My Lifeline

Very early in my pregnancy, before I even knew we were having triplets, I joined a group of other women on a message board who were all due in September and October of 2007. The bulk of us were pregnant with our first and we were from all over the country. We posted daily with each other to complain about pregnancy ailments, odd cravings and how often we were using the bathroom. As time has passed (we've now all been posting together for 3 years!) the group size dwindled a bit; what once was a group of 25-30 women is now down to about 15.

These women have been my lifeline. During the early months, when I was always stuck at home, it was nice to have adults to "talk" to. We've rejoiced as a group when one person bought her first home, and when another met and married a wonderful man, and most recently when three new babies were born into the group. We've mourned as a group when pregnancies were miscarried. We've prayed for each other when someone has a concern or health issue. How funny and how cool at the same time that so many of my greatest friends could be scattered all across the country and that I'd never met them in person.

A few months ago we started talking about doing a big get together. Another woman in the group lives in the Kansas City area too, and with KC being in the center of the country and relatively cheap to fly into we decided it was the perfect location! Late last week 6 women descended on Kansas City for 4 days of fun. One flew in from Washington DC and two from California. One drove from Michigan, one from North Dakota and one from Texas. Oh, and did I mention everyone brought their 2 and a half year old? We had 8 moms and 10 kids... only one of which was a girl!

We played outside when it was warm...

Which wore my children out...

We headed downtown another day for some fun at a free fairy tale exhibit and lunch at the Crayola Cafe (which was the closest we got to a group picture unfortunately)

Friends were made and popsicles were eaten

Then the snow came and it royally messed stuff up. How does it go from 65 and sunny one day to snowing 4 hours later?! Due to the crazy road out to the lake house the out of towners were staying at, it was decided Saturday morning that they should find a hotel.

This is as close to a group shot of the kids as we could get.... 3 of the kids were already headed home, unfortunately!

All in all it was an awesome but tiring weekend. And a little tip to those of you thinking of getting together with other moms you've met online: do it without kids! Crabbiness, bedtime, missed naps, hungry 2 year olds, etc definitely put a damper on the adult's fun. Don't get me wrong, it was great to see the kids all playing together but they will definitely not be invited next time!

The Zoo Goes to the Zoo

I've spent the bulk of today sitting on the couch, cuddling 3 sick little boys. By 10pm Sunday night all three of them were stuffed up and miserable. Yesterday morning I joined them in the misery. Before the boys started feeling so crummy on Sunday, we did have a morning of family fun!

Sunday morning we all went to the zoo with my parents! Because we were going to have 4 adults to 3 kids we decided to skip the Choo Choo Wagon for the first time at the zoo. The boys enjoyed the freedom to run right up to the exhibits but by the end of the morning they all wanted rides...

L-R: Chase/Nick, Tyler/Pop Pop, Jackson/Me

Checking out the animals

 

  

  

 

Probably the highlight for the boys was getting to ride on the train and going through a long, dark tunnel! They're still talking about it today.

 

  

  

This one cracks us up! Not only are Jackson and Tyler (sitting next to me) shocked at how dark it is, but someone spray painted "HELP" onto the wall and you only see it if you take a picture!

 
 

And not the highlight for me... we had birds land on us to "eat" out of some little cups we were holding. I was cool with it until one landed on my head!

 
 

  

Clearly we had a great time!  A huge thanks to my mom for taking so many pictures for me. These will be nice for the boys' scrapbooks - so often I'm the one behind the camera!

Fun With Grandparents Pt3 - Video Clip of the Week

Our 3 weeks of fun are officially over now. As I type this blog entry Nick's parents and youngest brother and sister are in the air, on the way back to Vermont. The boys have become quite spoiled in these last three weeks... They had lots of attention and lots of fun and I fear I won't be entertaining enough for them for these next couple of days! We've also eaten out plenty (6 times in the last 2 weeks) and now every time we get in the car the boys think we're going out to eat!

One of the many fun things we did this last week was to take the boys down to the Crown Center Fountains again. Here's a quick snippet of video to give you an idea of the fun that can be had there!




Our week with Meme, Papa, Uncle Isaac and Aunt Moriah was filled with other fun things too...

We ate out at Winstead's Saturday night after church and Jackson completely polished off his own kids meal (mini cheese burger, fries and chocolate milk)! Usually we get away with ordering 2 kids meals and splitting it between the 3 boys but I think that may be changing.

Jackson proud of finishing his meal

Uncle Isaac and Chase making funny faces together

We went to Bass Pro Shops to look around. That kept the boys entertained for a solid 90 minutes and they were sad when we left! Nick and I are thinking this will be a great place to go this winter....


Meme and Papa bought the boys these nifty hats at Bass Pro. It's too hard to take a picture of the hats on the boys, so you've got to settle for this.

We also did some swimming in the pool at the hotel they stayed at. (Note the new swim trunks! Those are technically for next year (size 3T) but they work now too (just a little long). I think they're adorable!)

And we did a lot of playing here at the house.

Chalk

The boys love to color, so last weekend when I saw sidewalk chalk in the Dollar Spot at Target I knew I had to have it. The boys have loved coloring on the sidewalk in front of our house as well as the cars before we could yank them away. We've also allowed them to color on the back deck, which is a much more relaxing experience as there's no road to contend with.

The other day Uncle Isaac got in on the action with the boys... he drew a huge person and colored him in completely with chalk (he wore the purple stick of chalk down to nothing). Jackson thought that was great fun to roll in....



The boys all ran through it too....


Which resulted in tiny foot prints all over the deck!

I then had the idea to grab the footprint card the NICU nurses made for Tyler and hold it next to a chalk footprint to compare sizes. My how far we've come in 23 months!

The Video Clip of the Week will be up tomorrow... my camera battery is dead so I can't transfer the video to the computer!

Fun With Grandparents - Pt 2

We sure know how to pack the fun in around here! Monday afternoon my parents arrived back in town (they had been visiting my brother and his family in west Texas) and that evening we took the boys out to dinner, where they got buzzed on lemonade (see those videos here).

Tuesday morning we headed to one of the boys' favorite places, Deanna Rose Farmstead! Chase was excited to see Grandma had a whole bag of quarters for animal feed. Chase has no fear of the animals while Tyler flat out refuses to feed the big goats (he's ok with the baby sized ones).

Chase in stripes, Jackson in green and wearing a hat, Tyler in brown

Towards the end of our time there Pop Pop treated the boys to popsicles. What a mess that turned into! It was a full day before the green stain on their face, hands, arms and legs wore off.



Last night we all (Nick was home!) went out to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. Tyler was observant and all on his own signed "tree" while he was looking at broccoli. I always thought they looked like little trees too! Just for you, my loyal summer readers, here is a bonus video this week!



This afternoon I will take my parents to the airport. It's been a fun trip and the boys have had a ball! Thankfully they won't be bored for long as Saturday morning Nick's parents, brother and youngest sister fly in for 5 days of fun!