible. After evaluating our options, we ended up with quite a large vehicle. 🙂

Clint buying our van

Clint actually went all the way up to Boise, ID to get the deal he wanted on our 2016 Ford Transit. Our van seats 12 (there are 3 rows with an aisle way) and still has a very large trunk space! Despite it’s size, it’s actually not bad to drive (my big concern was that I wouldn’t be able to drive and park it). Having space has been amazing!! The boys are now in two separate rows, so they are no longer able to attack each other while we’re driving… hurray! I use my large trunk space all the time too, and I love it! I never thought I would enjoy driving a “big ol’ van” (as Austin calls it), but it just seems to fit our needs perfectly right now, and I quickly became quite attached to it.

Me driving the van

Our crazy kids sitting at the doorway of the van

My parents riding in the van with us to church for Easter (they were nice enough to sit with the kids instead of enjoying the kid free back row)

Besides our van purchase, I am preparing for the impending birth by trying to get some long overdue projects checked off my list (knowing that it will be even harder to get them done once baby girl makes her appearance). I’m also working on streamlining my household routines to better maintain the house throughout the day and to have the kids take greater responsibility for their messes. Despite all this, there is no getting around the fact that 4 young kids, a house, and a job is going to be a lot, but we’ll figure it out just as we always have.

The timing of the birth could be interesting as Parker’s last day of kindergarten is June 1 (the day after the baby is due). Hopefully I won’t miss his graduation! The pregnancy has been going ok, but it has definitely hit my body harder than previous pregnancies. I became anemic (low iron levels) and sprained my lower back (technically my pelvis). As the due date is quickly approaching, I’m trying to take it easy as best as I can and to just enjoy preparing for baby girl’s arrival.

This is the bump in late February. My mom was nice enough to babysit so we could have a date night.

Austin photo bombing

Me, my mom, Audrey, and the bump on Easter.

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