Tillamook

In Tillamook at the Blue Heron to pet the animals and sample their dips!

 TCE

 ETC

C

 Caleb thought it was great to stick his hands in the goats mouth. I told him to stop, and then seconds later something must have happened (I am sure no one got bit) but someone freaked out which set off all three boys into panic screaming!

You can't see him but I have Eli in red in my other arm

When we got home we checked to see when the last time we came was and I kid you not, it was almost exactly (+/-1week) a year ago. We totally didn't plan it either!

We tried to recreate last years pic but the boys were having none of it!

 only one year, what a HUGE difference! The boys had just started sitting up without assistance and were starting to army crawl. Boy have things changed : )

 Caleb now

Caleb then

Now on to the beach, same spot as last year too : ) It was overcast and a bit chilly, I expected the water to feel like ice cube but it was surprisingly bearable. 

 E

 E (oops caught this several days later, its actually C)

 T

 T

 E, check out the sand chunks in the air, such a good picture!

 CTE

 Me yelling at one of the boys to NOT run full speed straight into the ocean!

At the Blue Heron we noticed something different, when we put the boys down they didn't run in three different directions like they normally do. They stayed close and didn't run around like crazed monkeys just out of prison! I think this is the beginning of a different way of life for us. The smallest things can really make a huge difference to a family with triplets! 

I looked at last years post and I had written that we were now sleeping. So it's been an entire year that Phil and I have been getting enough sleep. I can't say the boys were the worst sleepers but they certainly weren't the best. 8 months is a long time to only sleep an average of 4-5hours/night! So glad that's over to say the least : )

Question for Followers?

Since getting a smart phone I've become more aware of mobile surfing and realized you iPhone users (including myself) are not able to view my videos. Would you prefer that I publish my videos on You Tube instead of Vimeo? If enough followers make a fuss I'll do the switch! Either leave a comment or click on the 'helpful' reaction on the bottom of this post : )

Desert Blast

So we had our first 80 degree day or as the lovely people of the northwest call it a 'desert blast,' ha!

Look at those legs! See what I mean, these boys are built like tree trunks : )

Thomas waving bye-bye to Fuzzy

The peaches have arrived!

Thomas devoured his peach in like 30 seconds!

Caleb liked his peach too!

Eli's was a bit too sour and only ate half!

Caleb showing off his mad hops, this boy is going to be the athlete of the bunch. He can run, throw, and jump! This video is really cute especially Eli's running after wards : ) Oh and Caleb is in yellow...

Updates

The boys are getting their canines in and I'm giving up keeping track of teeth. I dare not stick my fingers in their mouths anymore, ouch!

We went to the coast on Sunday but I'll save those pics for the next post!

Oh Crap! moment #25-27

Oh Crap! #25

Caleb runs faster than his good judgement! I had Phil round the boys up to come back inside the house. As I come out the door to help bring them inside I see Caleb running at lighting speeds when he sees an approaching step and he tries to stop himself but he's going too fast and his head is so big that it propels him forward to where he just dove head first onto a patch of gravel. He must have hit a sharp rock because he had a cut that bled pretty good (5-6 drops). Oh and I should mention he scraped up the same spot where he'd already had a scrape from a similar incident where tried to stop and pick up a piece of chalk, but again he had no time to slow down!

Oh Crap! #26

At the same time Caleb falls out of the bath tub as Eli goes underwater (not intentionally)! Panic!

Oh Crap! #27 this one made me really really mad!

It always starts with a loud crash! The boys knocked over the dvd player, the vcr (yes we still have one), and you can't see it in the picture but also our beloved wii! Not to mention they ripped the tape of their 12-15mo homevideo! Now I have the wonderful side project of fixing the miniDV, argh!

This is how I found them. It begs the question what is that stupid fence really doing for us now other than making my house look ugly and facilitating their climbing?


More Pictures

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ETC (this was not staged, I passed out snacks and cups and they all sat down like this : )

Updates

I was putting shoes on the boys when I notice that Eli had already put on both of his slip on shoes by himself and on the correct feet! It wasn't perfect since he was stepping on the heel of one shoe, but that's still pretty good!

The boys seem so thin to me when I compare them to their baby pictures, even though I never really thought of them as chubby babies (I guess they were chubby, just not super chubby). Well now most kids their age are getting long and lean so when compared to my boys they seem pretty stalky. When I see Phils' kid pictures he always seemed solid and muscular (according to him he was and I believe it from his pictures!). The boys are like little tree trunks and I think they will take after their pops who has a broad shouldered manly physique : )

The boys have gotten used to being unrestricted in the bath tub and they get pretty wild in there so I can kiss story time during bath time good bye. I've also been having a hard time getting Eli out! That boy LOVES the water. The next 80 degree day I'm busting out the kiddie pool and someone better tell Eli that there isn't going to be a lot of room left once I get in!

Here is a cute video of Thomas saying 'baby,' too bad I couldn't get a video of him saying 'baby' and pointing at himself like he did the other day, so cute!

Rose Parade

TCE, Caleb wouldn't stop break dancing until we threatened him with a time out!

TCE

all Nike'd out

Saturday Market in the background, why haven't we come sooner? So full of goodies!

ETC

If we had had girls we would have just hit the tutu jackpot!

C and pops checkin out the parade

E always insists on wearing my head bands!

Let's get outta hear it's nap time!

Updates

The boys are making more improvements in the speech department, yay! It's really all starting to make sense to me why multiples are so prone to speech delays. While most babies/toddler are trying to imitate their parents or older siblings, multiples are busy imitating each other. All day long my three monkey's are too busy trying to impress each other and there is just no time to try and learn from me! I can't hardly get any ones attention before someone distracts them and they are off to play copy cat games. 

Anyways on to the improvements. Thomas has been saying 'baby' for the last few days now and he says it so much that Eli now says it too. Eli also says 'elmo' but sometimes it sounds like 'el' and other times he says 'em.' Getting these guys to repeat anything is a tough job (except for Eli) but I got Caleb and Eli into a rant the other day and they were all yelling 'papa, papa' with a Spanish accent (emphasis on last 'a'), they say dada like crazy but I want them to call their dad 'papa' (just being sentimental, cultural reasons). Eli will try to say most any thing I ask him to say as long as it's not a real complicated word, in which case he gives me this look of 'whatever mom.' So I'm not sure what to count in their vocabulary list, stuff they've said at least once, stuff they repeat consistently, stuff they say clearly or stuff they use in the right context? It was so much easier before, I'm starting to lose track of who said what and what says who???

I have noticed Caleb has an increased interest when I read to him but it's really hard to get through a whole 7 page book before someone comes and rips it out of my hands. When the boys were evaluated for their speech I told the ladies that I felt guilty for not reading to them more but it just always turns into a big fight over my lap or the book. It was nice to hear them say that sitting still for story time is more of a 2 year old skill and so it fits right in that Caleb now is becoming more into story time and hopefully the others will too : )

How DO you do it!?

For those who ask me with disbelief "I don't know how you do it?!" I can't help but think that either you highly underestimate what you are capable of or your kids are really terrible.

This isn't physics, the concepts are simple. While most change one diaper I change three, I feed three babies, I load three babies into the car, etc etc etc. Yes lots of things do take three times as long but many things don't, this is why assembly lines are so popular because they are efficient, think feedings (they all eat at the same time) and I wash all their clothes at the same time (it's just a bigger load). There is still only one bathroom to clean, one kitchen, 1 kids worth of toys scattered about in one area. I don't have toys scattered on the roof or in the basement or even in my hair!

I am not about to break down at any moment in fact I'm far from it. We have our bad days but doesn't everyone? It IS a lot of hard work but with some organization most CAN manage raising triplets. Multiples learn patience before they can even understand what the concept is. They have to wait their turn and share from the time they are conceived. This is very helpful and makes a huge difference!

On rare occasions when I only have one boy to look after it feels so easy, so gentle, and so peaceful. Honestly I don't know why people complain. Many hands make the load light: two parents, two arms/parent, sometimes a much older brother or sister, and ALL this to ONE child! Although I'm sure this probably all goes out the window with baby number two if sibling are close in age.

At the end of the day I am pretty exhausted and possibly not three times as much, but I get a solid 8 hours of sleep to recuperate. I get paid with three times the rewards. Three times the hugs, three times the kisses, three times the cuteness, three times the sweetness, and three times the love! I seriously want to explode sometimes because of all this awesomeness around me. What could be better than that? Maybe knowing that my boys will always have not one but TWO best friends at their side.

Sometimes I just need to vent!

This is the face I make inside when people ask me stupid questions, and oh man there are so many when you have triplets in tow!

Potty Training Pt 1

Backyard Fun!

Look what we got for free! A neighbor was throwing it out and we were fortunate enough to drive by before someone else snatched it up : ) A little rusty and needs a new seat but other than that it's good to go! They look like such big boys : )

The boys just barely can ride it using their tippy toes, another 1/2 inch and I think they will be unstoppable! Until we get two more bikes I will have to hide it so there aren't mad fights over it : (

I don't have the easiest time getting these guys to keep their hats on but THIS they fight over who gets to wear it!

This pic cracks me up

boys in overalls are so dang cute! (side note: someday I'll have nice patio furniture, till then, ugly old book study chairs will have to do : )

What is it with these kids and cramming themselves into tight spaces together!

Potty Talk

Potty talk is what I'm calling this phase of potty training. I know what you are thinking, that it's waaay too early but I've been doing some reading and I'm all pumped up about it. My first attempt to potty train won't be until the boys are about 22 months so from now until then it's gonna be raining potty propaganda around here. I dusted off the two potty's we inherited (hope we don't need anymore, but do we?) and brought them into the bathroom so they get used to seeing them. Like I said I've been reading up on potty training methods and was delighted to find some that suggest that there may not be a need to wait for 'signs of readiness' in fact if you wait too long then potty training might be harder than it has to be (I dare not go there!). The method is to bank on the fact that kids this age love being n_ak_ed, how funny is that! I'm going with 22 months since it will be the middle of summer and if I wait till 24 months, when I originally intended on trying it, it will start getting too chilly to run around in your birthday suite : ) 

Honestly, I do not expect it to work the first time around and I'm just viewing it as a practice round but who knows I've underestimated these guys plenty of times before so I wouldn't be surprised if it worked. All I have to loose is a few days, which is how long it's supposed to take to get them started. I'm doing them all at once so I may try to plan it during someones visit for the extra set of hands (hint hint...anyone for July or August?). If I'm getting too frustrated and making no progress after a couple of days I'll call it quits and try again later. We'll see : )