Has it really been a month!?

Here's some of the things we have been up to....

Hangin with mommy (who is now working 2 part time jobs....still at the golf course to finish out the season...and now tutoring at the Montessori School 4 daysxweek....which is my excuse for lack of posts!!!)

Visiting with great-grandma and uncle mark...

Eating like big kids...

She ate the whole thing!!!...

Cincinnati Zoo...

Eatin cotton candy at the zoo!!

Zach doing the "elephant"...

Lovin on eachother....

Pig roast in Oxford...

(gotta look like the pretty college boys right??)

Children's Museum...

Honorable Mention also goes to: Zach cutting molars (Which causes lots of fits of laying on the ground kicking your feet and slamming them into the ground as hard as possible...and a brief stint of throwing the prized possession blankie out of the crib during nap time) Colby and Avery cutting the pointy teeth inbetween the fronts and molars (which causes a big lack of following rules and listening to mommy) and LOTS of talking and babbling around here! SO much fun teaching them new words, sounds and signs!!

16 Months!!!

My 16 Month Old Sweethearts!!! Love them to pieces!!

busy end of july!

What a fun summer we've been having!! Ever since we've gotten home from vacation, i feel like we've been going non stop! For those that don't know, i've gone back to my old summer job at the golf course to work on the days josh is off! At first i was not very excited, but it has proven to be a nice break, allowed me a few hours of adult conversation, and brought in a few extra bucks! Since i know that the babies are in wonderful hands when i leave (Daddy's), that makes it MUCH easier! But i still love these moments the best:

We've still had plenty of time to have lots of fun though! (Just not much extra to update the blog...or clean the house....)
PLAYING
Right now the kids favorite things to do are Avery: play with the cell phones (toy or real...whatever she can get her hands on) and act like she's talking. Colby: LOVES to play ball and play in the tent and play "pull the blanket" with Zach...Colby takes one end and Zach takes the other and they run around the room =) Zach: stealing anything anyone else is playing with, sitting in a box,and loving on the stuffed animals that play music or talk. They've also all had lots of fun playing outside! They have finally figured out how to climb up the steps to go down the slide and love running up and down the ramp to the shed. Although Colby thinks we are going to a buffet everytime we go outside (his favorite courses are rocks and leaves), he manages to have a little fun too!
Here are some fun (and a little random) pics of us having fun!

TALKING
As the babies grow and develop it's really fun to see how they compare with one another. At this point, i really haven't had any worries about their development, b/c even if it takes a little bit longer for one, they still all do the same things in the end! We've been working on saying words and i've been teaching them a little sign language too! Colby is definitely the best talking and most willing to try to say words. We're at the stage where i repeat the same word 100 times until someone tries to say it back to me. Some of the words they say regularly are "Per"(Cooper), "All done"(they sign this one too), "Home", "More" (also signed), "Hi", "Mama", "dada", "Mamaw" and "ball". Colby's repertoire includes "Uncle", "Good", "Cookie", "Open", "Duck",and "Bath"...and my favorite thing he does is mumble "dub-a-dub-a-dub-a" to himself or to us randomly...it's so cute! Avery is the least talkitive of the group....but im sure that will change!!
TEETH
I'm so over teething.
EATING
They eat EVERYTHING!!! Some of their faves are Avery:Mac and Cheese, any kind of pasta, eggs, cheese and fruit Colby: fruits (esp. watermelon, cantalope, grapes and peaches), bread of any kind, and cheese Zach: Green beans, bread, cantalope, watermelon, and grapes. They are all huge fans of breakfast-i make them pancakes, waffles, and scrambled eggs on a regular basis...to go along with their banana and yogurt...and i have 3 happy campers! The latest summer favorite for everyone has been corn on the cob. They are so cute and so determined to eat it and do a pretty good job of it too!!
This was our first try of corn on the cob....Mommy held it while we knawed on it....

Now we have a new method....the cob gets cut in thrids, and they do it themselves!

We also made a big dining room switch-er-oo. We sold the triplet table and bought a table we can all sit at together for our meals. It's been SO nice! They do a great job sitting in their boosters and it's great that josh and i have a place to sit too (josh would sit on a bean bag on the floor in order to eat with us before!)
one of our last breakfasts in the old table...

first breakfast at the new table...

As of July 20th, we said a final good bye to the bottle. It wasn't hard at all to break them of it, but now Avery won't drink any milk. at all. The boys do great with their straw cups, but she takes one look at it and sees that it's milk, and hands it right back to me. awesome.
ROTTEN SUSAN
Talking about Avery's milk habits lead perfectly in to rotten susan. Ever since she started climbing up on the couch, i've given her the nickname "rotten susan". She would climb up on the couch and i'd spot her and she'd give me a look and a laugh that said "i know i'm not supposed to be up here...but i'm doing it anyways!", so rotten susan it was! (my grandpa used to call me Kara Louise....but i was always an angel, so i'm not sure where that came from!) Here are some of her latest moves as rotten susan...I found her like this on the couch and snapped the picture before she noticed me! notice the little hand on her dress as to say "Hey! how'd you get up there?? Share the treasures with me!"

And while this is a very cute picture of daddy with his babies, Avery's face screams rottenness!!

BATHTIME
Some day i hope i come to enjoy bathtime, but right now, it's still not very fun. I usually do baths by myself....one at a time...while the other two are in the other room screaming. Makes for a really fun time. But while they are in with me, they are really cute.

Zach's bubble goatee

And he looks so cute snuggled up in his robe!

Getting to play with the "dump cup" is the highlight of Colby's baths!

Some day, i'll be able to put them all in, and it will be wonderful, and when they can give themselves a shower...even better!
SPLASH DAY

Every year, my multiples group has a Splash Day...well this year, we hosted it! There were around 50 kids (and all 12 of their mama's+one dad!) over playing in the water and running around our backyard! It was so much fun!

Here's an action shot of a few of the families!

Then 2 days later, we went to our cousin Savannah's pool party for her birthday! They had a really cute kids area that was fenced in! They were free to roam, and aunt jamie, grandpa and grandma were there to help!

OUR FIRST FAIR
Last week we took our first trip to the Butler County Fair! It was a really hot night, but we had lots of fun! We watched a little bit of the tractor pull...

Drank all of mommy's lemonade...

but it wasn't fun sharing...

Met a goat...

...and some cows...

And finally found Zach's niche....petting the animals. He LOVED seeing all the animals and petting them through their cages!

And of course...enjoyed some yummy fair food!!

More One Year Old Friends!

Then last weekend, got to go celebrate with a wonderful family as their triplet girls turned one! Mom and Uncle Alex came with us...man-to-man coverage is always the best when available...and it was such a fun time!
eating dinner...

Uncle A (best uncle ever!) and Avery...

Mamaw and Colby

Uncle A and Zach...

And the princess =)

WHEW! Are you tired too?

Our First Vacation!!!!!

We left the house at 9:30am. Between a few snacks, a nap and a little Barney, we made it to Lexington around noon to make a pit stop at one of my triplet-mommy friend's house! We played and had lunch, then hit the road again. Another nap and a little more Barney and we were there! We made the habitual stop at Walmart to get our last minute supplies and made it down to the lake by 5:30...just in time for it to start DOWNPOURING. We weren't exactly sure where we were staying at that point....we knew it was either the houseboat or our family friend's house. I took the kids to the marina to eat dinner, and Josh was in charge of prepping the boat and unloading the car. The rain didn't slow down AT ALL....and just about the time Josh had everything unloaded from the car and down to the boat (and all his layers of clothing were soaked), he talked to our friend's daughter, and she said we were going to be staying at the house. So then he got to unload everything off the boat and reload it back into the car. UGH! (probably should have checked where we were staying before unloading everything! Definitely made note of that for next vacation!) Meanwhile, the babies finished eating and I was struggling to entertain 3 kids who'd been in carseats, then high chairs and back into their strollers for the past 4 hours. NOT FUN! I ordered dessert, we read (and fought over) books, we sang "5 little monkeys" ...on repeat....i was out of tricks! We finally loaded back into the car and up to the house in time to set up the pack and plays and go to bed. I set up everything as close to how it is at home for them, and shortly after putting them to bed, Avery and Colby were OUT! Zach on the other hand was SCREAMING HYSTERICALLY for about a half hour before I determined he wouldn't just lay down and go to sleep based on how he was behaving so I went and got him. After 2 hours of trying to get him back to bed, by 11:30, we just layed him down and said good night. He finally fell asleep.....and then woke up screaming hysterically again at 5:30am. I figured he would snuggle up with me and go back to sleep in our bed, but nope, he was up for the day. And on the other hand, the other 2 slept until about 8:30!
We ate a quick breakfast and ventured down to the boat. Here went nothing! The first boat ride wasn't great. But not nearly as bad at Brookville Lake had been. Avery and Zach still didn't love it, but weren't hysterical either. (And Colby still liked it =) ) We went out and dropped the anchor to take a swim. Zach had fallen asleep, so we both jumped in with the other two. The water was the perfect temperature, and they LOVED IT! By the time we made it back to the marina, back to the house, and ate lunch, it was 12:30 (normal nap time starts at 11), so once we got them in bed, they crashed hard...well Avery and Colby did. Zach cried for a while...but finally napped a little too. (at this point he was very hoarse and sounded pathetic when he cried!) After they woke back up we took the boat out again. This time it was a great success! We figured out a perfect seating arrangement to keep everyone safe...took along cheese balls for a snack (and got orange finger prints all over grandpa's boat)...and I sang songs. Cheese balls and songs were our keys for successful boat rides for the rest of the trip! This time when we stopped to swim, Zach got to participate too! Still didn't love it, but did think it was fun to splash and kick his feet! (It wasn't until the next day, we realized that he LOVED to be thrown up in the air out of the water to "jump") Saturday night went a lot better sleeping wise for little Zachy. He still didn't like where he was sleeping, but was too tired to fight it!
The next few days we followed the schedule of breakfast~boat~nap~lunch~boat~nap~dinner~boat~bed. We decided we could definitely get used to that routine!
On Sunday afternoon we moved to the houseboat which opened up a lot more freedom for the babies. They couldn't be outside un supervised, but the inside was pretty much baby proofed and they could run around and explore and play. We had to do a pack and play puzzle to fit them in the bedroom, but the close quarters seemed to be a lot more acceptable to Zach, and there wasn't much complaint at bed time or naps!
On Monday we woke up to rain. No fun! We hung out on the houseboat, and once it cleared up, took a family trip into the marina to get ice. We didn't even get out of neutral, but Colby managed to come back with a HUGE egg and bruise on his head (his second head/face injury of the trip!). Poor guy's head is always running into things! On Monday afternoon, we went and had a triplet playdate with my friend (from cincinnati) who was also down there on vacation! They were staying at a huge house on the lake that was only a 5 minute boat ride away from where we were! It was an awesome house, but we had to climb 83 steps to get up to it from the boat! YIKES! We had so much fun playing with her family! Then Monday night, Josh's cousin, who also was down there on vacation, came over and babysat the babies so we could go out to celebrate our 5 year anniversary! (which was friday the 9th...which we spent driving down and ended up soaking wet!) We took the wave runner out and rode over to another marina to hang out! We had a great time...and so did the babies!
Tuesday, we woke up to rain again, but not much this time! We went on one last boatride and for one last swim before we packed up to come home. We ended up leaving around 3:30, stopped for dinner at Crackle Barrel, and made it home by 9. The kiddos definitely like stopping for a break in the middle better, but still did great in the car.
While I was not feeling relaxed and rejuvenated like i used to after coming home from a vacation, we had an AWESOME time and can't wait to do it again!
Blogger isn't working to upload my pictures today, so i attached the link for the photo book i made last night for you to enjoy instead!
(and I'll let josh edit/add anything i missed...so check back for the changes!)

Vacation Photo Book: http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/projectshareewelcome/l=9826479007/p=428151279210198894/g=42917860/cobrandOid=1000/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/otsc=SYE/otsi=SPBKlink/

Prologue to Our First Vacation

First let me back track...my last post didn't fully explain our adventures enough. We had been planning a vacation to Norris Lake in Tennessee...but weren't sure how the kids would do on a boat or in the water. We have the water table that they love and our little swimming pool is usually a hit...but big water is a different story. We bought them life jackets a few weeks prior, and they tried them on, and cried when we took them off...so that was a good start we thought! We decided to do a trial run a little closer to home to see how it would go...and then finalize our plans for vacation. So we went out for the afternoon to Brookville Lake in Indiana (just a little over an hour away) to go for a boatride and swim. We got their lifejackets on....everyone was happy...we put them in the boat....everyone was still happy....the boat turned on and we started to move....it went WAY downhill. Let me start with the positive, Colby loved it. He chilled on Josh's lap and enjoyed the ride. Avery and Zach HATED it. I'm not sure if hate is even a strong enough word. They were screaming, crying and inconsolable. There were tears and snot everywhere. At one point, I thought Avery was going to fall asleep leaning over a bucket, because those were the only 5 minutes she wasn't wailing. Finally (what felt like 3 hours later) we threw in the anchor and decided we'd already made them really mad, so it couldn't get much worse if they didn't like the water either, so we gave it a try. Again, Colby loved it. He splashed and then found out he could lay back on the flap of his lifejacket and just hang out. Avery got it next, she had fun too. Finally she calmed down and also had fun splashing and lounging in daddy's arms. Then, I got in with Zach. He wasn't a huge fan. He wasn't screaming hysterically like he was on the boat, but he never really got into it either. In my head, the worst part was that we still had to go on another boat ride to get back to the dock, so even if they were happy then, we were still going to have another 3 hours of melt down (really 30 minutes or so) on the way back in....but luckily they didn't hate it quite as much on the way back.
After cancelling, then un-cancelling our vacation, we decided we'd go forth with it and just go open minded, and know that we didn't have to stay, and if we were all miserable we'd just pack up and come home.
We did a few more test runs at pools the week before our trip, and we learned our real water bug is Avery....and that Zach still isn't a big fan. But at least we tried!
So on July 9th, we packed up everyone and all our stuff (even after all our equipment needed for 3 15 month olds, we had extra room in the car!!) and headed to Tennessee!