After celebrating the New Year and Finn’s baptism in Arizona, Michael headed to DC for work and I took the boys to SC. We spent a few days apart then over the following weekend, Michael bought a car (ahem, a minivan) in Virginia then drove it from the dealership down to South Carolina. He stayed for a quick weekend visit then flew back to DC for work but left the minivan with the kids and me.

Side notes on the minivan.
1) I was initially very resistant to getting a minivan because…it’s a minivan but we got a 2015 Toyota Sienna XLE and I absolutely love it. The thing about minivans is that they are literally made for families so having one makes my life easier every day. I highly recommend.
2) We have another car and then the minivan is “the family car” but we all really know that the other car is Michael’s and the minivan is “mine” since I almost never go anywhere without the kids. Anyway, I really had to put my faith in Michael since he bought it without me ever getting to see it but since I bought our house without him…he said he could handle it. And again, we love it!

Back to South Carolina…

Thankful to my brother & Suzanne for letting us borrow baby gear to keep Finn cozy & entertained while we stayed with my parents.

Michael worked out of the DC office for a couple weeks in January then spent the second half of the month back in Brazil. So while we were doing all of the above, Michael was doing all of the below!

End of January and we’re reunited & it feels so good!

Another lovely visit to the Columbia Zoo with my grandparents!

We decided to transition Colt out of the crib and into a big boy bed before we moved. My grandfather had his “youth bed” that he got when he was 5 years old (also used by my mom and brother) and he recently had it refinished for us. It’s a size that is no longer produced (in between a crib mattress which is the current toddler bed size and a twin bed) so we had to custom order a mattress and sheets but my mom had an old trundle bed mattress that basically fit so we went ahead and started with that. Colt loved hearing the stories of the bed and watching the bed get assembled in his room. And best of all, he slept great and never really gave us any trouble with the transition. I think the keys for us were 1) he was old enough to really get it and 2) he was already accustomed to his lighted clock indicating sleep-time vs. awake-time so it made sense for him to “obey” the clock and stay in bed when the clock was blue and get up when the clock turned yellow. (I highly recommend the My Tot Clock but start them on it while they’re still in a crib!)

 

**During this time, Finn & I took a trip to Denver to meet up with some girlfriends, Michael took a trip to NY to meet up with friends AND we all took one final trip to Arizona but I’ll do separate posts on those trips next. Oh yeah, and I also attempted potty training while Michael was in Brazil although I’m not sure I’m far enough removed from that trauma to write about it yet  😉 **