Road Trip with 4 Month Old

First things first...Ava is 4 months old today. I'm patting myself and Wynston on the back for keeping this little one alive and happy (most of the time!) for 4 whole months. That's 1/3 of a whole year!  Things are getting easier and more fun with each passing week. We ate dinner with Wynston's parents last night, and plopped Ava down in her exersaucer (it's medieval castle themed, lol). There's so many play items all around it, and she was so excited and content in there...giving us the rare opportunity to eat without a baby on my lap. She was really cracking us all up as she was talking and doing this funny "angry" chew on her monkey...like she's gonna tear it apart! That little monkey had better stay on Ava's good side. :)

Okay, back to the subject at hand. This weekend we are excited to head up to St. Louis MO and Edwardsville IL. We will be visiting Wynston's sister Leah and then we will be visiting our friend's Jen and Brian and having Jen's baby shower. Jennifer and Brian's baby is due in October and we are soo excited for them. I can just see family float trips and camping in our future!

While this weekend is bound to be full of fun and excitement, I'm admittedly VERY nervous about a 3 to 3.5 hour drive with my 4 month old. As of late, Ava isn't a huge fan of being in the car. My mind is somewhat at ease since there'll be two of us in the car (so one of us can hop in the back and talk to her) and since we are taking our time driving up and can make stops along the way to get little Miss out of her carseat as we go (man she hates that thing).

So....any advice to make our journey easier? We wanted to drive at night so Ava could sleep during the drive, but that's not an option for us due to a previous committment Friday morning...