The Old Course, and me

Cam is leaving me tomorrow, 3 am to be exact, for Scotland, a trip of a life time. Leaving me with 4 small children for NINE days. I am selfishly not looking forward to the days ahead. I am happy for my very deserving husband, but a little overwhelmed at the thought of being Mama for the next week and a half. So if you are reading this, prayers for safe travel and God Speed.

My Aunt is coming down from Oklahoma to  help rescue me on Saturday. She will be a much welcomed guest! So I am looking forward to some special time with her. I am hoping my boys  to miraculously start sleeping through the night this week! Here is what daddy will be missing....

i heart the mart

is my new favorite website. Let me preface this post by saying I love a good deal. I get a thrill from finding a good bargain. Well now that I don't leave the house except for occasional grocery store outings, I have decided to start looking for bargains at Walmart. In the past I have played the grocery game and loved shopping at Kroger. I got some great deals on diapers and baby items because of their coupon policy. We moved, I choose to forgo my grocery shopping while pregnant, and I stopped the Sunday paper... all of these are reasons why I have been spending way too much on groceries. So here I go again, only this time I am "Price Matching." Walmart will price match competitors sale prices. This means I get the Kroger, Heb, Fruitlandia, CVS, and Walgreen's deals all at my new favorite one stop shop...Walmart!!

This is so ironic because when we moved in October, I swore I would never shop at Walmart! I have had multiple bad experiences and despise the long lines and understaffed store. I am now having to eat my words....and I actually love it. I can't believe I've waited this long to to try it! This week I got diapers for $13, Dr. Brown's 3 pk bottles for $10, T-bones for $4 a pound... So exciting!! Walmart already as the lowest prices daily, so even when needed items are not on sale I am still getting the lowest price around.  So all the extra money I'm saving will now go to dressing my 4 boys in matching outfits!

God Bless America

Our fun 4th with 4 kiddos......

It takes a village...

Aunt Julie and Hampton

to go to the doctor. Thanks to my best friend Julie, Mom, and Dad we made it to our 2 month check up on time! Everyone always wants to know how I do it. I always reply, "You just do it." So I thought I would enlighten you.  

We arrive at 8:55 am for our 9 am appointment. The office girls oohh and ahhh over the boys and compliment me a million times over. I LOVE them!! Then they take us back to the "well child" waiting room where we begin to undress the boys. I always pick cute, matching outfits for these appointments since we never leave the house, but they are always unpractical and have a million snaps! 

The sweet nurse comes and takes a boy one at a time to the pre-examination room where they weigh, measure length, head circumference, and take the boys temperature. It is like an assembly line. We go in alphabetical order to make it as easy as possible for the nurses. This is when several hands are needed. 

After all the boys have been checked out and freshly diapered. We take them to an examination room and wait patiently for Dr. H.  In the mean time the nurse comes back in and asks a series of questions about each boy....how many times do they eat/stool, make eye contact, cooing, rolling over etc.

I have a notebook that I bring to each appointment because I can not always think clearly on the fly! I also jot down questions/concerns throughout the day or week to ask Dr. H. Then my mom, dad, and Julie each have a boy and give them a bottle for their 10 am feeding. They finish their bottles just in time to get checked out by Dr. H. He individually examines each boy and we talk about what is going on with each of them. I take notes the entire time so I can fill Cam in later.

 At this particular appointment we were concerned with Hogan's lack of bowel movements. It had been 30 days and he had only stooled 3 times! (Two times we gave him a suppository and the third time he went on his own at church. That is a whole story in it self....The nursery worker thought we were nuts when she nonchalantly told us he pooped!!) So we will be taking Hogan to the radiologist for a barium enema. *Update: Hogan's test came back clear. We are starting to give him 2 ounces of water/apple juice twice a day.

After each of the fellows have been checked out, the nurse came in and gave each of them a series of shots. I was not looking forward to this part...9 shots and 3 liquid vaccinations. boo. It went much better than I expected and the boys only cried for a sec. We snuggled them for a couple of minutes before getting them dressed and packed up. We checked out, made future appointments, and then attempted to leave, but we got stopped by onlookers in the waiting room. "Triplets?! Look honey, their are 3 babies, 1,2,3!!" I have a handicap tag (that expires in August, boo.) so we only have to walk a few steps in the heat before we get the boys loaded up in the car. We don't all fit in the car because of Harper's car seat so Aunt Julie followed us back to the house! A huge thanks my awesome family for always being available for doctor's appointments!!

Julie & Hogan, Addy & Hampton, Poppy & Huddy

Summer Get-Away

Every summer Cam's company has a regional meeting with all the financial advisors in the area. So every summer we get a mini vacation. The accommodations are always very nice and kid friendly. This year the summer regional was at Barton Creek Resort and Spa in Austin. I usually look forward to this little get away, but this year was an exception....I was anxious. Cam was set on taking the whole family to the resort. I had my doubts...I mean seriously 6 people in one hotel room....3 of which are newborns and eat every 3 hours! I will never be able to leave the hotel room, or so I thought....After days of packing and planning we packed up our gang and headed to Austin. I had spent all of my energy on packing and planning for the time in Austin that I completely forgot about GETTING to Austin!! Here are some bloopers from our road trip.....Read on if you need a good laugh...

We woke up early fed the fam and started loading the car. We were all packed and ready to go when we discovered my car had a dead battery. Cam gets the car jumped and we head out of town....well sort of, we made it 15 minutes, and stopped in Montgomery because the boys were hungry...like I said, I had totally forgotten about the car trip. I had made bottles and put them in the cooler, but that was as far as my thought process went. I never even thought about the actual car ride outside of videos for Harper and my pump. I have only fed the boys at our house, my parents house, or at the doctors office. (You do not want to get stuck in public when you have to feed triplets) So we pulled over to a gas station parking lot, unloaded all the boys (we had to put swings and luggage outside of our car while we fed everyone...got some strange looks!) and realized that that milk cold. So I went into the convenience store to run the bottles under warm water, but there was only cold water in the bathroom. One of the clerks saw my distraught face and THREE bottles so she quickly had pity on me and found me some hot water. Thank goodness. So we attempted to diaper and feed the boys in our cramped car, all while Harper watched Finding Nemo. Cam and I had to remind ourselves several times that we were on the "same team" it can be very frustrated trying to feed and burp 3 babies in the front seat. An hour later we got the boys back in their car seats and we were on our way. We had 2 hours to get as close to Austin as we could. As we were pulling out of the gas station movie #1 was over and we were only 10 miles away from our house! ha

We put in another movie and Harper fell asleep and so did the trio. At last,  a quiet car......well, except for the sound of my pump as we drive down the highway, how nice. Cam and I enjoy some Pandora and realize that it is already lunch time and we are starving after our escapade in Montgomery! We decide to stop at Sonic so we can just drive though and keep our kiddos asleep. We ordered food for Harper so we wouldn't have to stop again. We ate on the road, attempting to get as close to Austin as possible before the babies wake up. About an hour later, Harper wakes up and is hungry. He is in the very back of the car so we have to stop and unload half of our car again just to give him his lunch! We get him situated and start another movie and before you know it 2 hours has passed and the babies are hungry!! At this point Cam and I are just laughing. We pull over at another gas station and start the process over. We are a little more efficient this time, Harper wanted to get out of his car seat so he sat in the front while I sat in the back attempting to feed two babies while Cam is in the front feeding the third. You should have seen the people park next to us. They would do a double take and count the kids. Half way through the feeding, Harper informs us he needs to poop. So Cam takes him to the bath room and leaves me with a hungry baby. So much for a quiet car! We bribe Harper with a super blow pop as we finish the feeding. Poor Harper was getting impatient he just wanted to be at the hotel.....and so did we. I think we heard "Are we there yet" a hundred times.

We arrive safely to our hotel with 3 minutes to spare before the first meeting. Sigh...After the meeting we went to our room and tried to get organized, is that even possible? It was kind of like work in another place, we still had to wash bottles, change diapers, and nap....just with a little change of scenery.

Our side table is now a changing table

#1 bottle washer



The hotel provided these accommodations for the trio..because we didn't have room for anything else in the car!

This is how we roll..

This is how the boys spent most of the weekend

We had a great time once we arrived at the hotel. I think we met the entire staff at the resort along with all the visitors. I guess 4 boys under 4 makes us an easy target! Unfortunately the hotel was not wheel chair/stroller friendly. We had to carry the stroller and take alternate routes throughout our stay. This resort sat on the side of a cliff,  so we did a lot of walking outside and around the buildings! Another funny thing is that we didn't fit inside the elevators in the main building. We found one elevator that we fit in......

Here are a few pictures of the other fun things we did, we love Edward Jones for being so kid friendly.

Harper and Hampton..with the remnants of spiderman on his face

A 6 seater golf cart, perfect for the Heathcott 6 pack. Don't worry I held Hogan in front.

And now I need a vacation from my vacation!