Our Family's Firsts

In case you've missed it, Nicki and I have three wonderful and adorable children.  We are so in love with them.  But as fun and amazing as it is to watch our kids play, sing, and sleep, we have missed a lot of their firsts.  Their first words, their first steps, and their first birthdays.  But over the past week or so, our family has had a lot of firsts.  Here are a few for you to read about.

1.  Our First Date Night - As healthy as it is for us to take some time away for ourselves, it is a little tricky because we have to use a respite care provider or get a background check done on whoever watches them...(is our 6 months up yet so we can adopt!?)  Anyway, we dropped our kids with a familiar-to-them-family, leaving us with an entire afternoon and evening to ourselves.  So, what do we do on our day/night off?  Well, I would love to say that we spent the time relaxing with one another, but instead we had a whole list of things to do that are easier to do when there are not three toddlers clinging to our legs.  So, we went grocery shopping, ran some necessary errands, and then finished our night off with a dinner date to Pichana.  It was a nice place, with unique food, and it was free.  We had a gift card.  As weird as it was to be out to eat while our kids were staying with someone we hardly know, it gave us some time to evaluate and catch up...even if our conversation revolved mostly around our kids.  Let's just say our date day/night was much needed, but we were very excited to pick them up in the morning.

2.  Our First Trip to the Mall and Out to Eat - So, if you don't live in the midwest, you may not have noticed that we have had a strand of bitterly cold weather that has kept us quarantined to the house with our 3 kids.  So as soon as the cold stretch broke for two days, we got out.  We decided to pack the kids up for a trip to the mall.  It was fun, but getting three kids in and out of the van took more time and work than we could ever imagine.  Anyway, it was a great trip.  We tried out our new strollers and went cruising around the mall.  Being a weekday morning, it wasn't too busy, which was good because they all wanted to walk instead of cruising in their strollers.  We had a blast, our son got his haircut and did a great job.  But did you realize how expensive kids haircuts could get?  Crazy.  Then we stopped and got some great deals on winter coats for next year.  $10, what a deal!  Then we finished this ambitious day out, with our first stop at a restaurant with 3 kids.  We went to the safest restaurant possible, Noodles and Co.  It was great.  I don't even think we made a scene.  Well actually, it seems like we make a scene everywhere we go nowadays.  People are always asking if they are all ours, or if they are triplets.  That and I have a feeling that we look like we have no idea what we're doing.  Which we don't.  But it's fun.

Bonus: Cute Old Navy toddler shoes for the little guy.

  
3.  Our First Road Trip - Well, we could only keep our kids' grandparents, aunts and uncles without seeing their new family additions for so long, so we gathered up the clan and piled them in the Odyssey and set out on our three hour tour.  Nicki learned that packing for five is a whole lot more work than packing for two.  But she also learned that kids can keep content for a long time if they have a snack, especially if that snack comes in those cool containers that keep the snack inside while allowing their little fingers access to the snack.  Anyway, they're awesome.  Our kids are such good travelers.  They ate snack, slept some, and every now and then we would here, "I'm stuck." from our son in the back of the van.  Of course every time we answered with, "you're supposed to be stuck, its called a car seat."  It was a full weekend.  The kids met their Grampa Warren and Grama Kathy, their aunts, uncles, and even their cousin, baby James.  Then it was off to meet the great grandparents.  They did surprisingly well at the nursing home and when they got to the farm to see the animals they were all afraid of the cows and the chickens.  Oh well, they can just stick to their "Little People" farm set.  It was such an important and special weekend for all of us.

5.  Our First Sledding Trip - Ok, so it finally warmed up enough to take our kids outside again to play so we went out to the safest and best sledding hill in Eau Claire.  Our backyard.  We got the kids bundled up, grabbed our sleds, and trekked out the back door.  Let's just put it this way, our kids don't like sledding yet.  They pretty much ran as far away from the sleds they could get, except for our oldest.  She hated sledding but was ok being pulled around the yard by her dad.  So, we did 3 laps around the house until she said it was my turn.  Then she told me to get in so that she could pull me.  I thought it was cute, so I did.  I sat down and she couldn't pull me.  Then when she wasn't looking I used my hands to push me along.  But that only encouraged her to want to keep going.  So I pushed us along all the way around our house.  Then we got to the hill in our backyard.  There was no way that I could push myself up the hill with my arms, so I had to tell her that she just wasn't strong enough.  But it was so cute.

Tomorrow will also be a day of firsts for us.  It is my first day back to work after 2 weeks off and it will be Nicki's first day at home with the kids all day.  Our freezer is stocked with meals made by many of you awesome people out there and work has been so supportive so we aren't too worried.  One day at a time as we continue to experience and enjoy all the firsts of this new adventure we are on.