Quintuplet Dad

Another reason why we were a good choice for quintuplets

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Sun, 11 May 2008 18:19:00 +0000

I have thought of another thing that helped Rachelle and me to be more prepared for quintuplets. It is our mothers. Both Rachelle and I have great mothers. Rachelle is a really great mother she owes much of that to her mom whom she wrote a tribute to in her blog. Following Rachelle's example, I decided that I would use this post to talk about some of the things my mom did to help me out.

First, my mom, Sylvia Wilkinson, sought to find humor in just about everything. This is something I definitely inherited and it has come in handy many times. Of course, it has also got me into trouble at times because I have been known to laugh at things that probably aren't supposed to be funny. However, for the most part, it has really helped.

Something else she taught me was thriftiness. Growing up, I took great pride in the fact that almost everything we owned came from a garage sale. She taught me from a very early age that you can save a ton of money if you either make it yourself or buy it from a garage sale and fix it up. Most of our furniture came from my mom's (and her siblings) weekly trips to the various garage sales around Denver. Before we were married, Rachelle actually was a little nervous that we wouldn't have anything new because I once made a comment that implied that I thought it would be ridiculous to ever buy a new couch. OK, it wasn't implied so much as directly stated. However, I have since decided that it is some times worth it to buy new things.

Over time, I have learned that the reason my mom got stuff at garage sales was often because the quality (at least the garage sale stuff we found in the 80's) was actually better than what you could typically buy at the store. For example, the furniture we found at garage sales was often made of real wood. Of course, it would some times take hours to scrape away the paint to find the real wood but it was usually down there. From this, I learned that just because something is expensive and looks good on the outside, doesn't mean it is worth anything on the inside. Being good on the inside it 100 times better than looking good on the outside.

On a side note, before Kaiya was born, we wanted to buy Riley a bed that had drawers underneath it. We looked around at a few stores and I kept looking on the inside of everything and found that they were all made of particle board or MDF (not real wood). Stuff made out of particle board is really heavy and breaks easily. I decided that I would be better off just making it myself and we ended up with a solid oak bed that cost the same as the particle board beds (unless you include the cost of the tools I had to buy to make the bed which I don't count).

Another thing that my mom taught me was an appreciation of classic movies (as well as "girl" movies). When I was about 21, she made me sit through the six episode A&E version of Pride and Prejudice. To be completely honest, I found that movie to be one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Now, you may be wondering how that would prepare me for quintuplets. Well, most of the people that come and volunteer at our house are female. If I only knew about typical guy stuff, it would be rough. However, because I am conversant on things like the Twilight books as well as the Jane Austen movies, it helps me to not be so uncomfortable around so many women.

One final thing that my mom taught me is an appreciation of the absurd. Throughout my life, my mom has involved us with things that are basically absurd. When I was a sophomore in high school, she convinced my sister Alicia and I to dress in chicken costumes to go and perform a rap at a rival high school to help my cousin ask a girl to go to prom with him. This was fairly uncomfortable but I realize now that if you can do something like that, then there is a whole lot of other things you can do such as take intermediate clogging at BYU, do a break dance routine wearing a Star Trek uniform, or enjoy raising quintuplets. By the way, the background design for my mom's crazy Granny blog says a lot about her appreciation for the absurd.

Anyway, these are just some of the things that continue to help me as I deal with the situation we are in and I am grateful for them.

Thanks mom.

Jayson

Local NBC station visits Rachelle for a little Mother's Day Story

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:45:00 +0000

Yesterday, the local NBC station, KXAN here in Austin, visited Rachelle and the babies to do a little story about them.
Here is a link to the text of the story:
http://www.kxan.com/global/story.asp?s=8286638

Here is a link to the video from the story:

Answers to some questions

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:59:00 +0000

First, if you haven't seen Rachelle's blog, you should check it out because it gives a great update of everyone. Here is the list of questions that Buggles asked in a previous post. Some of these are answered in Rachelle�s previous posts but I don�t mind answering them again (because it lets me take up some time without having to think of some other post).

Question 1. Are the babies all sleeping through the night now?
This is a very frequently asked question. The answer is: sometimes. They were doing really well until they got sick a few months ago but have slowly been getting better. In the beginning, we would put them down without pacifiers. Now, we use pacifiers on a few of them and that means that they have a harder time getting back to sleep when they wake up. Now that they are not as sick, we usually put them in �solitary�. �Solitary� is a set of isolated �pack and play� cribs where we can stick them so that they don�t bother the other kids. We have one in our closet, one in the future Ryder and Rustin room (now a storage room) and one in the future Kassidy, Kaydence, and Kyndall room (except when Rachelle�s mom is here using it to sleep for sleeping).

This works pretty well and normally, we only have to use two of the solitary rooms. Lately, we don�t even hear much from them until about 5:30 so that is pretty good. Even when we do have to put one in solitary, he or she usually only cries for a few minutes and gets back to sleep.

Question 2. On the video of Riley & Kaiya announcing the names (which has to be the cutest video I've ever seen), Riley mentions he thinks Ryder will be his "favorite". Is this the case?

No, I think he pretty much likes them all the same. He initially liked Ryder best but now he seems to like all of them pretty equally. He might actually like the girls a little bit more because they are smaller and easier for him to hold.

Question 3. How often do the babies wear the same/matching clothes?

They have a few outfits that match and some that are exactly the same. I would say we probably do it at least once or twice a week if not more. Keeping them clean has become a little easier now that Kyndall isn�t throwing up as much. She used to throw up at least once a day and that would spoil the matching clothes. Leaky diaper is also something that causes the matching thing to not work out very long.

Question 4. Do you still have a lot of help during the day?
We have a decent amount. There are some real die hard ladies that just keep coming back and we really appreciate them for that. One in particular was hear nearly every day (sometimes all day) before she had to go and help one of her relatives for a few weeks. We are also occasionally experimenting with doing it with just Rachelle or just me. That doesn�t happen very often but the times when Rachelle has done it, it has worked out well. I usually only do that when they are either asleep or while she is in the shower (so it hasn�t been too bad).

Question 5. What do the babies weigh now?
Rachelle has all the accurate measurements on her blog so I will refer you to that.

Question 6. Which two babies look the most alike?
Not sure on this one. They all look so different with Kyndall probably looking the most different (because she looks just like my dad). I would say that Ryder and Kassidy probably look the most alike. Rustin looks almost exactly like Riley did at his age (but with red hair) and Kaydence looks a lot like Kaiya did at the same age.

Question 7. Are any of them crawling yet?
As you will see in an upcoming video, Rustin and Kyndall are crawling. Kaydence and Kassidy do a sort of army crawl and Ryder is on his hands and knees rocking back and forth a bit.

Question 8. How many teeth do they all have?

Kaydence has two and she is the only one that has any so far.

Question 9. Do Riley & Kaiya help out a lot?
They do help out a bit. And it is nice. They are getting pretty good at entertaining the babies. They also are good at helping clean things up and getting stuff ready for the babies. However, entertainment is their specialty.

Question 10. Do you have any pets?
No, and we probably never will. We aren�t really �pet people� but even if we were, we probably wouldn�t have time to take care of an animal. We have friends that lives near us who breed Labradoodles so we hope the kids get their pet fix by visiting them.

Well, that is about it for this post. Let us know if you have more questions and we can answer them either in the video or in the blogs.

Cheap LASIK and one of the reasons why we were meant to have quintuplets

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 23:57:00 +0000

A few days ago, an old friend of mine from my freshman year at BYU told me she just got LASIK and it reminded me of when I got LASIK and that reminded me of how cheap I am which reminded me why we were perhaps a good choice for quintuplets. To help you understand what I mean, I think I will need to explain a little.

About 5 years ago, I started thinking I wanted LASIK. LASIK is an eye surgery that is supposed to fix your eyes such that you don't need to wear glasses or contacts. I wore glasses and didn�t really like contacts (even though I had only technically tried them for about a minute and 30 to 45 seconds). The only problem was that LASIK is pretty expensive. The lowest cost I could find at the time was about 1400 dollars per eye. Not only that, every time I would go to the eye doctor to get a LASIK evaluation, they would always tell me that my pupils were really big and that I would probably see halos around lights if I got the surgery.

Well, one day I found an ad in the paper that caught my attention. It advertised LASIK for 500 dollars an eye. The ad was actually on the back of the comic pages so that should have clued me in that something was wrong. Anyway, I decided that because of my cheap nature, I needed to check it out or I would always wonder if I could have got a better deal.

I made an appointment with the place that was doing it and when I got there they first told me that my pupils were really big and then told me that they didn�t actually do the surgery there but at their temporary facility in San Antonio. They also said that I needed to agree to the surgery and give them a 100 dollar deposit that day or I wouldn�t get the 500 dollar/eye deal. I decided to go ahead with it even though I was bit nervous.

Well, the day of the surgery arrived and I was pretty nervous. I had actually expected them to call or something to confirm but they didn�t so I went anyway. When I got to the address, I realized what they had meant by the �temporary� facility. It was actually a big semi trailer. After seeing the semi, I just about had a panic attack. We sat there for a few minutes and I debated whether I should go through with it. On one side, I would save about 2000 dollars. On the other side, I could loose my vision. It was an easy choice. I decided to go ahead with it and save the 2000 dollars.

When I went in the little waiting room, I was greeted by about 6 other nervous looking patients sitting in line waiting for their turn. I went to the receptionist person and told them who I was and they didn�t have any record of me coming but said they thought they could fit me in. Well, I waited about an hour until it was my turn and they took me into the prep room. In the prep room, they had a look at my eyes and told me I had really big pupils. They then took me into the actual surgery room which was at the back of the semi. There they had a big LASER crammed in and I lay down in the chair. At this point I was extremely nervous by trying to pretend to be calm. They sort of clamped my eye down and told me to look at the red light. I looked at that red light as hard as I could because I kept thinking that if I didn�t, I might be blind in a few minutes.

Well, the surgery ended and I could still see. They gave me a bunch of stuff to put in my eye and some goggles to wear when I slept and told me that I needed to be really careful. Over the next few weeks, I followed the instructions as exactly as I could and things turned out pretty well. About six months after the surgery, Rachelle reminded me that I had a free checkup through the original eye doctor that I should go take advantage of. I made an appointment and when I got there and sat down with the doctor he said, �So, did you just get this yesterday?�

I said, �No, it was actually about six months ago.�

At that point, I saw the color drain from the optometrist�s face. Apparently, I was supposed to go in the day after the surgery and have them look at me. They actually were supposed to call me right after the surgery and make sure I came in. They forgot I guess. When the doctor was checking me out, I could tell he was really nervous. However, when he got done, I saw him relax and tell me that everything looked good.

The moral of the story is that I saved 2000 dollars. The same personality trait that helped me save the 2000 dollars has helped me save money at other times. I have a feeling that same personality trait will also help save money in the future as we deal with the various difficulties of raising quintuplets. I just hope I don't have to risk anything else on my body to do it.

WQ+2 (or Wilkinson Quints Show) episode number 8

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:23:00 +0000

I have a new video update on the babies! The thing I like most about this one is the smiles of each of them. It has footage from early March so it is a little old but it was fun enough that I thought I should share it. I really wish I could have had Riley and Kaiya do it but they were already asleep so I simply decided that if I wanted to do it, I needed to do it without them this time. However, I really hope to have them next time because they are really the best at it.

In addition, even though it doesn't have anything to do with babies, I'll include a fun (and really nerdy) video I made for work that was recently used to announce my company's participation in the FIRST Robotics league for high school age kids. The First robotics competition was started by Dean Kamen (inventor of the Segway) and helps kids get excited about engineering and science. My company is donating a whole bunch of equipment and wanted me to make a video that would, "Get the high school kids excited about the new control system they would be using to build their robots." Well, it is kind of silly but this was the result:

Why do it?

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:14:00 +0000

Well, here I am again. I don�t have a video just yet but I have two in the works. A lot of things have happened to the babies and I have been dutifully videotaping these things. I just haven�t found enough time to go and actually make real videos out of everything but I plan to soon. I have decided to blog a little bit more and see if I can get in one video a month. I think that ought to be just about right.

Today, I was in the airport on my way back from a conference in Las Vegas and I went to a store in the airport to get a smoothie. I really like smoothies and have a really good recipe that Rachelle and I came up with but that is another story. In this smoothie store was a sign that read:

If it isn�t fun, why do it?

As I read that sign, I decided that it may have been one of the most profoundly stupid things I had ever heard. As I was waiting for my smoothie to blend, I sat there and pondered all of the things that were not fun but were definitely �worth it�. Some of the ones I thought of were:

Exercising regularly (at least I assume this is worth it since I don�t really do it)
Getting a root canal when you need one. (Again, I have to assume on this one)
Have ANY kind of surgery when you really need it. (I have been a witness to this one so I at least know it is accurate)
Repairing your car (Have had to do this many times and it is painful but better than walking)
Learning to do math (Riley is currently going through this one and I keep trying to tell him it will one day be worth it.)

And one of most important not-fun-but-worth-it things is raising kids. I had been at the conference for about four days and I was really missing Rachelle and the kids. It is times like that when you can look and see that it really is worth it. Most of the time, a mom or a dad like Rachelle or me is just trying to get by from day to day and keep from going insane. However, when you can step back and see how wonderful your kids are and how wonderful it is to have kids, you realize that it is all worth it.

A little later I started thinking that maybe the sign in the smoothie shop was actually meant to make me think of all the things that ARE worth it even though they are not fun. If so, it was effective because I started thinking about how I really appreciate many of the difficult things I have gone through because of what I have learned from them. I think I will give them the benefit of the doubt and say that their true intention was to make me a better person and not to suggest that I simply should be buying more sugar-filled smoothies (because they are fun) instead of eating healthy and bad tasting food (because it is not fun).

Now, I did say that I am planning on having a video, and I really will just as soon as I can find time to stop having so much fun with my cute but runny-nosed babies.

Quints Visit to the State Capitol on Texas Independance Day

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 02:35:00 +0000

OK, it has been a really long time since I have posted anything but I am going to start doing more now that I have a whole lot more time due to the fact that they are sleeping through the night. I want to start with episode number 7 which is where we take the kids (all 7 of them) and Rachelle's aunt Kathy to the Texas state capitol on Texas independence day. I actually only knew that it was Texas independance day because Riley told me. He is studying Texas in school right now. We now know where all of the big Texas pride comes from. It turns out that it is instilled in them during elementary school. He has come home twice in the last few days and said, "Dad, do you know what is so cool about Texas? It has a cool shape. Some states are just squares but Texas has a cool shape." Anyway, he has been telling us Texas facts for the last week so we thought it was appropriate for us to go to the capitol. Rachelle's aunt Kathy was visiting from Arizona and we also thought it would be a fun place to take her as well.

The babies all did really well and seemed to enjoy it...right up until we got them all back in the van for the 40 minute ride home. It was getting close to bed time and we really didn't want them to go to sleep because we didn't want to mess up their sleeping schedule. Fortunately, we didn't have to worry about that because most of them just screamed the whole way home. It was still worth it because it was nice to get out and do something with them. We had to take the two strollers (the three baby stroller and the two baby stroller) because we haven't received the mount for the big stroller. When we do get it, we should have lots of fun going places and being gawked at.

Anyway, here is the video:

Really good KEYE Segment on the Quints

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:14:00 +0000

Last night, we saw one of the best segments we have ever seen on these babies. Ron Oliveira and Judy Maggio, the anchors for the local CBS affiliate, came and did a 3 hour shift a few weeks ago. Both of them have older children so it had been a long time since they had held babies. They seemed to do a good job and enjoy their time there. Rachelle said it was really fun and I was amazed at how awesome the segment turned out.

Here is the link to the article:
KEYE Story

Below I have embedded the video itself so check it out:

6 Months Old Today!

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:22:00 +0000

Today, the babies are six months old. KVUE, the local ABC station, came over and shot some video that was pretty good. KEYE, the local CBS station, also came over and videotaped something a few weeks ago and that is supposed to air a week from today. The KVUE one is below. Check it out because those babies are pretty cute:

http://www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/013108kvuequintsupdate-cb.7926d68a.html

A great man

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 02:54:00 +0000

Last night, Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, died. He was a great man. Here is an article about him: article.

He was 97 years old and was one of the best men I have ever had the chance to be in the presence of. The reasons why he was great are many. One of my favorite was that he was funny. Anyone who knows me knows that I really value humor. In our church, we have a biannual conference that we usually watch on TV where various people from the leadership of the church speak. With President Hinckley, you were almost always guaranteed to have a really good laugh some time during his talk. You were also almost always guaranteed to leave the meeting with a desire to be a little better or try a little harder. I had the opportunity to hear him in person several times and he actually seemed to have a light about him. His humility, his love for people, and his amazing wit were a few of the things that were really inspiring about him. If everyone could be like that man, our world would be a much happier place.

I just wanted to mention it today because I feel like, nowadays, there are very few people in the public spotlight that are really heroic and deserving of respect and serious admiration. Most popular or famous people lead lives that are filled with really bad stuff. Gordon B. Hinckley was someone that we could truly look to for an example of what a good man should do. He loved his wife, he loved his family, he loved God and was true to what he believed. I will forever remember the things he taught me through his example and his service.

Here is a video of Glenn Beck's tribute to him:

Some non-baby related sad events and an update on the sleep training

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:24:00 +0000

Well, I don't have a new video yet but I do have an update on a few things. First, I want to devote a few lines to my Grandpa Wilkinson who died yesterday. I think he was ready to go but I was a little sad that I didn't see him more often before he died. He is actually the reason why my first name has a 'y' in it (his first name was Jay). Anyway, I really think he is a lot happier now so that is the good part.

Another thing I want to mention is that my Uncle Ken, my aunt Victoria's husband and the driving force behind a lot of the donations we have received, recently found out that he has cancer and will began treatment very soon. We are all praying for him and he is writing a blog that you can read here at http://kennethcarlson.blogspot.com/.

Next, I would like to give an update on the babies. I mentioned in some of my last posts that we are doing sleep training. This was a very unpredictable task for us since there isn't a whole lot of data or books out there to tell you what to do with 5 babies. However, things are going pretty well. We started off in December with just doing a strict routine and putting them down at night awake and letting them fall asleep on their own. This took a few nights but now is very nice. In the beginning, a few of them, Ryder in particular, cried for a few hours before finally giving up and falling asleep. Over time, they cried less and on the third or fourth day, there really wasn't much crying at all. Now, we just do the big routine and then put them in their beds with smiles on their little faces and they go right to sleep without making any sound and without us doing anything more.

The next big step will be to actually help them sleep all the way through the night. More on that later...

Merry Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 03:13:00 +0000

Well, it is Christmas and I decided to post another video (I posted Episode 6 of our show below). This video was made by Rachelle a few years ago for some event at church. The song she used was written by Rachelle's aunt Jeannie and it is called "Little Child". We played it on Christmas Eve and our kids liked it so I thought I would let everybody else see it.

***Update, I took the video off of YouTube but if anyone really wants a copy of it, they can let me know and I can send it to them***

Wilkinson Quints Show Episode 6

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:45:00 +0000

OK, so I made another video. I actually took a lot of the video I had made over the last few months and made a longer video. It includes video from our stroller ride with Aunt Linda, our trip to Rudy's, Riley's award ceremony for the Reflections contest, and our visit to the National Instruments company meeting. I also came up with a new beginning to the show. The beginning ends with "WQ+2" which I made in an effort to include Riley and Kaiya in the title.

I think the next video I am going to make will be about the sleep training stuff.

Getting ready for Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:08:00 +0000

Well, it has been a while since I have written or posted a video. I plan to post a video soon. Well, I had planned on doing that a month ago but just haven't had time. The main thing sucking up my time has been the calendar we made earlier this month. We are selling it for 20 dollars as a fundraiser and it is pretty great...if you like babies. Anyway, you can read more about it on our website at wilkinsonquints.org/calendar.html.
Here are some pictures from it:

January	February	March

April	May	June

July	August	September

October	November	December

Something interesting things have happened recently. Last week, Rachelle went and ran the Trail of Lights 5K near Downtown Austin. That was fun and I think next year we will ALL run it. That should be quite a spectacle. I was really proud that she could be running a 3 mile race four months after giving birth to quintuplets.

Also, we have had a bunch of people over. First, Candice, the doctor who delivered the babies, came to visit for a few days and helped us all get a little fatter. Next, my aunt Victoria came to visit and that was helpful. While she was here, we got to go see Enchanted which I can definitely recommend.

We also got to go to the little ceremony where Riley got his award for his video. He was the first student in school history to submit a video which was fun.

As I am writing this post, we are doing the sleep training. There are a bunch of books out there about how to teach your kids to sleep through the night and I think Rachelle has read all of them. I am not sure of the name of the method we use but it basically starts with creating a routine that you follow very strictlyeach night when you put them to bed. The idea is that they will start to recognize that it is time to go to bed and get sleepy. Our particular routine consists of feeding them at 7:00, taking off their clothes for a little diaper only time, changing the diaper, rubbing them down with lotion, putting their pajamas on and wrapping them up. Up until tonight, we would kind of bounce them and rock them until they went to sleep and then put them in their cribs. We have been doing this routine for the past few weeks now but tonight was Day 1 of the hardest part. In this phase, we do the routine except after we bundle them up and make sure they are calm (but not asleep) we go and put them in their beds. The result, as you might expect, is that they eventually began to cry. After you put them down, you go in after 5 minutes and give them a little pat (but don't pick them up) and then leave again. You next wait 10 minutes, then 15, then 20, etc... Eventually, they will fall asleep...in theory. Right now, It has been about an hour and a half and one of them, Ryder, is steadfastly refusing to sleep. The others, however, have all given in and are currently sleeping through Ryder's loud crying.

Lest anyone think we are mean, there are two primary reasons why sleep training is important. First, the babies need to learn how to fall asleep on their own. We did the same training with Riley and Kaiya and were able to avoid a lot of the sleep problems I had heard about from other parents. One of the biggest problems with getting kids to sleep through the night is that most of them wake up naturally multiple times during the night and don't know how to get themselves back to sleep without help. When they learn how to fall asleep on their own, they can wake up in the middle of the night and then go back to sleep without help which means they will tend to get more needed rest.

The second reason that babies need training is for the sanity of the parents. Parents need to be able to put the babies in bed and have some parent time.

Now, I definitely have to say that it isn't very fun. When we first put them down, it was an amazing chorus of crying that simultaneously made me laugh and cry. I wanted to laugh because it was just so comical to hear that many crying babies all at once and wanted to cry because it is a bit sad to hear that many crying babies all at once. Anyway, we will make it through this and pretty soon, we will be able to just put them down at 8:00 and have time to do all kinds of stuff... like catch up on making more videos.

Thanksgiving and a lot of cool stuff happening

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 03:11:00 +0000

OK, I haven't posted for a long time because I have been really busy. Too busy, in fact to make a video. However, I have a lot of cool raw video that I will be putting up here soon once I get the time to make it into something that isn't boring. Anyway, some of the cool things that have occupied my time in the last few weeks are - a big company meeting that featured my babies (that I have video of), a talk I had to give in church on gratitude, and Thanksgiving.

First thing I want to say is how grateful I am for all of the night shift people we have had over the past few months. Rachelle and I took our first turns at the night shift last week for a few nights and we quickly realized that had we been doing that every night for the last 3 months, we would be totally crazy. It isn't as bad as it used to be because the babies are starting to have a better schedule but it was still bad enough that it would wear us out really fast if we had to do it every day.

The next thing I want to talk about it football. We were watching the UT vs. Texas A&M game last Friday and as I was watching it, I was really surprised to look up and see one of my babies on the TV during the commercial break. After a moment, I realized that it was a commercial for an upcoming special report about our babies on KVUE (ABC) on Monday Nov 26th at 6:00 PM. One of Rachelle's cousins who was visiting us was shocked about how that kind of stuff didn't totally freak us out. I guess it was a little weird but kind of cool at the same time.

Also, speaking of football, I have to mention here that BYU beat the University of Utah (their big rival) this year in a very dramatic finish. I didn't actually see the game but I watched the score update on ESPN.com. I chose not to watch or listen to it live because I have learned that doing so really upsets me. The University of Utah is our nemesis and it always bugs me when they beat us (which has happened a lot in the past 6 or so years). Anyway, BYU won and I think it might be partly because of the clothes we put on the babies.

Another really cool thing that happened this week was that we went to Rudy's. For those of you not from these parts, Rudy's is a really good barbecue place here in Austin (and a few other places) where we like to go. Rachelle's brother Ryan was visiting so we decided to take him there. However, because we didn't have any volunteers for that time, we decided to take the babies with us for their first big outing.

It was a little crazy going there but we made it OK. When we walked in, a few people stared but we assumed they probably thought we just had a few families together with a bunch of babies. Anyway, we put them all in the back of the restaurant and had Rachelle's mom go and order the food. As she was ordering, she realized that she probably wouldn't have enough cash to pay for it so she asked Ryan to go get some from me. While he was going, the manager of the store asked her if she was with us. When she said "yes", he said that our meal would be on the house and kept insisting that we order a little bit more. He was really nice and it turned out that he has twins and understood what was going on with us. A little later, he asked to take a picture of the babies with a bunch of Rudy's Barbecue sauce bottles for their wall of fame. We said, "Sure", so they brought out their camera and took some pictures then gave us all of the bottles of sauce. It was very nice. Here is a picture of the event:

Other than that, we had the baby blessings for our babies today. Rachelle will talk about that so I will just mention it briefly here. In our church, we give baby blessings to newborns to kind of get them started off right. The blessings are given in our "sacrament meeting" which is the big meeting we have with everybody. The person that performed the ordinance was me and doing five was a bit of a challenge. We had a bunch of people come which was really great but I am sure that Rachelle will talk about it.

Something I wanted to also share were some TV news stories that happened over the last few weeks:

Here is one from News 8 Austin that they were showing on Thanksgiving day (the link to the video is down near the middle of the story):
Link to news 8 story

Here is also one from KEYE that they showed last week (the video is on the right of the story)
KEYE story

No time for videos this week

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:36:00 +0000

Well, there isn't an episode today because I just didn't have time to make one. On Saturday, I ended up spending about 4 hours in the morning helping one of the friends from church move. It was good exercise and I decided I probably ought to do that every week if I could. However, it was only possible because we ended up having a whole bunch of people come over and help on Saturday including my dad who is here for a few days. Because of all the help, I was also able to install a bunch of shelves in our garage with the help of Jim Haynie from church. Right after that, we still had enough volunteers so I installed a back up camera on our van so that we can see things when we back up. I got the camera from Costco and it seems to work pretty well. It is a little odd to have a bunch of people (some of whom we know and some of whom we don't know) coming and going from our house all the time but it sure does help.

It has been fun to have my dad here. He seems to really enjoy holding the babies. Really, who wouldn't though? Well, I guess that people who are nervous about babies might not like it. There have been some people, mostly teenagers, who have been really nervous about holding the babies and it has been comical to see some of them try. It sometimes looks similar to people trying to figure out how to use chop sticks for the first time...except that these chop sticks are much cuter but get grumpy when you don't hold them right. I figure it is really good practice because most of them will have to hold a baby at some other time in life and they may as well hold these ones first because they are so cute. The only problem I see is that they might think that all babies are as cute as these and that could lead to a bit of disappointment when they hold other babies. OK, I am kidding...sort of.

Anyway, I notice that some of the videos we have posted on Youtube over the last year haven't been watched very much so I thought I would post one of those instead. Here is one we made one night about a year ago. It is a lip sync of a song from the soundtrack of a movie called the Singles Ward and is a sort of jazzed up version of a hymn from church. It was fun.

Programming for 5

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:37:00 +0000

This week's episode is a bit different than the other ones. I did a joint episode with the VI Road Show which is a weekly video blog that I work on for National Instruments. The VI Road show is something we originally started about a year ago to showcase the lighter side of VI or virtual instrumentation. Virtual instrumentation is a method of making measurement systems by using computer boards and software instead of big, expensive boxed instruments like the kinds you might see at a doctors office.

This episode covers the LabVIEW program or virtual instrument I wrote for keeping track of feedings and other things. I wrote most of it in the airport on the way out to Phoenix. It was really fun to make even though we don't use it yet. The reality is that I probably don't have a computer that can withstand getting wet from occasional milk, water, or baby throw up accidents. The computers they used in the NICU are mounted above the babies and now I understand why. If you don't know what I am talking about, then I urge you to take a look at Rachelle's blog. Anyway, making the program was fun and, at the time, was a good way to occupy my mind while I was worrying about Rachelle having all those babies.

Episode Number 4

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 02:17:00 +0000

OK, we still haven't officially determined what the long term name will be but that is partly because I haven't found the time to make a new title segment. When I find some time, I will come up with it. I have had some good suggestions and I know that at some point, I will decide. In the mean time, however, it will continue to be the Wilkinson Quints Show.

Last week, one of the volunteers mentioned the Reflections contest that is going on in Elementary schools. She said they had a new video category and the theme was, "I can make a difference by..." Well, we looked it up and the rule for videos was that the student had to write, direct, shoot, and edit their own video by themselves without adult interference. That seemed a little bit hard but we went ahead and asked Riley what he thought. We told him about how he needed to write a storyboard so that he knew what he was going to do before he started using the camera. He actually came up with a great little storyboard and decided all the things he wanted to do. I next showed him how to use our smaller video camera and set it up on a tripod. The rest was up to him. After he finished videotaping, he had to edit it. I showed him the basics of how to use Windows Movie Maker and gave him some pointers along the way. He actually chose all of the clips and trimmed them all himself.

Although it may not seem very impressive when you watch it I thought it was great. The lighting is a little inconsistent and the audio isn't perfect but, heck, he only turned seven in June so I guess I can cut him some slack. In reality, I was totally proud of him! The only problem with the whole thing is that now he thinks he wants to grow up and make videos for a living even though Rachelle and I really would like him to be a Statistician, Engineer, or doctor of some sort. Well, we will see.

The likelyhood of him actually winning the contest is probably pretty small but it was a great thing for him to do. He said his next one will be titled, "Riley and Kaiya having fun".

Aside from that, we determined that the van will not fit in the garage without taking air out of the tires. Our garage is actually long enough but not tall enough. I might take another look at it but for right now, we are going to have to park it outside which is OK because it helps people find our house. The van is really fun to drive but we determined that we will probably need to get one of those little rear view cameras so that we can see what is behind us.

Well, we have some really good ideas for our show coming up. Now, if we can just get the time. If we can't, then I guess Riley will just do them for us.

Lots of busy this weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 12:32:00 +0000

Well, I didn't get to make any videos this last weekend. Rachelle's mom left on Friday afternoon and we were a little short staffed for much of the weekend. Rachelle and I did come up with some good ideas for future episodes if we can find the time this week. My aunt Victoria will be coming on Monday so that is exciting.

Something really cool that happened this week is that some people at my work including Joe Silva (my boss), Karen Villarreal, and Amanda Webster put together and finished up a diaper drive for us. A lot of people at work must have contributed because they were able to raise over 2000 dollars worth of diapers for us! I have been really impressed with the generosity of the people at National Instruments and am very appreciative. With coupons and sales, we should be able to make that last quite a while.

Something else that happened over the weekend was that we had a few miracle visits by people to help us out. In particular, we were having some issues on Saturday evening and one of the youth in our ward, an almost 17 year old girl named Kayla Hancock, thought we might need help and came over. How many 17 year old girls do you know of that would be willing to drop everything on a Saturday night and go hold screaming babies for 3 to 4 hours without pay? How cool of a person is that? I just have to say that her parents must be doing something right for her to have an attitude like that. With her help, we were able to sit down and watch a forty minute TV show (The Office) in only an hour and thirty minutes.

Another nice visit came on Sunday night. First Kayla showed up again for a brief but helpful visit and then at around 8:00, our oldest two were getting ready for bed while Rachelle and I we were trying to comfort and/or feed the other 5 who were all having some grumpy time. At 8:00, Colleen Bontrager, also from our ward, and her Mother-in-law dropped by to give us an extra swing. They saw our situation and ended up staying two hours which gave us some time to put the other kids to bed and make up all the bottles for the next days feedings. It was really nice of them and we really appreciated it.

I am just amazed at all of the many people who have helped us out. One of the most common questions I get from people at work is whether I am getting any sleep. I can honestly answer that I do get a decent amount of sleep every night because of the many volunteers we have. These faithful women who almost all have families of their own, come every night and often get little or no sleep. Without them and the many people who come during the morning, midday and evening, I don't know how we would deal with all of this. It is truly a blessing to be surrounded by so many good and trustworthy people from both church and work.

Anyway, I am pretty sure I will be able to do a video some time this week or during the weekend so watch for it.

WilkisonQuints Show episode 3

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:36:00 +0000

Well, thanks to our many volunteers and to my Father-in-law who was in town this week, Riley, Kaiya, and I were able to make episode 3. Without all the help from so many people, this whole thing (the having 5 babies thing) would be nearly impossible. I know that it wouldn't be totally impossible because there are people that actually do it without help. Without help, though, I think we would simply go nuts. We have even become accustomed to the many different people coming to our house. A side benefit to this whole thing is the opportunity to get to know so many interesting people in our area. We were pretty low profile before and didn't really know that many people but now... Anyway, I am constantly so grateful for the people that come over during the night especially. Without that, I don't know what we would do. Actually, I do know what we would do. We would get no sleep and would live in utter chaos.

Anyway, in today's episode we measured the van to see if it would fit in the garage but our results were inconclusive. We found that the van was approximately 10 measurement units high and the garage was approximately 10 measurement units high. See the video to find out what our "measurement units" are. Anyway, I guess we will have try it again another time. I think we should try using the preemie version of our measurement units because they would give us a little higher resolution.

Here it is:

WilkisonQuints Show episode 2

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:07:00 +0000

Well, we still haven't settled on a better name yet but I did like all your suggestions. For this episode we show the new van that National Instruments got us. We were able to go pick it up on Saturday thanks to a few extra people who came and watched the kids while we went. The van is really big and actually pretty comfortable.

I am still debating on how often we do the show. It looks like it might be every other week instead of every week but I think I will be able to get one up next Monday as well because Rachelle's mom and dad are both going to be in town. I actually edited this episode while holding Kaydence for some of the time, Kyndall for some of the time, and Ryder for some of the time.

I originally thought I would have time for these on Saturday and Sunday but we have found that those days tend to be some of our more difficult days because we take care of them with fewer people. We have found that we can do it with just Rachelle and I but it requires almost all our time. On Sunday when Rachelle and I were taking care of them by ourselves, I actually found myself carrying around three babies (Rustin, Kassidy, and Kaydence) for a brief period because Rachelle already had her hands full. I wish I would have got video of that but MY hands were full. I guess I need to train Riley on how to operate the video camera.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:16:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 13:48:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:55:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Quintuplet Dad) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:22:00 +0000

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.