Day 8: finally home

We survived. It was a great morning with a bit of a late start due to a real breakfast, and then we headed east. We made it to a friend’s house for a (much too) short stop. They were Navy friends by happy accident and third party connections, but one of those families that you could see yourself being lifelong friends and neighbors with. It was wonderful, and had been too long since last meeting.

Then we hit the road. We knew the movers were hoping to arrive the next day, so we had to push through in one day instead of taking two.

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The gps didn’t like some of the roads we were on and I’m pretty sure tried to stage a coup at one point.

We made great time though. Had two delays for bad traffic but not terrible by any means.

And finally, we were home. We got the keys for the house, did a walk through, and drove away excited to see it in the light of day the following day.

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It was a late night, but we found an awesome suite to crash in and settled in for hopefully our last hotel stay for a while!

Miles traveled: 513 miles
States traveled: PA, NJ, NY, CT, RI

Day 7

On the road again….

So we left Tiffin and stopped through our old home where we moved as newlyweds.

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It was strange to see it again and walk through (we still own and have amazing property managers).

Then into Pittsburgh for some R&R at Steven’s aunt’s house. It was fun- we got a group of cousins together who hadn’t been in, about, 5 years! We actually realized the last time one cousin held Aiden, he was exactly the same age as their baby is now (9 months).

Best part? That aunt was a MoM of triplets too! I’m sure it was surreal to have triple tornadoes running through the house again.

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Miles traveled: 213 miles
States traveled: Ohio & Pennsylvania (slackers…)

Day 6

Miles traveled: ZERO

Best. Rest. Day. Ever.

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The last picture we have of him under this tree he was 8 months old.

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We went out to a dear friend’s farm and saw chickens, cows, and dogs (Jacen’s favorite) but those pictures are on the camera. I’ll upload them when I have a computer again!

Day 5

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Sorry for delays, little cell service in Tiffin, OH 😉

The Air Force Base we stayed at had an amazing TLF. The babies got some practice on stairs which will be helpful in the new house.

We made it safely from St. Louis to Tiffin. The babies were very happy to get out of the car! We had Grandnan, and one of our aunts and a cousin there too! The boys had a blast playing and the babies loved that there was a higher than 1:1 ratio

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Then we finally got Chick Fil A for the first time this trip. We had passed several but couldn’t rationalize the time for a stop. This one fell perfectly at a lunch break, and it wasn’t even a Sunday!

Miles traveled: 475
States travelled: MIssouri, Indiana, Ohio

Day 4

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First highlight to note: we crossed 2000 miles today…

Today started off great- we awoke by the sun rather than by children!

Got on the road to spend yet another day on I-40… Thankfully it wasn’t the WHOLE day today (just 90% of it!)

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A good friend lived off the route but unfortunately we couldn’t add that extra time in today 🙁 thankful for life long military friends who understand!

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Made great time, avoided rush hour, and got to an awesome hotel (even if another pipe burst I’d be okay with it. Lol). It was definitely a venti-with-an-extra-shot kid of day though.

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Walked to dinner (nice excursion, though I’d forgotten about humidity!), and then back.

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Miles traveled: 530 miles
States traveled: Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois

Fall is here!

This will probably be one of the last posts (with pictures) before our move. Hard to believe it’s coming up so quickly! In honor of 1) Homeschooling and 2) Fall, we went apple picking yesterday. The biggest benefit of homeschooling is that we can take things we love (apples, sunshine, and fall) and celebrate them in the middle of a week-day when the farm is relatively calm. “Field Trips” for the win!

The kids did this last year in Pre-K, but the babies stayed in their wagon as they weren’t up for all the walking yet, and so it was a much different experience this year. Aka: It was awesome.

Hand holding, brother helping, pure awesomeness.

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Farewells

As happens so often, we leave a place right as we’re starting to get used to it. And we always find one or two last things that we hadn’t managed to get around to while in that place, that we say “Man, why didn’t we do this more while we were here?!”

Beach bonfires are definitely on that list. Granted, I’m not sure we would have enjoyed them a month ago, much less a year ago. The kids are finally self sufficient enough that we can let them run and play on the beach and since it was so big there was no fear of them making it to the water. It was great to hang out with a couple of friends that are also leaving this quarter.

They fully enjoyed running and having freedom. There was a huge set of stairs to get down to the beach and we realized… these kids haven’t really ever done stairs by themselves (not more than one or two, anyways). That’s definitely going to be a learning point when (if) we move into a 2 story house!

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We made Davey Crockett bars for the party. Essentially, they are yummy chocolate chip oatmeal cookie goodiness, but when you’re trying to clean out a panty you have to make do. So white chocolate and cherry morsels it was! They actually ended up surprisingly good even with that change, but a little sweeter than normal. Jacen didn’t mind though…

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Aiden was enjoying showing the babies around and exploring. They found a cool drain pipe that we were glad wasn’t ground level or we were sure they might have crawled away in it.

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The girls decided to play chase. Unfortunately they didn’t want to take the picture the way I wanted, but it worked!

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Mountain climbing was also a favorite activity. Turns out that when the mountain is a sand dune, though, it’s not as easy to climb you’d think.

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And Aiden practiced his snow angels for when we move. Sand, snow, same thing!

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As much fun as it was, I’m glad that we didn’t try it a while ago or we probably wouldn’t have had such a fond memory. They avoided the fire, listened (fairly) well, and had a lot of fun. We were sandy and tired out after and they were asleep before we made it out of the parking lot. Fond memories of Monterey!

You just gotta adapt

People ask me all.the.friggin.time…. “How do you do it?!”

It’s simple. We adapt. Constantly. I remember with older brother that we’d finally get in a groove, feel like we understood our roles and how to keep him alive through the day, and then he’d learn something new. First it was rolling. Then crawling. Then walking. You get the picture.

Now multiply that. Times three.

And now imagine them learning cooperation. I’m all for good play skills and life lessons and teaching them how to be team players. And our kids get to learn that early (how many 2 year olds do you know spend 24 hours a day with two other 2 year olds, and a big brother who can teach them all sorts of naughty things??). But they take it to a far greater level. They sit there and work together to climb tables, empty the pantry, open juice boxes… you name it, they can probably work together and figure it out.

So as such, we have to be innovative. And adaptive. And sometimes just down right tricky to keep them alive.

If you ask anyone who comes to my house at least once a month, our furniture moves around. A lot. If you ask my husband, it moves around too much.

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First we had cribs. And they were awesome cribs. And then Jaina started learning how to hang from the rail and walk her feet up them. And the others started learning how to do jumping jacks. And pull things off dressers.

So we took off the sides. I’d prefer them playing to learning how to climb out and kill themselves or each other.

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And that worked. For a while at least. No more lifting children in and out of bed. They didn’t scream incessantly when they thought it was time to get up (Even if it was 4 am), they just played. It was great.

Until they learned they could do this.

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So now, we have game plan #47. Jace has the second half of Aiden’s bunk beds (which was always the plan). We had hoped to tide the girls over with the toddler style beds until we moved, and then get them their new gear on the other side of the country. So we put the cribs up for sale, thinking it’d take a while. They were sold in 24 hours. Drat, there goes that plan.

So we put the mattresses on the floor. Surely that will work!

And we learned, again, that triplets when put together are smarter than a grown adult.

So beds are ordered. Mattresses were bought (Sure, I forget to take a picture of that one, two mattresses on top of a minivan). Quilts that were planned for them just to have will double as blankets on their beds (No, Aiden isn’t left out, his is still in progress). At least it spurred me to finish them sooner than later!

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And the moral of this whole story?

I hope our next house is bigger.

EDIT: We finally got the big kid beds in! The girls seem absolutely thrilled. And thank you, Circo, for selling coordinating bedding in Pink/Purple, that wasn’t “too” little girl so they can grow and keep it for a while! (too bad you can’t really see it in the picture because of their Star Wars quilts!)

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Quick update

 

 

As summer is wrapping up, a few pictures for you!

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Sorry it’s taking me so long to update lately, only one or maybe four reasons why it is taking so long 🙂 I promise to update more soon!

Playing Catchup

Sorry it’s been so long. Sometimes life gets in the way of what we want to do, but it’s normally good that it does. It’s refreshing to sit down and just play/watch/share and not photograph/write/document (though I do still try to sneak that in as possible).

First a catch up from their birthday party. Can you believe it was almost a month ago?!

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The kids had a blast. We had a “Three Ring Circus” theme for the party (ha. ha. ha.) complete with Cracker Jacks, cupcakes, sandwiches, chips, and beer (for the adults, I promise).

We had some amazing friends come, the babies’ had an absolute blast. Aiden enjoyed hanging out with the older siblings, and it was overall amazing.

A few notes:
*The “frosting creations” white icing at the store that you can get flavor packets to color/flavor it? Don’t waste your money. First, it’s more like a royal icing, it’s very thin consistency. Second, it doesn’t come out near the colors you think it will. But at noon when the party is at 2? It works. And the kids didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

*Get the group picture BEFORE letting them run around the playground. Not after. Because once they know they are allowed free roam? They disagree with the idea of being put on the stepping stones for pictures.

Cheers! to 6 months before the next birthday party has to be executed!