It's Been A Rough Week

Oh, I've so wanted to post pictures and stories about Christmas. Kaitlyn has even asked to do her own post - something I'll let her do soon - who can forget her wonderful Littlest Pet Shop post a few months back?! This won't be a repeat of that - instead you will learn much about Molly, her brand new American Girl doll :)

Kaitlyn and Caleb are fine and had a great Christmas. The triplets, however, have just decided that crying is by far the most fun thing they can do. I mean, sprawling yourself on the floor in a puddle of tears IS fun - who can deny that? But, really all day long?! I'm exhausted by breakfast!

This morning, I kid you not, Alyssa cried for 10 minutes because I poured her cereal into her bowl out of the OPEN box of Chex cereal and NOT the closed box!

For now I'm blaming it on the fact that no one has felt well since Christmas Eve. I haven't taken anyone to the doctor yet but we've gone through fevers and coughing and sniffling and just feeling horrible. Fun times!

Christmas before:



Christmas after:







The triplets weren't as thrilled with Christmas as I had expected. Rachel was the only one who wanted to open all the gifts. Alyssa was done after the second present - she just wanted to open it and play with it. Julianna seemed to get bored about halfway through. Rachel, on the other hand, didn't care who the present was for she just wanted to rip the paper and see what was inside!

After all the present opening the kids were thrilled to open up and play with their toys. The big favorite has been pots and cups from Discovery Toys. Go figure! But they have thoroughly enjoyed fighting over, er, playing with all their other toys as well!

Christmas was great. The recovery has been hard. Hopefully the girls will go into the New Year tomorrow feeling a lot better.

From Our House To Yours...

*** Christmas cards are more than a tad late this year... ***

My Backyard The Day After

The swings are actually in the snow.



Yes, that's a bench under all that snow!



We're still digging out but Kirk was able to shovel the driveway and we've been able to get out to the stores. Traffic is crazy, things are still slippery and because of the shoveling and plowing there's at least 4 feet of snow in my front yard. A guarenteed white Christmas! Though some of the snow will be a bit gray by then... Here's hoping we get a fresh layer of white though a very thin one - even I think we got enough this time!

It Certainly Feels Like Christmas!!

The snow we got two weeks was pretty much nothing. You could see the grass through it. The snow we're getting hit with today is HUGE! Well, for us it's huge and since it's been all over the news I'm guessing that most people agree with me :)

This is our front yard this morning (when we had about half the snow we got):



There might be some yard under there somewhere.



The snow finally stopped tonight though we may get more through the night - I can't keep up with the weather forecast or the totals but we had to have gotten somewhere around 2 feet which for us is a LOT.

Our deck is covered in about 4 feet of snow because of snow drifts - this is what we found when we opened our back door:







All this snow really puts us in the Christmas spirit. We rarely get a white Christmas around here so to have so much snow just days before and to know we'll have some white on the ground next Friday is great.

But to add to our Christmas celebrations we were able to enjoy the kids Christmas program on Thursday night. They did a great job!

Caleb's class sang and recited Luke 2:1-20 from memory - they did a great job - we are so proud of Caleb :)



Kaitlyn's class sang and then did an instrumental - Kaitlyn got to play her keyboard for the first time. She's still learning but I think it's great that she's taken a liking to learning how to play an instrument.



All the students singing together:



Did the girls pay attention?

Hardly!

They were too busy running around being crazy and by crazy I mean seriously cute :)





They met a friend and became fascinated with a hole in the floor. Tell me again why I bother with toys?!



I tried to get a photo of the girls facing foward but it was impossible!! They're not so much into pictures these days - or maybe it's the fact that mom tries to take pictures of them all the time.



I hope you too find ways to get into the Christmas spirit :) And if you're anywhere on the northern east coast be safe and enjoy the snow!

3 Years, 1 Month

Since a month ago today I was on a cruise ship and unable to post about the girls turning 3 I thought I'd write a little about each girl and what life is like now that they are 3.

For starters I wouldn't say that it's easy. We still take each and every day one moment at a time but life in general is more fun. The girls fight and scream and cry (a lot) but they also play together and talk to us and love us. Every minute with them as well as with Kaitlyn and Caleb is a great one and a huge blessing.

Julianna Mabel - 3 years ago today she weighed 7.6 lbs - finally reaching a normal singletons birth weight and hitting the charts in the 10th percentile. So tiny then, so "big" now.

Julianna is the "mom" of the bunch. She likes to tell everyone what to do and she likes to tell me what everyone is doing. Quoting my dad, "here comes the news!" Quoting Kirk, "You never have to wonder what Julianna is thinking, she's already told you three times!" Nothing is secret when Julianna is around.

She is also very much a rule-follower. Or at least a rule-repeater. Meaning she is very quick to tell her sisters what the rules are and that they need to follow them. Of course, if she's also breaking the rules then she lets it go :)

She likes babies and mom. Her favorite color is pink. Even though she's independent she very much loves to be hugged and held and wherever I am. She is a precious girl who is outgoing, smart, loveable and fun. She loves to be the center of attention and will do whatever she has to do to make sure every adult in the room is focused on her.

I think she'll grow up to be a reporter or a lawyer - she already knows how to talk her way out of anything!

Rachel Gabrielle - at her one-month check-up she weighed 6.4 lbs. She had these little chicken legs that I swore would break when I moved them. Now she weighs a tad more (doesn't feel like it!) and is one flexible little monkey. We have a 4-poster bed and Rachel can shimmy to the top of the pole. She folds herself in half on a regular basis, pulling her legs over her head. She still draws on everything and the pictures she draws never cease to amaze me - suns, rainbows, faces, bees, animals - crazy good for a 3-year-old!

Rachel is the most attached of the three. She also likes TV the least. It takes a really great show to hold her attention but she'd much rather be somewhere else playing or clinging to me. She's the most cranky of them all. Not sure if she likes to cry but she does it a lot.

Her favorite color is purple and unlike Julianna and Alyssa who like blankets, Rachel likes to drag sheets around with her. She's easy going and not as stubborn as Julianna but she likes to get her own way. She's photogenic and just plain sweet with this little voice that's just so cute.

She's gonna grow up to be an artist, a gymnast or just follow in daddy's footsteps and work on the "pamamer" - that's computer to everybody else!

Alyssa Elaine - always the youngest but by weight she's always in the middle. Three years ago she weighed 6.14 lbs. Today she and Julianna are the exact same height and I am asked almost daily whether or not they are identical. They are not. Not in looks and certainly not in personality.

Alyssa is the baby but she is by far the most independent. She has no problems letting people do things for her or letting Julianna talk for her but she is very content to go off in a corner and play. She still has a problem with speech but she is doing much better. Out of the three she loves TV the most.

Her favorite color is yellow which means that everything that remotely has any yellow on it belongs to her. If it's yellow, it's Alyssa's. She also loves mermaids and her blanky. She loves wrestling with Caleb and playing with Kaitlyn.

Did I mention she was independent? She really likes to do her own thing and has no desire to do what everybody else is doing. She's afraid of the dark and doesn't like to sleep in the basement during naps whereas Julianna always wants to be in the basement.

I think Alyssa will grow up to be an engineer or something technical that requires time to study and figure it out independently. That or she'll run her own company - something she can accomplish on her own.

I'm sure there's so much I'm missing about these precious girls' personalities but it's getting late and I don't want to bore you - I just wanted to capture a bit of who they are and the fact that despite being born on the same day they are completely unique individuals and I love them to pieces!

Three Year Well Goes Well

Today the girls had their 3 year well check-up and they did very well. They were excited to go in and see the doctor. They were fascinated every time the nurse did something.



To make it easy they were seen together but in alphabetical order which meant Alyssa got to do everything first. Fortunately she was quite willing and happy to be the "guinea pig" for the group.



Complete fascination from beginning to end. I think I should pay for this kind of entertainment all the time!



And their stats are:



Alyssa:

Height: 37 1/4" (50%)
Weight: 30 pounds (50%)



Julianna:

Height: 37 1/4" (50%)
Weight: 33 pounds (70%)



Rachel:

Height: 35 1/4" (10%)
Weight: 27 pounds (10%)

The girls with Dr. Flynn - we LOVE her!!



I think this is where she was encouraging them to go pee-pees in the potty. I think she's getting the same reaction I do - "yea, yea, who cares?!"



She checked their eyes, noses and throats:



Their hearts even if none of them knew where that was :) They kept pointing to the heart on their shirts - too cute!





After being examined it was time for shots. Thankfully we were able to get three nurses so that the girls could get them all at the same time. I did NOT want to have one watch their sister get a shot and then throw a fit before they were even poked. They all did surprisingly well with it. Alyssa did the best. Rachel did the worst - swearing that she could not walk for a full two hours post shots because her legs had ouchies on them.

Clearly she could walk well enough to show her boo-boos and band-aids off!!



Fortunately the doctor had some toys to make things all better:



And mom and dad had some loving so all was right with the world!





Praise the Lord we have survived 3 years and have 3 healthy, beautiful girls to show for it!

Multiples Christmas Party

Wow, I feel behind. We've had a busy week and I've had to deal with losing my voice yet again. Oh how much I hate not having my voice when I have 3 three-year-olds! And yesterday I spent the morning in court for a speeding ticket. Oh so fun. I now have to go to traffic school. Can't wait!

But, more fun then all that was our multiples Christmas party this past Wednesday evening. All the kids had a great time and "Santa" gave them their first Christmas gift - a book for each of them. Such fun!



Lots of climbing fun.





- I just love pictures of my big kids playing with and helping the triplets. Kaitlyn will play Barbies and Pet Shops with her sisters while Caleb is eager to wrestle and play games with the girls in the basement. It's just so fun to see them get along like they do.

Slides are fun too!





Twins?



Although Alyssa and Rachel were a little scared of Santa they warmed right up when Santa gave them gifts. We don't actually celebrate Santa because we know the real meaning of Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birthday so they big kids knew where the gifts actually came from but the babies didn't and they were fascinated by "Santa" and his gifts even though they watched Kirk pass the gifts to Santa. It's fun how much they don't know yet!



We are certainly counting down to Christmas here. Even the little girls have a list of things they want. Julianna has asked for a doll house (not sure why or where she got that request) and Alyssa has asked for Care Bears. It's so funny what they think of. Rachel just wants presents :)

Our multiples party was just another fun way to celebrate the best time of year! Thanks to everyone who made it possible.

Way Back When-esday: First Snow

Dateline: January 17, 2008

At one point the girls were actually small enough to fit on a sled together in a row. How cute are they?! I almost miss it :)

I'm sure there was snow in 2007 but the girls never got out in it. This was their first time getting a chance to play in it.

Play along: Twinfatuation

From The Zoo To The Snow

It doesn't seem that just last week we were all wearing shorts and feeling warm in Florida when today we were playing in the snow here in Virginia!

Last week we saw the rhinoceros up close and the tigers playing and fed a giraffe - no photos of this because our battery died - I will have to get Grandpa's pictures and share them later.







Watching the orangutans:



All the animals were so active - just out and about - playing and "talking" - so noisy! As I watched the apes swing all over their enclosure and listened to them "talk" I thought "I wonder if they are laughing at us - trying to tell us humans that it's gonna rain."



And did it rain? Of course it did! Every single time we've brought the girls to the Lowry Park Zoo it has poured. I don't know what it is but once again we were running through the rain. We still had a great time since the overcast sky seemed to bring out all the animals. :)

But today, instead of running through the rain in our shorts we were bundled up in heavy jackets, snow boots and snow pants as our yard turned white.

Alyssa's waiting patiently for her socks and boots:



It takes so long to find all the gear and suit everyone up that by the time I got out there to take pictures the girls were ready to come in. That and none of them had gloves on any more. Well, no wonder they were so cold!



Only Rachel didn't seem to mind the cold.



Now the big kids are a different story from the babies - they lasted a lot longer outside and found some things to do - like build a snowman. And what snowman is complete without a baby snowman?







From sun to snow in under a week. Gotta love it! And I have to say I loved the snow. I didn't realize we were even due to get any so it was a fun surprise to wake up to this morning. I think we got maybe 4 or 5 inches but for us it was enough to enjoy on a Saturday!