Meet the Newest Addition to Our Family

This is Kate. We are all in love.





(actually this is a picture of Kate's sister I took off the internet. It was too dark when we got home to take a picture of Kate.)
She's a 2006 Toyota Sienna XLE and she's got enough space for every member of our entire family.
We are so very happy to be done minivan shopping. :)


Kate has power sliding doors. You can't know how cool that is unless you've got kids too small to open car doors on their own. Did I mention there are TWO of them? She also has leather seats (easy to clean with kids) and for being such an old gal, has barely any miles on her at all.


When The Boy figured out we wouldn't be coming home with Jane (our Camry) he hugged the bumper and cried. But he got over it quick when we brought Kate home.


The Boy is in love with all of Kate's buttons. And really, she's got quite a few. We don't even know what all of them do yet but I do know her heated seat buttons are adjustable. As in, you can adjust exactly how hot you want your behind to be. That's just nifty. I'm also loving the power hatch in back. When it comes time for a road trip, the DVD player will be handy. I'm also looking forward to the wireless headphones for the DVD player. (Mom and Dad don't have to listen to Jungle Book three times in a row!) And there's an AC power outlet in back. I have no idea what for, but it's there.

When we called the insurance company to switch stuff over, we actually ended up saving $160 a year on car insurance. How cool is that?

But do you want to know the best part about Kate? She's paid for. I can't tell you how much Dave Ramsey has changed our lives. It's amazing what a little planning, a little foresight and some saving can do for a person's bank account. I'm not gonna lie, though. That's the biggest check I've ever written and it was PAINFUL. It took us weeks to work up the courage to sign a check that big. It's also why we waited until the last day of the year to buy. Saved ourselves about $5k buying today vs a couple weeks ago.

I'm so happy that tonight I can sleep knowing that whenever baby comes, we have a vehicle big enough to fit three car seats in and all my children can ride safely.