Mom on the Run: Beach Vacations and Convertible Car Seats

Quick question.....does anybody NOT like the new brown background? I chose it because it seemed "fall festive", but I can't decide if the white lettering on the brown background is difficult to read or not.

Moving on.....I think I may have decided on the beach ceremony location AND afterparty location already! I need to run it by Lucas (along with some other options), but if we go with "Option A" we won't have to drive anywhere. We can walk from the house to the ceremony, the ceremony to the restaurant and the restaurant back to the house. Sounds like a plan to me!

Ok so that's definitely not the potential location....I believe this is in another country altogether. But how gorgeous is that??

I'm not on the hunt for fancy - I'm on the hunt for good food and fun times. I like casual. With a beach view.

Ok so maybe not THAT casual. I'm not an early 20s drunk college student anymore. They can HAVE that.

So I had a realization the other night.....I realized that Lucas and I don't have enough car seats! We have an infant car seat for the new baby and a convertible car seat for Delano in the van of course, but we aren't prepared for Lucas to have both kiddos in his car yet. Though it's not often that Delano rides in Daddy's car, it is an occasional occurrence. And now there are about to be TWO kiddos in need of protective gear in both vehicles.

We need to trade in the infant seat in Lucas's car because we shouldn't really be using it to begin with. What we need to do is buy a second base to put in his car for the other (better) infant seat we have. So that would take care of that. But we also need to invest in a second convertible seat. I've been shopping around online and reading opinions about car seats on the Car Seats for the Littles Facebook page. There are some really good options out there.....which often translates to REALLY expensive. There are also some cheaper options out there in the $40 range. But the cheaper seats don't last as long growth-wise (weight or height), so I'd likely have to buy another (larger) seat eventually, which makes no sense. Especially since I want my kids to remain rear-facing as long as possible. What I want is a seat that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, has a rear-facing weight capacity up to 40 pounds and a forward-facing weight capacity of at least 65 pounds. And I think I've narrowed it down to a few Graco options. Now I just need to look at them in person.

Graco MySize vs the Graco MyRide

I was thinking I wanted the Graco MyRide 70 (on the right), but now I'm thinking I should go with the Graco MySize 70 (on the left). It's quite a bit slimmer and the headrest (which slides up and down to accommodate infants to youngsters) obviously has a higher height limit. The overall consensus among moms out there is that the majority of the time, kids outgrow the height limit of a car seat way before they make it to the weight limit, so I like the adjustable height of the MySize. I'm going to go look at seats in person this afternoon to get a better idea. We don't need a second seat right this second, but we will need it here within the next few months.

My future. Except there's a lot more pink in this car. :)

Another thought I brought up with Lucas the other night, when I realized he'd soon have two rear-facing car seats in his car, was HIS CAR. Lucas loves his car (I forget what it is....an Impala? My preggo brain is drawing a blank.), and I like it fine - I just don't ever drive it because I feel like I'm driving a boat out of water. It's very Lucas. The thing is, it's a 2-door and Lucas is quite tall so his driver's seat is pushed pretty much all the way back for leg room. I'm not sure how he's going to be able to put a rear-facing car seat behind his driver's seat without sacrificing his leg room. But suggesting that he maybe look at other car options went over about as well as a turd in the punch bowl. So I'm guessing that the infant seat base will go behind his driver's seat for now, and that he'll just have to move his seat up for the ride home on those rare occasions that there's a baby behind him! And in about a year when Baby #2 graduates to a convertible seat, we'll just have to play it by ear.