2008 Floods

What a horrible nightmare, the floods of 2008, our downtown and many surrounding towns are DESTROYED! They told us to evacuate work on Wednesday about 2:30 p.m. and we've been told we won't be back into our offices in downtown Cedar Rapids (IA) for 4-5 weeks! It has been compared to Hurricane Katrina (level 6) they are leveling ours at a 5. Wow! Here is the link for our local gazette. Check out these pictures! http://www.gazetteonline.com/ Our family was not affected by the flooding, other than we had to limit our water usage. Small price to pay.

Storms in Iowa

Last night we had terrible storms in Iowa. Flash flooding and tornado warnings. It was scary. After the storm everyone was assessing the damage. We were fine but the neighbors in our backyard had horrible flooding. In fact, the house on the corner got water in their basement... :-(

Shirts

If I remember correctly, Grandma Judy got the boys these shirts. Connor is wearing the "Would this face lie?" and Skyler is wearing the "Will trade sister for puppy." (Don't go getting any ideas Daddy!)

First and last time to the beach - just kidding!

The water was FREEZING COLD! I can't believe people were actually swimming in it. They babies did get in the water. They loved the sand. I mean, LOVED THE SAND! They weren't too excited to take a cold shower afterwards though. But we made it.

The Park

Mommy took the babies to the park. These two little girls came over later and took a liking to Ava. They were helping her cross the bridge and trying to hold her hand. It was so cute. The boys found some screw on pop tops in the sand which kept them busy for quite some time. (Don't worry we washed when we got back).

Dadda cooks for us!

Sleeping

Sleeping this camping trip was soooo much better....I am not going to say we're there YET! But we're getting there. This time we took the pack-n-play to set up for Ava (keep her seperated). They were all in the same room still, but she just was in the pack-n-play. We also took some videos so they could watch and settle down before bed. You can see Skyler (blue) and Connor (green) in the bottom bunk. Ava woke up when the flash went off.

Supper - night 1 vs night 2

Friday night we had the kids sit at their little table for supper. Not good. They kept trying to get up before we thought they should be done. Yeah, so, Saturday when family came out (to have supper with us) we asked them to bring their little booster chairs. Ah, it worked out so much better having them tied down!

Inside our camper

So in order for us to camp with the babies we needed some room (in case we had storms like this past weekend). Brian and I had always talked about getting a camper but the situation had never been right. So, we finally decided to get one. It has a Queen Master Bedroom with seperate full bath, a living room / kitchen which (another queen bed and kitchen table turns into a bed), plus a bunkhouse (3 beds - you see two but there is a drawer on the floor and the 3rd one pulls out) for the kids (in a seperate room where door CLOSES - yes!) and they have their own bathroom/sink in another room off their room. So it's a pretty big camper but we need one cause we gotta take people with to help with the kids!

Fun times at the campsite...

The kids LOVED the outdoors. They especially liked taking the little rocks and putting them on everything like, the table, daddy's tailpipe (which they got all black and sooty and got me all black and sooty, their wagon, the steps to get in the camper.

Camping - second try...

Okay, so we camped a few weeks ago and it was a NIGHMARE!!! So we decided we'd try it again. Are we crazy or what? Anyways, we went back to Palo and stuck out the storms although it didn't storm until late Saturday night / early Sunday morning. The worst we had were the high winds. Here is a picture of us on our way to the campsite! Aren't we cool in our shades?

They crack me up

So I am getting the triplets ready for bed...and I had just changed everyone when all of the sudden I was like, ewwww....someone stinks! So I asked them, who went poopie??? And all of the sudden Ava bends down and starts sniffing both Skyler and Connor's butts! She'd go from one to the other. It was absolutely hilarious and I couldn't get her to stop! They all do the funniest things! (Come to find out it was just gas, whew).

The routine...

Okay, so in case you can't tell, Ava is our naughty little temper tantrum girl....You will find a lot of pictures on this blog to prove that. But anyways, our routine is eat dinner then get our diapers changed, duct tape applied, pjs on then play a little more until our 8:00 p.m. bedtime. Well, I took the boys' shirts off when I got them down from their booster chairs...I didn't take Ava's shirt off cause I wanted to take a picture of her "chicken or the egg" shirt. OMG, she threw a tantrum!!!! She wanted HER shirt off...You can see just her feet in the first picture running herself into the kitchen cabinents. What a little stinker. But the kids are always such great helpers. They all help me put their clothes in the laundry basket. (Wonder how long this will last?) Then the last picture, everyone is happy again! Yay!

Then and now....

It's amazing to see how far we've come! The babies will be 2 at the end of this month. It seems not long ago they were coming home from the NICU, the boys with the oxygen and Ava with her acid reflux and projectile vomitting.

The small things...

It's amazing how your kids notice the details at such a young age. Skyler is checking out the flower on my new pedicured toes.

Dadda, Ava and her little doggie too...

Ava fell in love with this little dog on our shopping trip so Grandma Diana bought it for her. It's so ugly its cute. It walks and barks too. Later that evening Brian was like, I was looking up the street and all the little girls have these fake dogs. I was like, yeah, our child is so in style! And she isn't even 2 yet!!! haha!