Fish

I went downstairs to change the laundry over and Caleb was 'in charge' while I was gone. I hear him calling me calmly....mom....mom....mom...we have a problem....mom...the babies got all of the fish out!!!

So what do you do. They were actually diving into the pile of goldfish. It was so funny because they were so excited about their accomplishment.

Christian, Cohen and Cecilia

Christian, Cohen and Cecilia

Lunch time!

Caleb decided one day that the kids needed to eat lunch outside. They love cheese so he went in and grabbed the block. The problem is that it was very hot and 100 degree temperatures and American cheese do not mix well together. Before 'lunch' was over I was scraping melted cheese off the deck and picnic table. YUM!

Cecilia


Cohen and Christian

Off to kindergarten

Caleb has been in pre-school for the last two years so I really didn't think that going to kindergarten was going to be a big deal. In fact, earlier this year when we were trying to teach him his letters I wasn't quite sure that he was going to make it to kindergarten. He took a turn for the better and all of a sudden it all clicked. Now he seems so grown up and is excited to start at his new school. He loves to write and knows all of his letters.

Mark and I went to kindergarten boot camp so we are prepared for all things to come. I think the biggest change is that he will be taking the bus. That will seem really grown up. I guess my biggest fear at this point is that Caleb's personality will not click with his new teacher. We met her at the boot camp and I'm not so sure about it. I guess I just loved his teachers for the last two years and they loved him as well. He's pretty adaptable so I'm sure it will all work out.

Public schools do not have any sort of graduation but there was a presentation in the library and this is the certificate he received.

Pool is OPEN!!

The weekend before memorial day we had to get a pool, it was SO hot!! It was the first test of how the kids would be in the water. Caleb has always loved the water and Christan is definitely the same way. Cohen likes to hang onto the hose and play with it and Cecilia could have cared less.

The kids 'enjoying' the pool...or at least some of them are. and the others are trying to escape (Cecilia and Cohen)

Mommy and Cecilia. Yes, there is a 30lb diaper on the table next to us which belonged to Christian.

T-Ball

Caleb started playing t-ball this spring and seems to enjoy it. He plays once a week on Monday and then there have also been a couple of Saturday games. I think his favorite part is the icee after the game. He is very competitive these days and likes to win a good race so there have been a few times where the boys all run after the ball and end up rolling around on the ground. One time he 'won' the ball but insisted on cleaning all of the dirt and grass off of himself. His coach asked him what he was doing and he told them that if he got dirty I was going to make him take a bath. What a joke! I'm sure they think I am some sort of clean freak now which is far from the truth.

Mark and I have been alternating going to the games since it has been hot recently and so close to their bedtime. Caleb asks when the babies are going to get to come watch him play, but really doesn't seem to mind that they have to stay home either.

He did it!

I am so proud of Caleb because he has been pull-up free for almost two months and it has been weeks since he had an accident. I decided it was time to stop wearing pull-ups when they were dry half of the mornings. My other incentive was that I was tired of buying them. As we got closer to running out of them, I kept telling him that he was a big boy and didn't need them anymore. I'm sure that part worked, but I know Caleb and he works better when incentives were involved. So, I went to the dollar store and bought up a bunch of stuff and started wrapping. We also made a chart called 'Caleb's Good-Nites' and every morning when he did not have an accident he got a check mark and a choice of a gift. I had promised him that if he got 5 nights in a row he could get a bigger gift.

Every morning he was very excited about the chart and opening a present so it did the trick. I knew that like anything else the newness would wear off and everything would just fall into place and it did. Once the presents were gone he didn't ask about them anymore and has not had an accident since. Since he had been accident free for such a long time I did take him to get a color blaster water gun one afternoon that he had been begging for. What a mistake! That thing is the worst toy I think I have ever bought. First off, it leaks so you have to hold it upright. If it leaked water that would be fine, but the water is dyed and there are warnings that it might stain clothing and anything else it touches....and it does stain. Caleb used it a couple of times and I too think that he was very disappointed with the product. His super soakers are much more fun!!

Girly Girl...I think NOT!

Cecilia, much like her mommy is not afraid of a little dirt. She on other other hand does not mind eating it but her mom does.

YUMMY!

She somehow recruited Cohen to dig in the dirt with her. They were like little piggies squealing.

Field Trip

I was excited to be able to go on Caleb's field trip with him. We went to Grants Farm with his entire class. The first thing we did was to feed the goats and the funny thing was that he walked in with conviction. It was like he knew how to handle a crowd with only one bottle. I on the other hand am still traumatized by the time the goats ate me when I was little. I remember the exact outfit I was wearing and am still scarred from it.

He was telling them it was ok and that there was enough for everyone

Caleb and Nolan

Scary camels!!! I was afraid they were going to eat him but he didn't seem to mind. He kept finding food on the ground..probably from all of the other scared kids..and feeding them more and more. I had heard of them eating peoples hair so I was little frightened, but all went well the day we were there. (in this pic are Caleb, Aunt Trisha, Uncle John and Aliyah)

Happy Anniversary to us - 7 years!!!

Since it is not very often that we get dressed up and go out we went next door so our neighbors could capture the moment. We had a busy weekend and our anniversary was actually on Monday. We asked the sitter which night worked best, Friday or Saturday and Friday it was. Every year we go to the Melting Pot for dinner and usually that is about it. We both LOVE to go go there and look forward to it since it is such a great date place and also because we only go once a year.


It is hard to believe that 7 years has gone by already. We started as 2 and now we are a family of 6. It is so bad, but when we are out I sometimes forget that we have 4 kids. 4 wonderful kids, but sometimes it is nice to focus on something other than them and the hum drum of life for a night. We had a really nice time out and on our anniversary we watched our wedding video. This year was different because we shared it with Caleb. He only wanted to see the kissing part for some reason and was disappointed that it only lasted for a second. He did however like watching it and seeing everyone walk down the aisle and told me I looked pretty.

I think we're still pretty cute!!

Allergic??

So what does a mom do when she thinks that her kid might be allergic to something??? I don't know, but I grabbed the camera. I figured I would need to show the doctor what was going on and explaining without pictures is just not as much fun.

After the kids were one I gave all of the kids cinnamon and sugar toast and Christian and Cohen's faces got really red. Nothing else happened so I was not too concerned about it. At their one year appointment as I was telling Dr. Wilson about what happened Mark says...'wait...you gave them cinnamon and SUGAR toast??' and I respond, 'yeah, so....anyway they got really red and were breathing fine, etc, etc' and Mark says again 'cinnamon AND SUGAR?' What the heck? Who eats just cinnamon on toast, of course you have to have sugar. I told him if he wants to get up every morning and make a gourmet breakfast for us before he leaves for work that would be fine with me and the discussion suddenly ended. Somehow we manage to have these little discussion in front of our pediatrician who undoubtedly laughs at us and I am sure thinks we are nuts.

So they have not had cinnamon since but I did give them hummus and this is what happened to Christian. AS you can see his skin is a bit irritated, but he is very happy. Not too concerned as I think hummus and cinnamon are more of a skin irritant than a severe allergic reaction.

Christian

Notice the red 'v' on his neck

group photos 4/19/10

I've come to the realization that a group photo for 4 kids is pretty hard to come by these days. Undoubtedly someone is not looking at the camera, or screaming or just plain not interested. The babies seem to love to be in each others cribs so I thought I would take a shot at it this day. My mom had left us for a 10 day vacation and the play was to try and send her a picture of the babies, but that never happened. This is Cohen's crib and as you can see his mobile has nothing hanging from it since he yanked all of the little fish or whatever they were off. No one cares anyway, they just enjoy his music that he plays for everyone morning and night.

Caleb, Christian, Cohen and Cecilia

Cohen, Cecilia, Caleb and Christian

We're famous

Well not really, it is all about who you know. My bestie, Julie works at Ladue news and they needed a mom to talk about blogging since they lead they had backed out. I didn't mind so they called me and then at the end of the conversation it was the dreaded request...can you send me a picture of you and the kids. Um...sure. Cause I have TONS of those. I thought for sure there would be at least ONE. Not so much. I think I have figured out that Mark does not know what the camera looks like and now that we have 4 kids you might as well bank on winning the lottery because your chances of getting a good pick of all 5/6 individuals involved is pretty much impossible.

We had a triplet play date that week at the zoo and I had asked another mom to take a picture of all of us and unfortunately I did not think it turned out so the painstaking process of trying to get a picture of me and the kids was interesting to say the least. I put them in their best and well the rest is history. After about 40 shots I gave up and this is the best one of the bunch. As it turns out the one from the zoo actually looked pretty good.

This is the picture that we used for the article.

Good bye..so long...farewell!!

When the babies turned one we said good bye to a lot of things.

Bottles!! They were being fed about 7 ounces at 7, 11, 3 and 7. At this point they were all holding their bottles themselves thanks to Marks work on the weekend. I felt bad and always tried to hold at least one of them since that was one of the few times of the day they were snuggled. We took away their middle of the day bottles and started giving them sippy cups with milk. Since I was still pumping I mixed in my milk when it was available. I thought it would be harder to get rid of the morning and night bottles but I think it was more of a crutch for me. I liked knowing that they were getting that full bottle of milk so they would get the required amounts and many nights at 6 they were crabby and the bottle helped. Next, I eliminated the morning bottle. Mark on the other hand still liked to give it to them on the weekends (he knew they liked it and he loves to be the hero). This was all fine and dandy until they starting turning the bottles over and were basically dumping them everywhere. I came home and all of the bottles that were left in the cabinet were on the counter and were going to be 'thrown away'. So that was the end of that and they were done with bottles.

So long formula......hello milk. I this would be a great easy step and it was, but a gallon of milk a day...gees. It is a good thing that we have an extra 'beer/milk' refrigerator. I could not imagine if we did not have an extra fridge, we would have to do to the store every day. One day when I was at costco I looked at the cart in front of me and there were about 10 canisters of formula so I asked her how many kids she had and of course she too had triplets. I knew her name from the multiples group and we she was saying how nice it will be not to have to buy formula and then she looked at my cart and laughed because I had 6 gallons of milk. I told her that was her future cart. Milk is definitely much cheaper than formula, but we did get a break since we used about 50% less formula since I was supplementing with breast milk. It was still a small fortune and someday I will calculate it all out,...maybe when they are all out of diapers.

I had been trying to wean off of pumping and it took me about a month of being in sheer and unbelievable pain most days. This pain is like no other. There is nothing good that comes from it and you never know when it is going to go away. I was making approximately 45ounces of milk a day so my body definitely had some adjusting to do. I was so happy to be able to return that pump to the hospital and 'get off the machine'. I have to admit it wasn't terrible and it forced me to sit down and either read or watch a show most of them time. I am really proud of myself too for actually doing it for a full year. I will admit that I do miss my friends. I now know what it would be like to have a breast implant and go up 3 cup sizes. Maybe someday, but not that large and I'm sure they would be filled with something other than milk. I also miss the 500 plus calories that I was burning sitting still. I can definitely tell that workout is gone. I'm trying to get back into a routine of actually working out since the babies are getting so heavy to pull around the neighborhood. It is nice to get out by myself too.

Big strides were taken and of course the little troops did well.

Easter!!

It only seems appropriate that I'm just now posting our family photo from Easter and we just had an Easter egg hunt yesterday. Easter, just like any other holiday is a whirl wind tour, but we always try to remember what it is all about. Its not the eggs or the candy that matter.

Here we are at my Grandma and Grandpa's house Easter morning. Later in the day we went to Mark's parents house for more family, food, eggs, treats and fun. The kids as usual had a great time!