Rock and Rollin'

Miss Cecilia is up on all 4's and rocking. Today she rolled from by my bed all the way into the bathroom (about 6 or 7 feet). She is a woman with a mission and her mother is scared. She never stops moving even when you are holding her she is constantly kicking. She has also been caught chewing on Caleb's shoes, knocking over things and reaching inside the container of wipes to see what she can get out. Look out world!!!

Sitting big

1 of the 3 babies was a good napper today and which is why she is not pictured here. Since they were up I thought we would practice sitting up and Cohen did a really good job. He actually sat in his little tripod position while I went and got the camera. Christian can sit up too, but not as long as Cohen. Cecilia, can sort of sit up too, but she is usually too busy to be bothered with sitting.

On a side note all of my recent pictures have red eye and I don't know why...very annoying, but I am going to have to recheck my settings.

Cohen

Cohen and Christian (you can actually see Christians tooth in this picture #2 is almost in also)

We're still sitting......

We give up!!

Big Helper

Caleb loves an important job and today he helped make sweet potatoes for the babies. He thinks it is fun...have at it!! Here he is at work. He needed to buy more carrots so he has another 5lbs to peel. If I am not careful I might get in trouble for child labor.

6 months old!!!

Yesterday marked the babies 6th month with us. It is hard to believe that they are already 6 months old, but then again I look back at the last year and it seems so long ago that we even found out that we were pregnant. It was just about a year ago this week that we found out that we were not only expecting 1, not 2, but 3 little babies. Obviously, we were scared to death about how things would turn out. I for one was scared about going on bed rest and even more afraid that I would be stuck in the hospital and go crazy. The thought of how Caleb would handle everything made me even more scared. As you all know my worst fears came true with not only bed rest, but almost 10 weeks in the hospital. Somehow I managed to rise to the occasion for I knew my babies needed me to hang on. Mark also had a hard road too as a single daddy and managed to survive as well. Caleb...did he really even ever care?? I don't think so :) Anyway we all carried our own cross, but we did it and ended up with 3 healthy babies.

We are so incredibly blessed to have such beautiful babies. At 6 months they are laughing, smiling, crying, rolling, scooting, growing teeth, eating cereal and veggies, sort of sitting up and are getting SO big and fun. Everything a normal term baby should be doing at this point.

Here are the happy trio...they look like they are up to something :)

Christian, Cohen and Cecilia

Now.....if we survive the next 6 months with more of their teeth coming in, crawling and walking we will be good. Stay tuned.

Baseball

We were given tickets to the Sunday night Cards/Cubs game so Mark, Caleb and I went (grandma Gardner watched the babies). They were great seats along the third base line so we were hoping for a foul ball, but that never happened. Caleb was 'tired' as soon as we got there and wanted to leave, but I held him off until 9:30.

Here is Caleb saying 'I'm your number one fan man' (it is from a movie)

Busted

Sunday the babies were all napping peacefully when we heard loud giggling and squeals coming from their room. I went down the hall way to find all of them awake (much earlier than they should have been) and discovered that Caleb had been sharing all of his animals with them. The babies of course didn't mind because they are crazy about anything that Caleb does. Below is the evidence.

Caleb and Christian

Caleb and Christian
Cohen
Caleb gave Cohen the green frog a long time ago and we call it his big green monster since it really is bigger than he is, but he loves it. All he needs is his blankie, pacifier and the monster and he is a happy man.

Cecilia (must have been last since she has the least amount of animals)

This is just another cute pic of Cecilia.

Apple pie

So you all know I became Suzie home maker when I was in the hospital knitting, crocheting, sewing, whatever kind of crafty thing I could do in bed I did. Well, it continues. I, for the first time ever made a home made apple pie tonight. And you are laughing because I have so much extra time on my hands to be making whole made pies, right??? Well, talk to my son about that one. Last week at school that had to bring in their favorite color apple and later he told me that the lady in the cafeteria was going to make them a pie, but he wanted to make one too. I happened to have bought apples when I was at costco to make baby food so he has been on us about doing it since Thursday night. I gave him some carrots to peel and someone told him that we had the wrong color apples so he left it alone for awhile, but we finally did it today. I went to the store specifically for pie crust, green apples and the remaining ingredients that we need. I came back with 60 dollars worth of groceries and no pie crust. Mark went back to the store and came back with the crust so all was great...so we thought. After Caleb and I peeled and sliced all of the apples and were adding the finishing touches I realized that we did not have any flour. UGH-Par for my course these days. So, we put a call into Jen next door. By this point it was way past dinner time so I went ahead and made dinner (which Mark thought was an excellent idea), fed the babies and in the meantime Jen brought over the flour. Or process was that I would peel, slice and then Caleb would use the mushroom/egg slicer to slice the apples into smaller pieces. It worked well and Caleb only needed one band aid before it was all over.

Caleb is a really good carrot peeler. We made baby food the other day and he peeled almost all 5lbs of the carrots. I thought he would be able to do the apples but they were a lot harder to get started and since they are round a little harder for him to hold onto so he opted to slice.

TA DA!! It was actually pretty good for my first pie. Caleb tried a bite and spit it back out. I'm not sure what he was expecting, but it tasted like apple pie is supposed to taste.

Caleb really likes 'projects' like this. For awhile he had me making smoothies all the time until I refused to make them anymore because he was not drinking them. He is good at carrots and making baby food too, but about the only thing that he wants to make and eats every drop of is popcorn. It was a great day that ended with yummy pie!!

Balloon Glow

Friday night Caleb and I went to the Balloon Glow in forest Park with Jen, Mya and Abigail (next door neighbors). Mark and the babies were originally going to go and then we decided that it might be better for them to stay home. The trek to get to the glow is up and down hills that would have been a bear to push 3 babies and a stroller through, not to mention all of the bottles, formula, etc. I tell everyone he chickened out, but really I was on board with them not going as soon as he mentioned it. We got there early this year and were able to watch all of the balloons being blown up which Caleb just loved. He of course also spotted the vendors first off and wanted a sword. He and I were not in agreement with his listening skills that evening so the sword was delayed until pretty close to the end of the evening. We had a great time and Caleb fell asleep on the way home which is always a sign of a good time.

Caleb and Andi

Mya and Caleb

Jen and Abigail

CAleb and the coolest sword EVER!!

What's new in the world of babies

So the babies are getting huge as I am sure you can tell from the pictures. Christian (by our scale at home) weighs around 17 1/2 lbs and Cohen is 16 1/2 so there is about a pound difference between the two and then Cecilia is probably a pound or so lighter than Cohen. She is so petite, Christian is the haus and Cohen is just well smiley. We will get more official dates in a couple of weeks when we go to the dr, but I looked back at Caleb's info and Christian is exactly the same as what Caleb was at this point (he is a true mini-me)

They are all rolling around the room. Cecilia is the most active followed by Christian and the Cohen rolls around, but he is pretty content staying where you put him. When they are on their bellies, they are all pushing up and pulling their knees towards their bellies (especially Cecilia) so I'm sure they will be crawling before long (scary, I know). I am going to pick up my superyard gate tomorrow but I still have a LOT of childproofing before they can venture out into the house. I think every toy Caleb has is a choking hazard

They are all definitely teething and drum roll please......Christian's first tooth popped through the gums on Sunday morning. Can we just fast forward to when they are all in?? Just kidding, it is my lack of sleep speaking up there.

Cecilia likes to stick out her tongue and chuckles a lot; Christian admires his hands a lot while spitting and blowing raspberries; Cohen found and likes to hold on to his feed, is starting to giggle/laugh out loud a lot more and of course smiley smiles all of the time.

They have been eating cereal since they were about 4 months old and seem to be doing well with it. I started making baby food for them and today they had veggies for the first time. Peas were on the menu. Cohen hated them and was making awful faces, Christian couldn't get enough and Cecilia just liked them ok. I only have green beans, peaches (which are very yummy), bananas and pears made so I need to get to work on some more veggies.

Monday Outing

Much to a lot of peoples surprise we do go out with the kids quite a bit. It is all about timing of feedings, location and man power. This past Monday my mom had Emma and Logan so we took all of the kids to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I had not been there in years and Caleb did not remember the last time he was there with my mom so it was fun for both of us. My mom was there with us along with Emma and Logan. We got to feed the gold fish and the kids loved their play area. Caleb would not get in a picture with the babies so they are here by themselves.

Back to front: Christian Cecilia and Cohen

Caleb, Logan and Emma..not they are not real :)

Morning cartoons

Caleb usually watches cartoons in the morning while I make breakfast, take a shower, feed babies, etc. He usually wants one or all of the babies to watch with him if they are awake and available. This particular morning they were up dressed and ready to go much earlier than Caleb.

Cecilia, Christian and Cohen

Cecilia, Christian, Cohen and Caleb

Typical day

In case you are wondering what our typical day is like I usually feed the babies between 6:30/7 and then Caleb wakes up by 8/8:30. Lately the babies have been up a lot at night which is really driving me crazy. I used to feel rested, but now I am worn out and my mind feels fuzzy from the constant interruptions. They are usually always in bed by 8pm and then we feed them between 10/11 so many nights I am not in bed until 12. Then...the fun begins :) They have been starting to wake up around 3 or 4 and I make my way in their room adjust them or give whoever it is their pacifier and go back to bed and repeat about every half hour or so until about 6/6:30 when I decide to give up and pump to feed them. They used to sleep but not anymore. Everyone asks if they wake each other up and the answer is no, they only wake up me. They are all teething so I guess that is the problem but man alive collectively they have a lot of teeth so I hope this is not par for the course.

Here is a morning that they were all so tired from their middle of the night activities they fell back asleep after their morning feeding. Yes, it is getting a little crowded when they are all in the crib together.

So they are still fed every 4 hours from that morning feeding and I am still pumping so they get 50/50 my milk and formula. Caleb is home with us every day now except for Fridays when he is with my mom and T-Th afternoons when he is at school. The hardest part of my day is juggling the babies and Caleb. The babies are demanding more attention and Caleb needs a lot too so it is sometimes a power struggle. We manage to survive and with the help of others life is a little easier some days and a little harder others.

Labor Day

So the Gardner's ventured out to the lake for labor day weekend...but we didn't want to come back. We we able to leave right after Caleb got out of school on Wednesday afternoon and decided at the last minute to stay until Tuesday. We had the place to ourselves until Friday night when the rest of the family came down. Wednesday night and Thursday were really nice, but Friday...not so nice. It rained ALL day. Mark and Caleb were able to get out on the boat but the babies and I were stuck inside all day with no TV. The satellite was on the fritz but thankfully Mark was able to reposition it later that day and we were back in business. Not that I have to have TV, I could have found lots to do if I was at home, but I was going a little stir crazy without it in the background. Friday the rain finally let up about the time everyone arrived and the kids were all able to get outside around the fire for 'smores. The rest of the weekend was so so weather, but it was just nice being there with everyone. For those of you who do not know everyone is Marks Mom (dad was unable to make it), his two sisters and their husbands and our nieces and nephews. The total number of adults was 7 and the total number of kids was 10 (9 of which were under the age of 4). It is fun because now that we all have so many kids, it is hard for all of us to get together and really hang out.

Labor day always seems like the end of summer even though there are warm days left it is usually the last time everyone is together at the lake until Memorial day. Once we are at the lake we never want to leave which I guess it why we stayed an extra day at the last minute. Even after all of those days, we were still sad to leave and Caleb even said that he wanted to stay until Christmas so he could ice skate on the lake and then we could come home. Below are some pics.

Christian and Daddy

Caleb has some important jobs on the boat...getting beer :) Here he is opening a bud select, but he prefers corona with the lime. He is an excellent helper. These are his 'hot wheel' sunglasses that he had to have from the gas station on the lake.

Cohen

Caleb enjoying roasting marshmallows

Mommy and Cecilia