Something fun to do when you are checking out at the grocery store

This is a really short update but something fun you can do in the check out line at the grocery store or in the airport is take a look at page 68 of In Touch Magazine (a celebrity tabloid). Julie Bach, one of my coworkers, bought the magazine for some in-flight reading and found a good picture of the Wilkinson Quints. So there we have it. Brad Pitt and the Quints are in the same magazine.

First episode of Wilkinson Quints Show

Well, I was finally able to find enough time to take some more video and make a short episode for our show, the WilkinsonQuints show. If you think of a better name, then let us know. This show covers the return back to Austin. If it all works out, we hope to get the big van that National Instruments donated, and post a show about that. In later weeks, we hope to post some of the video we have taken of their various photo shoots because they are pretty cute. Anyway, here it is:

Lastest news segment and an update

Things are still settling in at the Wilkinson house. I have some video that I am excited to post but I haven't had the chance to finish it. Last night, when I got home, all the babies were peaceful and sleeping. Because we had myself and two volunteers, Connie Liddiard and Jill Taylor, Rachelle thought it would be safe to run to the grocery store and get some things. When she got back, we were all holding one or two angry babies. Under normal circumstances, the babies are relatively easy to take care of but when the all decide to get mad at the same time, it can be a real challenge. By around 9:00 that night, we had a total of 5 adults in there all rocking babies trying to get them to either eat or calm down. By around 11:30 or so they finally seemed to be calming down although I think it might have just bee sheer exhaustion.

Last night (Sept. 17th) we had someone from KEYE (CBS) News come over and interview us. It was fun because she was pretty excited about the babies and we let her hold Kaydence for a little while. She did a really good segment and I have it here:

KEYE (CBS) News segment

One of the volunteers last night commented that holding our babies is therapeutic. I have to agree. I really enjoy going home and getting a little snuggle time with each of them. Right now they are pretty snuggly and like to fall asleep on our shoulders. Also, a few of them have started smiling a little which is really great. I am really looking forward to when they start really smiling and then laughing. I remember th first time I heard Riley laugh and that it almost brought tears to my eyes because it was so funny and cute. Anyway, now I have 5 of those to look forward to.

I still have a bunch of video I need to post and will do it just as soon as I can finish it. In the meantime, you should check out the CBS segment because it was a pretty good one.

Week of craziness - will post more soon

Well, adjusting to a new house with 5 babies has been interesting. Last week was a really long week. I have some video that I will be putting up soon. I really want to try to put up 1 video per week to document how things are going. I have some good footage but I find that with work, baby feedings, and sleep, I don't have much time for anything else. I have some good stuff coming soon so I hope to post it within the next few days.

One thing that I have learned is that all diapers are not created equal. So far, the only reliable ones have been the Pampers Swaddler diapers. In many cases we have found that with other diapers, they simply leak. Today, someone picked up Kaydence because she was crying and found that with the amount of wetness surrounding her (we call the wetness "She-she"), she may as well have not even had a diaper on. On closer inspection, we found that the diaper she was wearing was not the type that we have found are reliable. I think things will change as they get bigger but right now, it seems that only those diapers work. This is something I didn't anticipate. I had thought that one diaper was pretty much the same as any other diaper. Now, I know that a diaper is only useful if it actually holds all the she-she in.

Anyway, sorry for the short and relatively uninteresting post. I really hope to put up some video soon because I have a lot of good stuff that I just need to get up there. I actually want to make a weekly 5 to 10 minute episode (sort of like a reality show) to put up on the blog. I have some ideas for it but I guess I will have to test it out. I have found so far that there is probably enough interesting stuff going on in our house to actually merit a weekly 5 to 10 minute video.

Home at last

We are finally home. It was a pretty difficult journey but we made it. We got to the airport and it took about a half hour to describe to the curb side check-in people exactly what was going on. They couldn't figure out why there were so many babies with the same last name and other people with different last names carrying them. In the end, we got through that.

Next, we had to go through security. This was a pretty serious ordeal. We at least were able to skip the main line and go through the first class line. However, when we got to the actually scanner thing, it took about 20 minutes to take out all the car seats, strollers, babies, computers, video cameras, and shoes for each of us. The security people were actually really nice, though, and we eventually made it through. When we got to the gate, we were a bit of a spectacle and a whole lot of people came up to figure out what was going on. There was a lot of picture taking.

We next got on the airplane. Because of some confusion from the airline, we were all assigned middle seats throughout the plane. Fortunately, however, the babies were all very good during the whole flight and everything went smooth. This was in part due to the preparation from Rachelle in making diaper bags for each baby with enough formula, burp cloths, new outfits, diapers, wipes, and candy (for the carrier) to last for about a day. When we got off, it was difficult to actually make it to the baggage claim due to the many people wanting to figure out what the deal was as we walked.

We met up with friends from church who had brought 3 suburbans to transport out 12 checked bags, our 5 babies, and our 5 adults back to the house. Rachelle loved what everyone had done to the house. In particular, the nursery that she didn't know about was a great surprise for her. Stephanie Coleman, Nancy Tueller, and Christine Woods from church really did an excellent job with it.

A few news stations were here as well. Here are the ones that posted stories last night:

Fox 7

KEYE

I will post some more when I have time. I took some video myself of the arrival and I also want to post the details of the computer application I wrote to help keep track of the quints.