Tag: triplets

Busiest weekend ever!

Here’s how it looked:

Saturday morning:

Up bright and early(ish) to go with Stephanie to City Park. We have a mutual friend who works there, and she needed people to be in the background at the amusement park for promotional materials for a Christmas event. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to find Christmas accessories at this time of year. Normally I’d be grateful for that. But not when I really needed it.

ANYWAY, Big Lots came through for us and I picked up a few sparkly headbands and light up necklaces.

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Tuesday stuff (on a Friday)

It’s been a fairly eventful couple of weeks lately. Let’s see….

Went to the Pink Prom (I mentioned it at the end of a post a while back) and wore a dress I got for fifteen dollars at the thrift store, and I gotta say, I felt quite a bit more glamorous than I usually do.

Had a great time going with friends, but my neck was literally bruised from that halter the next day. Ouch.

The end of last week was taken up a lot by the thoughts of Hurricane Nate. We went back and forth about evacuating, as it was headed straight for us, but it wasn’t supposed to be strong. And we had plans Saturday that I didn’t want to cancel, which didn’t help with the decision-making process.

So after planning to evacuate and stocking up on water and various Chef Boyardee products for George (who would stay behind no matter what) we eventually just decided to stay. And…it was nothing. Barely any rain, and just some nice breezes.

Saturday morning, the boys had an audition. I don’t even know for what. Kind of strange, but they had a great time. I made their hair dark again so they’d look more alike, but I don’t think it worked. Maybe if they combed their hair the same and smiled the same?


Afterwards, I headed to my friend Jordan’s baby shower. You know I love any kind of shower. The food is the best. And this shower did not disappoint. Angela made the cakes for my own baby shower ten years ago (almost exactly!) and made most of the food for this shower too. Yum!


So I started two write this post a few days ago, as you can tell by the title. Now I can add even more fun stuff!

We went to visit Grandee and Larry for a night, it was pretty low-key. I was going to take the boys to a pumpkin patch, but the temp has literally been close to 100 (well with the heat index) so I gave up on that plan. Ugh.

One thing we’ve been working on is bike riding. I know, they’re almost 10, but there just aren’t great places to ride bikes in our neighborhood (sidewalks are terrible, and the levee is just too terrifying to contemplate.) We brought the bikes to Baton Rouge and check out Miles!

Wednesday night, Linus had his first solo sleepover at Ethan’s house, which he loved. And then yesterday, I took the boys to Laser Tag for the afternoon. And it was free! You may see their pictures on the Laser Tag website at some point. I was able to sit in the cafe and work while they played arcade games and ran around the laser tag arena. Would have been perfect if I had my noise-canceling headphones.

(They never showed up. I HATE YOU WHISTLER HILTON.)

I also spent a ridiculously embarrassing amount of time taking pictures of myself so I could have a new profile pic for work.  But look at my hair! Heart eyes!

In other exciting news, I’m going to England for work in a couple of weeks! We’ll be super busy so not a lot of time for sightseeing or anything, but as long as I can stock up on Winter Pimms and eat some toad in the hole, I’ll be happy. And walk in Kensington Gardens, since we didn’t get to last time. Sadly, I’m probably more excited about the cool weather than anything else. (That’s a lie. I’m more excited about toad in the hole.)

This weekend should be fun too. Grown up time at City Park, the boys have A DANCE AT SCHOOL (really it’s just a Halloween party but they’re calling it a dance so I am too!) and Sunday is the NOMB Halloween event. Good times!

Number 117

Why yes, I AM a big dork!

I just couldn’t help myself when I realized the boys were going to be 9 years and 9 months old. Yeah, 9 and three quarters.

I know, I know. But I can’t help it, I love Harry Potter, OKAY!?

Then and then and now

August 2012

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Boys: 4; Ellie: 7; Evan: 42

In April 2015, we recreated it:

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Boys: 7; Ellie: 9; Evan: 45

And today, September 2017:

 

Boys: 9; Ellie: 12; Evan: 47

 

Decorating the stairwell

When we were in Virginia, we spent a very very fun day at the King’s Dominion theme park. I told the boys they could get one souvenir each, and after passing a caricature artist, Oliver declared that’s what he wanted. So at the end of the day, just before we left, we stopped and Oliver sat for his portrait.

Well. After that, I couldn’t resist having the other two get their portraits as well. (And yeah, this meant I had to buy second souvenirs for all three.)

I finally got around to buying frames for the pictures and hanging them…(well, I say finally but let’s face it, it took me less than six months so it’s really quite fast for me.)

Hard to get pics in the stairwell, but here they are! Love them so much.

 

 

6 years ago and tonight

The boys and I are visiting Kristina and Mike, and I was reminiscing about the first time we all visited when I realized it was six years ago tonight that Mike made the boys giggle like crazy by laying on the floor in the kitchen, pretending to be hurt.

Because we’re all six years older, I didn’t make Mike recreate one of those pics, but instead one where everyone is standing up.

August 7, 2011:

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August 7, 2017:

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Look how short they were 6 years ago! So teeny!

Happy 115 months!

We took the picture this month in Heather’s hallway. So lovely! I might move the location permanently to her house. Hope she doesn’t mind!

Linus’s smile looks a little forced, but check out the dimples on those three!

Spelunking

At George’s request, I took the boys to a cavern today so we could go underground. (The man was a mole in a former life, I have no doubt.) So we met up with my friend Emily and her three adorable children at Inner Space Cavern north of Austin.

The boys were enthralled (every day I realize how much they take after George and how little they take after me) and had a great time. I had a nice time, but they really loved it. I told them Daddy will take them on a more adventurous cave tour when they’re older. A boys trip. Sounds great to me!

Tubing on the river

(It’s a much better post title if you sing it to the tune of Proud Mary.)

Today, on the advice of a pal, we took the kids tubing in New Braunfels, on the Comal River. (We being Deborah, her husband Tom, and our coworker Elizabeth; kids being my three and Deborah and Tom’s two.) I bought a Texas-themed Igloo cooler just for the occasion. (And I mean, what other states do this? Where else can you buy coolers with the state flag, and in what other states do all hotels have state-shaped waffle irons? Are there any other states like Texas?)

We started from a place called Landa Falls, basically a river outfitter where we got inner tubes for us and the cooler, life jackets for the kids, and a locker to keep all of our stuff.

It didn’t start off promisingly. We went down to the river to get in, and it was basically impossible to stay together. The current wasn’t super strong, but the river was deep, and it was just fast enough to make it hard to go where you wanted.

Linus in particular was not happy if we weren’t all together (they always had an adult with them, I’m not a monster) but they all wanted to be together. Eventually with much swimming and grabbing on to the side and leg cramps (all on my part) the boys and Elizabeth and I all managed to get in a group, each holding on to another tube’s handle in a group so no one could float away.

Boy, I wish we’d brought ropes.

The problem is, the other group had the cooler! And we were thirsty! And my camera was in the other cooler! After about an hour or so, we got to a point where we could get out. (I make that sound so easy, but it was not. There was swimming and pulling tubes and slippery rocks and more leg cramps.)

Everyone else except for Deborah’s kids were ready to call it a day. I was not. (Turns out tubing isn’t cheap.) So in the end, Oliver and Linus went with Tom to get pizza, and the rest of us decided to keep on tubing.

Now, I love pizza, but I’m really glad we kept floating. It got more fun – there were chutes! Like tiny waterslides! The current got a bit faster! And if I’m completely honest, it was a lot easier to keep track of one kid instead of three. (Especially when the other two weren’t really into it.) The river was beautiful, clean and blue, and with not a lot of creatures in it. (I’m not really into natural bodies of water, for the most part.)

Eventually, we got to the end, hauled ourselves out of the river, and made it back to meet the other three.

Would I do it again? Sure. With a few grown up friends and a bunch of rope to tie us together. I really would have loved to swim more in the river, but the only time I did was to haul a kid out or swim against the current. At one point, I was trying desperately to get Miles out before we got sucked down a chute, and I was against a strong current and he was panicking (he was perfectly safe, he just didn’t want to go down the chute) and so I was swimming with all my might to the side towing him and my tube and there was nowhere to hold on to and….anyway. Yeah. Next time, no kids and a rope to tie myself to my tube so I can swim sometimes and not worry about my tube.

9.5 years old

I swear I took this yesterday, just didn’t have a chance to post it. (Deborah and I were too busy watching disaster movies.)

Yeah, we’re in Austin now, housesitting with Deborah’s family for another coworker. So far we haven’t done a whole lot, just relaxing, going swimming, working, that kind of thing. Yesterday we attempted an urban adventure quest downtown, but it kind of went to pot when it started to sprinkle, then everyone was hungry, and Miles’s ear started hurting. So after lunch at a pizza place and of course a Voodoo doughnut, I took Miles to urgent care where he was diagnosed with a double ear infection. Poor bunny.