Three Peanuts Stuffed in a Van

We love getting to go visit my parents, and the kids love their Granny and Grandpa. However, this comes with a long road trip, one that is 500 miles. If we could drive without stops it would take us around eight hours to get there. Our increasing family has made 8 hours in the cars fade away. This last weekend for the 4th of July Holiday we traveled to Granny and Grandpa's lake house, it took us just over 12 hours to get there. Eight hours in a car is long enough, tacking on four more hours gets you a lot of "are we there yet?" from Grant while Norah pipes in saying "all done." Stops for nursing Mason, potty breaks for Grant, and getting out of the car to eat all added up despite trying to enough entertainment to occupy our little travel mates.  Movies, Leapster video games, Tag Jr, books, baby dolls, snacks and singing did not take us as far as I had hoped.

Grant & Mason in the back seat, Grant loves sitting next to his little brother . He does a great job keeping him happy in his infant carrier.

Norah watches over her brothers from her middle seat.

Before we made the return trip home we wore out the kids as much as possible to see if we could knock some time off. It was successful because we were able to get home in just over 9 hours. We could have been home about a half hour less but Norah had a complete melt down after 6 hours in the van. We pulled over and calmed her down and we were off again. Mason was a complete trooper on the way home. He was going four hours between nursing sessions, and he would just sleep away in his car seat.


**We are also loving the new layout of the seats in the van. We put two car seats in the back allowing us to fold down one in the middle. This gives us a big space to work with, if it's raining outside we can get in to put the kids in their seats without getting drenched, there's a spot for Norah's walker and a good spot for a quick diaper change. **