Happy Birthday Markie/Daddy!!!

Cohen, Cecilia and Christian with Daddy and Caleb

Today is Mark's birthday and he was able to come by for a quick bite at lunch. Since

everyone was up and Caleb was SO excited about his gift and more importantly the cookie cake we got his we sang him happy birthday. This is the crew after blowing out the candles. Mark was holding all 3 babies but they were attacking the cookie and squirming so Cohen got booted to the chair. They all enjoyed O's with daddy as he ate his lunch and Caleb sliced everyone some cookie.

Mark and I do get to go out to dinner tonight and we are both looking forward to it. Dinner hour around here is so hectic I am concerned that we might scarf our food down the minute they put it in front of us since that is the habit. It will be nice no matter what since we will be by ourselves :)

sick

What is it with my kids getting sick on the holidays? Cohen was needy all day yesterday and thankfully Aunt Sarah and others helped tend to him while they were here. Everyone said that he was pulling on his left ear. I called the dr and of course they would not call in anything but I did have some numbing drops from his last ear infection. Between that, the ibuprofen he and the swing was ok (loves the swing when he is not feeling well). Today I took him to the doctor and it was confirmed that he did have a puss pocket in his ear. I just knew they were going to tell me nothing was wrong with him. When the doctor walked in and said 'you are not supposed to be smiling, you are sick' and I thought here we go again, but not this time. Last time he had the flu so really it just wasn't 'nothing'. I just don't want to be 'that mom' that is taking her kid to the doctor all of the time. This time we were right on with the ear infection diagnosis. Now, if we could all just get rid of these snotty noses we would be in good shape!

Last night was the worst night I have had with the kids in months. Everyone was up at some point or another and Cecilia was probably the worst. She was up for about 2 hours so I laid with her on the couch finally and she fell asleep. Thankfully Mark got up with all of them this morning so I was able to sleep a little longer, but he was up with them too so we were both tired today. Hopefully tonight is not a repeat of last night!!!

Christmas time

Yep, now we are officially allowed to listen to Christmas music!!! YEAH!!

Turkey Day

Today was such a nice day. We hosted thanksgiving at our house this year and my dad, grandparents, Jason, Sarah, Emma, Logan and Marks mom came over. I sort of cheated because I mixed up everything last night so all I had to do was pop it in the oven or throw it in a bowl. The only thing I really had to do was make the gravy and carve the turkey. I discovered make ahead mashed potato's that were awesome!! Anyway, Mark got up early this morning and put the bird in the oven so that it would be done by our feasting time of noon. We ate early since my brother and Sarah were going to her family's for dinner. It made sense either way since the babies are so much happier in the earlier part of the day. 5pm would have been really hard to do so I was happy with the timing. I pumped at 10:30, the babies ate at 11 and we ate at 12. I think I am still full. It is always so nice to be with family!!

This was actually my second turkey dinner that I made this week. Mark did some work for an elderly couple and decided he wanted to take them dinner. I'm still not sure what was so special about this couple, but thought it was so sweet and generous. Mark has a huge heart and I am really proud of him.

I think the holidays, especially thanksgiving have a little different meaning this year for us. I know that I have been a little sappy lately thinking back to last year and how I was feeling. I was so completely exhausted from the minute I woke up in the morning. It was a struggle to bend over, walk up stairs or really do anything normal. I went on as any mom would trying to participate and make my time special with Caleb, but some days I don't know what I was thinking. I even raked leaves last fall, how stupid was that!! If at any point in my life have I ever had more of an excuse to just sit and do nothing? In addition to the physical exhaustion, there was also the stress of what was ahead. I knew the possibilities and I feared hospitalization, and worried about the health babies but in the end we all survived.

This year I have raked leaves just about every week and felt good! I can play and run and have fun without worry and most of all I know that I have 4 beautiful babies and a wonderful husband to fill my holiday season and all of the year for the rest of my life. I know I have said it before and I will say it again that we have so much to be thankful for.

Soon after everyone left Mark and I decided to start decorating for Christmas. Caleb has been anxious for this for months and has been surprisingly patient. Right now Caleb has turned all of the lights off in the basement except for the tree and the lights on the train (and computer screen). Last year I remember his laying with me on the couch, both of our bellies hanging out and just watching the train for a long time. It seems to have a calming effect on him....hmm, maybe we should keep it out all year (he he). Tomorrow will be another day as I am sure the babies will love to try and chase the train, eat it and pull up on the tree. Thank goodness we have the superyard gate.

Test video

So this was a test to see if I could update video from my camera and it was SO easy. Why haven't I done this before? What this video was trying to show is Cecilia laughing at Caleb, Cohen just hanging out and then Christian (with his snotty nose) Clapping for everyone. Unfortunately you can not hear anything.

Puffs!

After the babies eat, there are usually some lingering puffs/cheerios on the floor. What happens is that they try to eat them and half fall into their lap so when I pick them up some fall onto the floor. This is when a dog would come in handy and if we had one it would be fat from all of the food that is dropped on the floor. Now that the kids can crawl they follow me into the kitchen all of the time and I have to say that we need more gates. I was looking for something in the pantry the other day and Cecilia and Cohen were pulling things out and one of then opened the bag of pretzels and the other was pulling stuff down too, it was funny and in the end I found what I was looking for so we were all happy.

I do still give them puffs. One, since I still have some and two they are nice since I do not have to worry SO much about them choking on then. I took these pictures yesterday morning. Christian was determined to climb over Cohen to get a puff. Cohen didn't seem to mind and actually thought it was funny since he had the hammer. You can see the puff in Christian's mouth and his excitement from reaching it.

Cecilia had ripped one of Caleb's pictures off the refrigerator and was playing with that.

eating...again

Earlier this week Caleb decided to help me feed the babies. Cohen is my neat eater but not when Caleb feeds him. Caleb was quite proud of the food all over his face as if it was some sort of a trophy. He is so sweet to the babies and loves them so much. I can't say that the other kids were any cleaner so I took pictures of them as well. All I can say thank goodness for bath days! This day they had sweet potato's and blueberries/apples which are both their favorites!!

Caleb and Cohen

Cecilia
Christian

Snacking on a sock

The babies love to eat socks. Anyone who gets their hands on them eats them. I caught Cohen this time and I thought the picture was really cute. I guess I need to feed them more!

This is currently how the babies eat. I stand in front of the table and quickly move from left to right and right to left. That's right, Cohen likes to eat twice as fast as the others and I hear about it if I do not feed him fast enough. So far they have only had baby food that I have made. I have made: Sweet potato's, carrots, green beans, peas, squash, pears, peaches, bananas, avocados, kiwi, blueberries, apple sauce, chicken noodles and mixed veggies, chicken green beans and rice, chicken noodles and carrots. They love biter biscuits and I started them off with puffs since they dissolve in their mouths, but since they did so well and were going through a can of them a day (and they are not cheap) I switched them to cheerios which they LOVE. The other reason is that they are so slobbery that the puffs just melted in their hands which was annoying and defeated the purpose since they were going to waste. More recently they have gotten a little picky but I think it is only natural to love the fruits more than the veggies.

Cohen is my hungry but clean eater. He likes to be fed and is not really concerned with feeding himself. Cecilia tends to get it in her hair and all over her face when. You can definitely tell when she does not like something as she will turn her head and clench her lips. She loves to feed herself cheerios. Christian really likes food but is SO messy. He likes to get his hands in his mouth and in the way and then rub it all over his face...it is just a mess no matter what. He loves his O's and if there are any on his tray he will not eat anything else until they are gone. I have threatened them all lately with taking away the O's if they do not eat.

Christian, Cohen and Cecilia

Christian enjoying some puffs
Cohen with his bowl of puffs

Cecilia (snotty nose) enjoying puffs

Playdate

The triplets had their first play date the Monday after Halloween. There were 15 kiddos!! There were 3 sets of BBB triplets, one set of BGG and mine which are BBG. SO out of all 15 there were only 3 girls. 4 of us also have older boys and I am the only one that was lucky enough to get a little girl out of the bunch. The rage was 7-10 months old, and mine were the youngest. It was so cute to get all of them together and chat with other moms that have so much in common with me.

Katie was the gracious host and she was the second triplet mom that I met the very first day I was allowed to take a wheel chair ride. She was so sweet and down to earth. We also took over her room in the NICU when her kiddos all went home. One of the other moms was our next door neighbor so it was really great to see her and the boys again. I think we are going to try to do it again in a month or so at my house so I am looking forward to that!

Halloween!!

Boo!! Well Halloween was a great time. As you can see we had a small pumpkin patch and a spider man. Caleb was supposed to be sponge bob and we even had a costume for him to wear but he changed his mind at the last minute to be spider man. I had bought the costume at the baby mania sale for a friend, but they already had a spider man costume so I kept it for Caleb. He was obviously excited about it. He, up until the end said that he was going to go out as spider man and come back and change 'real quick' and go back out as sponge bob. That didn't happen, but he was a cute spidey anyway. The babies were adorable in their pumpkin suits (Caleb calls them suits). When I brought them home awhile ago, Caleb asked where his pumpkin suit was. I felt so bad because he looked sad so I told him we would make his sponge bob look like a pumpkin with a hat or something and he seemed ok then.

We always host Halloween with a haunted garage and whoever wants to come over can. We have a pot of chili, hot dogs to roast on the fire and yummy snacks. It is usually Marks sisters and their families, our next door neighbors, some others depending on the year. This year my dad offered to come over and help with the babies and Marks Grandma Gardner and his dad stayed to help as well. This was so nice since that is always a hard time with the babies and we were both able to be with Caleb trick or treating. The babies did not go out after dark but enjoyed the company of their grandpas and great grandma.

Caleb is not shy and went right up to all of the doors. We kept telling him he had to have a trick or song or something in order to get candy so he sang "The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout. Out came the goblin and took the spider out!!" I think it is from the spider man movie and he came up with it on his own so I thought that was even more cute. Some people thought that he did not know the whole song and tried to finish it for him but most everyone laughed.

Cohen, Caleb, Christian and Cecilia

Christian, Cohen and Cecilia

Caleb (as spider man), Christian, Cohen and Cecilia (as pumpkins)

Caleb

Pumpkin Carving!!!

Mark and Caleb carved all of the pumpkins this year without my help. Caleb was anxious to do it and both time other kids were over to help so Mark had them all in the garage and took matters into his own hands. Time is of the essence, especially in the evening so this was a great idea in my mind. Caleb came up with all of the ideas for the pumpkins. I for some reason only have pictures of two of them, but 3 were actually carved and then there were three other little ones that were not but they were for the babies.

The tool and the guts!

One eye willie

Calebs hands are on either side of the pumpkin which was so cute and totally his idea (Caleb and Mya)

Biter Biscuits

Mmmm...a great new discovery!! The babies loved their biter biscuits, but man they are not quite as easy to clean up as the puff are. (pics taken 10/30/09)

Cohen

Cecilia

Christian

Mail Call

The babies got Halloween cards. Most kids like to look at them, mine like to eat them. This is Christian enjoying his 'treat'. You can see the look in his eyes that he was busted.

Bath Time-

Bath time is always a busy time at our house and even though it is only every other day for the babies it comes around quickly. This was probably the first time all 4 of the kids were in the tub together but it has happened many times since. We realized that the hall bathroom can accommodate all 3 rings and Caleb more comfortably than our bathroom plus the suction cups on the rings work much better in that tub as well. Before the rings, bath time for each baby was about 30 seconds, just long enough to get in get clean and get out. Caleb usually helped but all of them together was very exciting for him. Now that we have more leisurely baths the babies, especially Cohen love to splash and play with the toys. As you can see in the photos below they all like to kick back and relax, especially Cecilia. (pics taken 10/25/09)

Caleb and Cohen, Christian, Cecilia

Cohen, Cecilia and Christian

Wild, free and hungry.

Yep...they are all crawling!! Cecilia is the most proficient since she has been at it the longest. Christian picked it up pretty quickly over the last few days and does remarkably well on the hardwood floors. Cohen is improving by the minute but all of his arms and legs are moving at the same time along with diving gets him to where he needs to go and pretty quickly I might add. It looks awkward but I think he just needs to get his rhythm down. They are all eating well, but getting a little picky. They like most kids are realizing that the fruits are much tastier than the veggies and meats. I think they would eat their weight in puffs/cheerios every day if I would let them. It is an obvious favorite and they are pretty good at getting them into their mouths.

Caleb was nice enough to share his cough with them so everyone has snotty noses and a cough. Everyone is handling it well though. Booster flu shots tomorrow so I will get to see how much they all weigh again-yeah!!