Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm so thankful for all my wonderful family and friends this year. You guys have really been there for me. I would never have made it through the first two trimesters without you. Only 73 more days to go, I can barely believe it! I'm extra thankful for this baby karate kid who's currently demanding larger living quarters! She does new adorable things everyday and she's not even out and about yet! I hope you've all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are feeling pleasantly full with turkey and pumpkin pie! (I also hope you remembered to eat some for me and Baby Smith!)

The past week has been super busy. Friday, Mark's parents took me out to lunch and then pram shopping. I thought I preferred the Graco but once we got in the store I fell in love with the Pliko Pramette. George and Maureen didn't mind a bit that it was more expensive than the one I originally thought I'd choose (they're buying the pram for us)and agreed that it was lovely and that we should definitely have it. (Aren't they amazing?!) There was a bit of confusion since it was selling substantially cheaper online than in the store, so we had to go home to order it and make sure it was in stock before they went back and bought the car seat + extras from the store itself. Eventually, everything was sorted and I was thrilled that it finally felt like I was getting prepared for this baby. Sadly, when we went back to the shop on Sunday to show Mark the pram and to make sure the car seat would fit in the car, we found that it didn't fit in our Astra.

Not only does our car not have isofix points for an isofix base, the surefix base won't fit because the seat buckles come up too high and would get crushed in an accident, and to top it all off.. our seat belts aren't long enough to strap the car seat in at the basic level! Apparently Vauxhall Astras are not baby compatible cars. I was thoroughly upset. Finding another pram/car seat was going to be a hard task in itself simply because of the model of our car. It was somewhere around this point that Mark and I remembered that we were going to get another car shortly after the baby was born so I wasn't stuck in the house with a baby and no means of transportation.

Eureaka! We'll just buy a new car sooner. Alas, I only want an automatic and 99.9% of the British population seem to be anti-automatic. Which means finding a used automatic isn't exactly easy. After sitting in a dozen cars Wednesday night and being annoyed by a particular Arnold Clark salesman we think we've finally narrowed it down to a couple makes. We're going to test drive a Toyota Yaris on Saturday and see how we like it. We know it has isofix points and I have it on good authority that the Pliko Pramette fits comfortably in the boot! (It's also small enough that it shouldn't be too hard for me to park in British spaces!) However, if you know me and Mark, you know how bad we are at making decisions. So who knows WHEN we'll actually get another car purchased. I'll keep you apprised.