Bought my new van!

I got the new van tonight. I ended up getting the 2006 Sienna LE. Its the 8 seater with 5 seats of latch/tethers. I really like to look of the odyssey better but the number of tethers really pushed me to the sienna. I can have all 4 of my kids FFing (in a few years!) and have my nephew along FFing and not have to decide who's seat is safest untethered or worrying that one of the kids isnt as safe as the rest.

I bought a blue one, since red was hard to find with the packages i wanted and more expensive. This one has a few things i could do without (DVD player and wireless headsets mainly) but they had it ready to ship and since we may do some traveling in it, it might be nice for them once they get cranky. There's only 1 monitor that flips into the ceiling so the kids dont know about it yet. I think if i ever do travel across country in it i will have a second monitor installed in the back facing the front for my RFing kids. The sales guy thought i was nuts when i mentioned it and told me "oh when they face the back they are too short to see the tv. If you want them to watch tv on trips you can just turn their car seats around." He tried to show me how ryan would be captivated by the tv but she cried the minute he touched her seat. She was in an INFANT carrier! Moron! I corrected him rather firmly and he knocked a thousand dollars off the price! (i was meaner than i meant to be and felt bad but my stress level was already high and then he added to it by making the baby cry and she isnt easy to calm down b/c she's used to comfort nursing.) My seats all install really nicely in it and its very comfortable in my opinion. I can sit in the back with the kids and let DF drive without feeling like i'm a mile away or squished.

I cant wait till its really full of all of my kids. I drove it home with both kids in their seats and the infant carriers and a scenera and an extra marathon all strapped in. It was so cool to look behind me and see all the seats and my girls both asleep. I'm sure one day i'll wich i had my subaru back with her sleek lines and amazing power but today the mom thing is just as awesome. (I get my svx back on monday! I cant wait. Its been MONTHS since i drove MY car. I'm going to enjoy my last few trips in it before she becomes my friday car.)

Ashley, you sound so happy! Congrats on the car, good stuff. You're doing great things for both of these girls right now, and they are so lucky to have you

Awesome! Do post pics of it so we can oooo and aaaaaa! Im so tempted to put minivan on my list of vehicles to look at when I get a new car.

And yeah, I'd love to see pics. I know that all of you with new vans are used to it, but I don't know what I'd do with FIVE tether/LATCH spots. I'd be in heaven

Congratulations on the new Sienna. I have an '05 8-passenger LE and love how versatile the seating options are and how carseat friendly it is, my main reasons for choosing it, and I only have 2 kids. I used to be antiminivan but after several accidents (non-injury but scary all the same) and struggling with trying to find a good fit for 2 carseats in other vehicles when I was pregnant with baby #2, I became a convert.

Regards,

Jean (who should just register here anyway since I'm a carseat geek at heart)

Yay! I must admit to being jealous. LOL Enjoy your new ride.

Dreaming_of_Speed said:

I got the new van tonight. I ended up getting the 2006 Sienna LE. Its the 8 seater with 5 seats of latch/tethers. I really like to look of the odyssey better but the number of tethers really pushed me to the sienna. I can have all 4 of my kids FFing (in a few years!) and have my nephew along FFing and not have to decide who's seat is safest untethered or worrying that one of the kids isnt as safe as the rest.

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Congratulations!

Incidentally, the 2006 Odyssey has 5 top tether anchor locations, though only 3 of those also have lower anchors for LATCH.

I am so jealous, I covet your van. I want a van sooooooo badly, but we owe too much on our taurus to trade at the moment. I am at a stay at home mom so money is TIGHT! We can't afford the payment after the pay off on the taurus. Anyway, congrats! I am off to dream of a van.

CPSDarren said:

Congratulations!

Incidentally, the 2006 Odyssey has 5 top tether anchor locations, though only 3 of those also have lower anchors for LATCH.

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I dont use the lower latch anchors so i didnt bother to count them! I just hunted down tether hooks (why dont they put the owners manual in the car when its on the lot? it would make things easier and the poor sales guy wouldnt have had to run in and out so many times to check things) I've never really messed with latch i can get a good install with my seat belts and as most of the cars we use dont have latch i perfer to be good with the seat belt. Latch straps always feel so flimsy to me i just dont trust them as well as the nice strong seat belts! (I guess i'll need to to practice hard for my certification!)

We got a great deal on the van b/c we're trading in an 01 or 02 celica (his car i dont know what year it is for sure). They gave us alot more for it that we expected and we got tons on discounts and stuff from them. They give a discount if you buy more than 1 vehicle from them within a certain period of time and we've bought a celica and cosigned on 2 of our friends cars so we hit the jackpot on that deal! The dealer is a friend of my dads so he was more than happy to knock off money for this or that (i wanted red, i didnt want a dvd player, ect) Thank god for connections too! The price tag on it was $40,000!!! We're paying 19,000 after the discounts and trade in value.

We need to get a second car that has 2 rear seat rows. Since DF will be picking up the kids from daycare. He wants an SUV and since i dont need as many tethers if we sell it before (or when) the twins go FFing i think thats what we'll end up with.

Congrats on the van!

Where do you have each seat? I can't wait to see pictures of it with all the seats in it. LOL How do you get the kids in the back, the 8pass seinna is horrible for that. I have only seen one once but it was for thriplet newborns and a three year old and I have no clue how the mom will do it when the girls are not in infant seats anymore. I have a nissan Quest and the middle seats go flat so there is easy access. I would think you would be using latch, it makes it so the seat can flip forward with a car seat on it. Or at least thats how the seats work in the Quest, I do it with my sons Regent all the time.

How lucky of you to get the four kids you wanted all in a short time!

Rachel

Oh and wow your pg is going fast! When are you due again? I thought it was just a few weeks ago you were 14 weeks. I guess its true, pregancy goes faster when its someone else. LOL

Rachel

Dreaming_of_Speed said:

The price tag on it was $40,000!!! We're paying 19,000 after the discounts and trade in value.

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It must have had a ton of dealer add-ons or you must be in Canada;-) When I was shopping a few months ago for an 8-passenger Sienna, only the top LE8 package with DVD was barely over $30,000 MSRP. The common packages #3 and #4 typically retail for $28k and sell for around $25k.

Maybe DF would go for a Highlander Hybrid? That's what I would have gotten if the third row seat wasn't so small.

Yay! I'm jealous, too ... been wantig the Sienna for over a year now, LOL - but glad you sound so happy with all the kids you've got to fill it up with

When can we see pics?

I am interested in your set up in the van with 5 carseats, as we will soon have that...
Can you post some pics of it today?

Congratulations, can we see pics?
I have been a lurker for a long time and just registered today, so I guess I am coming out
Anyways, sounds like you have been through so much since your accidents last Novemeber and m/c your twins, and now to be pg with twins again and the addition of two more kids, WOW! Congratulations!

So far my seating plans are to:
SIL: FFing in a marathon in the middle row center seat.
Ryan: RFing in marathon outboard (driver side) in the middle row
The Twins (i need to pick names!): Rfing in combi connections in the rear row. I think i'm going to put one outboard and one center.

To get them in and out intend to lift the twins in the infant carriers over the middle row into (or out of) thier bases. I left the passenger side seat open for this reason. Ryan is easily reachable and SIL of course can get in and out on her own. I have no idea how i'm going to get the twins in once they hit convertible age. I guess i'll switch the kids around and put the twins in the middle row and the older kids outboard. Its a tight squeeze in to the back but its doable (for how long i dont know). The 7 passenger didnt seem much better unless you moved the outboard captions chair to the center. Some times i think that might have been a better idea but today i was babysitting my nephew and happened to need to grocery shop (big big mistake) so i loaded him up rfing in his scenera in the back. By the end of the trip i ended up just opening the back hatch adn lifting him over the seat back into his rfing seat. It worked. Odd way of doing it but you do what you gotta do.

I'm due july 11th but i'm expecting to go much sooner than that. I've been pregnant with twins once before and went into labor somewhere around 24 weeks (i didnt have much prenatal care as i was very young and didnt know better so i'm not quite sure exactly how far along i was.) My ticker has been messed up for forever (first it had the wrong date, then the wrong coding) so you may have seen one that was wrong. It took me forever to update when i found out it was twins and move my due date forward. If it werent for the ticker i would have no idea how far along i was for sure b/c time seems to be flying. I'm more than half way done with being pregnant and it just doesnt seem possible. Only 2 more weeks and the twins could be viable if they were born, it seems like yesterday i got the positive test and was praying every second i wouldnt miscarry! Now i'm close to being in the clear.

I'll get pics asap. I got it cleared from the foster care ppl that i can put photos of her on the net they just cant be ones i took. So teh few i found in her mother's house will have to be scanned and posted. I'm not supposed to take any photos of her at all. I already have. Her mom had started a baby scrapbook that i intend to keep up with as long as she's here. I already made her a page for her mommy since there we very few photos of her and i'm sure one day she'll want to know about her. I found the car in the local impound lot and took some photos of it thru the fence and i clipped all the article i could find about the accident so she'd know exactly how her mom died instead of some vague "in a car crash when you were a baby." We've been told she'll be here until may so i have a few months to make more pages and watch her grow up.

I dont understand why the invoice for our van said it was so much. I've gone thru and calculated what it should be with the packages and extras anf i still only come up with 35,000. Taxes and fees cannot be that high! I'm going to call the dealer and see if he can sit down and explain it to me when i dont have the kids. We did get a heck of a deal with markdowns. We got 12,000 for the celica which is only worth 11,000. and they took of 1500 for the dealer loalty. The rest are from the southeast distributors group. They took off the costs of certain items b/c i requested a car without them and i bought one with them anyway. So i got the DVD player, heater leather seats in the front, stereo with like 10 speakers (who needs that really), air conditioning that can be set different in the front and rear, and some sort of home link thing i have yet to figure out all for free! Gotta love having a daddy who knows how to play the game. (yes i took him with me when it was time to sign papers. I've done it with every other car i or one of my friends have bought and he's always managed to get an amazing deal! Gotta love him!)

Its crazy how life changes in an instant isnt it? I cant believe how different my life is for just a year ago. My nephew was just a few weeks old and i had just caught the baby bug. I hadnt even discussed having a baby with my fiance yet! Now we have 2 kids and are awaiting two more! heck a few months ago i wouldnt have been caught dead behind the wheel of a minivan now i cant wait to drive this thing. (granted my svx will always be my one and only true car love. She'll always be my first! )

We'll see if i get to reinstalling all 5 seats in the van. I took all the seats out b/c we get the SVX back tomorrow and until the twins come i intend to drive it. Its hard to install the seats around my tummy and with the kids always needing attention. It would be easier if we had a yard i could let them play in (the baby in a swing) but we're in apartments right now and i hate to leave them unattended while i install seats even if i am right there. Maybe my MIL or mom could watch them for a while and i'll do it. Why didnt anyone mention it was hard to be pregnant with kids? (actually its not as bad as my mother said it would be! And i have twice as many kids as she did when she was pregnant with twins!)

Dreaming_of_Speed said:

I'm due july 11th

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Is that a typo? If you are due July 11th then that means you conceived early October. For some reason I though you had been in a crash in November and lost a baby around 12weeks, or is that someone else? If you are due in July, then you are at 22wks like your ticker says and just two weeks away from viable babies.

So let me get this straight...you are pregnant with your 3rd set of twins???
And these twins are due less than 8 months after you lost the other set of twins you were pg with in a car crash???
Honey, either you are full of it, or your Dr. doesnt really have a medical degree...
Something is just plain weird about this...please explain!
I am so confused!

This is her second set of twins, she lost the first set when they were born at 24wks when she was 15. She was pg with just one baby in november when she was in a car crash and miscarried at 12 weeks. Now she is 22wks with twins and one is a girl, wich she found out after her third car crash at 14 wks.

Unregistered said:

This is her second set of twins, she lost the first set when they were born at 24wks when she was 15. She was pg with just one baby in november when she was in a car crash and miscarried at 12 weeks. Now she is 22wks with twins and one is a girl, wich she found out after her third car crash at 14 wks.

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Uhhhhh ... if she is 22 weeks along now and due in July as she says ... that means she conceived the first week of October. Which would be a month BEFORE she lost her 12 week pregnancy in November.