Hair Party For Some Individual Style

The kids were off of school for yet another day (this makes 7 school days in a row!) - they have NOT been in school since Feb. 4th!! And they were off Feb. 3rd so for the month of Feb. they have gone 3 days.

Okay, that's not really related but it does help me feel better to vent a little! And I actually like snow but this has been well, too much. The DC area has already had 54 inches this winter the most ever. Believe me, it feels like it and winter isn't over yet.

Again, I'm digressing :)

Despite all that the kids and I were able to get out of the house and head over to a friend's house for a hair party! Okay, so it didn't sound that fun to the kids but for me it was great. I got my hair colored and cut and I think it looks pretty good. But even more fun - I got all of the girls hair cut.

Rachel was against having her hair cut but once in the chair she seemed to enjoy herself.



Look at that crazy blonde hair! I so hope it stays this color.



Alyssa is always the least cooperative when it comes to hair cuts and yet she has such beautiful hair.



Can't say the after looks a lot different than the before but it's trimmed up nicer - except for the bangs - told you she can't sit still :)



And then there's Julianna.

Before:



During:



And after - she was thrilled to model her new look for the camera and to look at herself in the mirror.



Now all three girls have individual style - and when someone asks me how I tell Julianna and Alyssa apart I can tell them it's by their hair :)



(Kidding about the hair - I can tell them apart by looking at them...)

Happy 40th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

I considered cropping the videos to make them shorter but thought my parents would probably prefer the longer one and this is for them anyway :) We couldn't be in Florida to celebrate their 40th with them so we are sending ourselves the best way we know how!

We love you mom and dad and hope you had a wonderful 40th anniversary.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The opening picture was designed by Kaitlyn and "signed" by every other sibling as a special card for Grandma and Grandpa.

To everyone else Happy Valentine's Day!!

Snoverkill in Snowmaggeddon: Are We Ever Gonna Dig Out?

For a while it seemed all I had to post about was potty training - Julianna is still doing well and Alyssa seems to be joining her - but now it seems all there is to post about is SNOW!!

As if 26" on our back deck was not enough we are in for another foot tonight! The totals keep changing so I'm not sure what's expected but I do know it's snowing now and is supposed to keep going all night.

Kirk spent most of Sunday digging out from the first snow - he'll spend most of tomorrow digging out from the second.

At least the kids seem to get it on the fun!

Here's the "before" out front:



Rachel's helping out:



At least until she gets to eat an icicle :) That girl will eat anything cold - snow, ice, icicle, ice cream :)



All the triplets "helping":



The cast off from the driveway was high enough to make a pretty good slide. Julianna is showing off her moves :)



Caleb was also a big "help" in shoveling the driveway. At least he was able to keep Kirk company.



Keep going, honey, you're getting there! (Took over 6 hours to get through the driveway)



Alyssa's checking out the slide:



But she's not content with playing around with the shoveled snow - no, Alyssa decided to wander off into the middle of the yard and having no idea how deep it was she sunk right in. Poor thing!



Kirk rescued her but she lost her snow boot. What is even funnier about the whole thing is how many times she's told the story since. She has told both of my parents - it goes "stuck in snow" and "lost shoe" - so cute!



And how is the backyard?

Still completely covered. Kaitlyn and her friend Madison tried to check it out. Kaitlyn got a small bump on the way out and we used snow to help it heal.



Doesn't look that deep? Madison involuntarily showed everyone how deep it still is :)



Still wondering when our front walk won't look like a trench.



Wondering when there will no longer be icicles hanging from my roof and everywhere else. And when my neighborhood may look a little more like what I remember.



After all, I do believe there's grass under there...

Buried in Snow!

We've heard varios names for the major snowstorm that just hit us this weekend; "Snowmageddon" or "Snowtorious B.I.G" or "The Washington Whiteout"

Whatever you want to call it, we measured 26 inches outside out back door. The video is a rough time lapse video I put together. I Know, I know, should have used a tripod!

Tomorrow we start the Big Dig.



Dates on slide show should read: Feb. 5th and 6th

Surviving The Store Before A Storm

I thought it would be a good idea to get groceries before the "Storm of the Century" - not that I needed milk and toilet paper (apparantly all you need to survive a Washingtonian snowstorm) but still I did want to be prepared and not have to go out for a while if we do get snowed in.

But apparantly taking 5 kids to the store alone is not the best idea. Monday it went well but only one of them wanted their own cart - the other two were content to sit in the cart and "drive" the shuttle cart. Today they all wanted their own shopping cart and keeping 3 three-year-olds in line even with a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old to "help" is a difficult task.

Of course Julianna had to go potty which meant dragging everyone across the store to the bathroom while weaving around a myriad of shoppers. Trying to shop starting on the "wrong" side of the store is always hard - adding 5 kids and too many other people makes it about impossible!

To make things worse the girls aren't exactly shall we say, skilled in cart pushing or paying attention to those around them. So Rachel just starts running with her cart and since she's not looking runs right into another shopper. Not two minutes after I apologize and move her Alyssa runs right into the back of Rachel!

I get down on their level to inform them that they are not to run in the store and they must be careful. Julianna leans over and says, "I not running, mama, I not running." She is an amazing record keeper of her good behavior.

And of course, without fail, no matter what part of the store we were in we were in somebody's way. We either took up an entire aisle or were stopped directly in front of where someone needed to be. It might be a little cute but I'm guessing for the most part just annoying - these VA people are serious about their snow supplies!

It took me well over an hour to weave in and out of way too many people who couldn't possibly need everything in their cart before we make it to the check-out line.

But we made it! Me and five kids got all our food for the week and are ready for the storm. I say bring it on! I'm hoping for some record snowfalls.

According to NBC4 these are the biggest snowfalls in DC - only 13 times have they gone over 12 inches (NoVA may be higher).

Top Snowfall Totals in D.C. History:

•Jan. 27-28, 1922: 28 inches
•Feb. 11-13, 1899: 20.5 inches
•Feb. 18-19, 1979: 18.7 inches
•Jan. 6-8, 1996: 17.1 inches
•Feb. 15-18, 2003: 16.7 inches
•Feb. 11-12, 1983: 16.6 inches
•Dec. 18-19, 2009: 16.4 inches
•Feb. 7, 1936: 14.4 inches
•Feb. 15-16, 1958: 14.4 inches
•Feb. 16-18, 1900: 14.3 inches
•Jan. 29-30, 1966: 13.8 inches

- notice the last time was just in December. This is one crazy winter but I so love it :) Even if I do have to brave the grocery stores to enjoy it. But I tell ya this I have enough milk and toilet paper for the next week so we are good to go!

Another Snowy Weekend

It seems that the only day of the week that it can snow here in Virginia is Saturday. I have no idea why but Saturday seems to be the best day! The downside is that we don't miss any school - big bummer for the kids but the upside is Kirk doesn't have to work (he works from home during weekday snowy days) and that leaves us free to clean the house!

Okay, that doesn't sound that fun but for some reason on snowy weekends we get a LOT of work done inside the house :)

Such as cleaning up Kaitlyn's room:

Sort of before - more like in the middle of rearranging.



After:



The girls got in on the act:



Caleb's "after" - no "before" but believe me it was hard enough to walk in there!



But we still had some time for enjoying the snow.

For Rachel that meant eating it.



For Julianna that meant snow angels and "throwing" snowballs - today she seemed to like the snow better than last time.



Alyssa enjoyed the snow again - mostly playing on the deck and if I called her name her immediate answer was "cheese" - hmm, maybe she knows me too well :)



The other favorite activity was walking along the fence and making tracks in the snow. They all seemed to thoroughly enjoy messing up the perfect white snow - they are my girls! I love that too :)



The rest of us made it outside today too.







The snow didn't buy us a day off from school but it did buy us a school delay so at least we can all sleep in a little bit :) That I will take!

Where Have I Been?

Feels like forever since I've posted but I hardly know what to say where I've been. Mostly because I've spent the majority of the last 2 weeks in the bathroom and that is NO fun to blog about! No one's been sick - Julianna is just potty training - still. She's doing really, really well. She's about 90% there - overnight and everything but still requires me to be with her every time. So you can imagine just how often I'm sitting on the bathroom floor waiting to help her.

Just another reason that I'm not fond of potty training. With diapers you just change 'em when they need it. So, what's the big deal anyway?

Other than that we've been cleaning and organizing the entire house - so we've been busy - just nothing exciting to blog about.

But that's life right? Often it's dull and boring and you just go one day at a time :) No complaints there! For now I'm going to enjoy my family and the snow! Write again soon...

What's In A Name?

I have belonged to the community Multiples... and More! ever since the girls picture was in one of their contests but I don't often participate in their post questions or polls but this one seemed to fun to pass up.

The big question is: How did you choose your multiples names?

Oh my word, this was so hard for us! One thing I knew from the outset is that they would either all have K or C names or none of them would. I was certainly leaning towards none of them since I had/have a hard enough time with just saying Kaitlyn and Caleb :)

I also knew I really didn't want any 2 kids to have the same first letter. Maybe it's a strange nuerosis of mine but there are 26 letters in the alphabet and I'd like to use more than 1 of them for my kids.

How do you feel about "matchy" names? I don't care for matchy names. We decided not to even work on names until we knew what we were having - although we did make a list of names we liked. But I didn't want to come up with 12 names and then pick which ones were better or worse than any other. Then we had a dilemma where Kirk liked Jacob for a boy and I liked Julianna for a girl but didn't want to use "J" for 2 names and not 3.

Did you worry about their names "coordinating"? Yes! Kirk would joke that we should name them Faith, Hope and Susan just to be difficult. For me, just being triplets is "unit" enough - I didn't want to add to it by making their names rhyme or start with the same letter.

It's a serious load of issues when you name multiples! Since they were born we've been asked hundreds of times what they're names are - I'm sure out of curiousity as to how we named them.

Did you name your babies before you met them, or wait until you saw them to assign names? We named them long before they were born. At 18 weeks we found out they were all girls. I was shocked beyond belief but it solved our dilemma about Jacob and Julianna :)

I knew I wanted the name Julianna immediately. It's the girls name I've liked for years. When I was pregnant with Kaitlyn, the name Julianna was in the running but I worried it might be too long (of course I also worried that Kaitlyn was too popular but we decided to go with it anyway and I still love it!).

I had wanted Julianna Abigail - I just liked it. But then I decided I liked Abigail so much I wanted to use it.

Now you're thinking, "but you don't have an Abigail!"

Well, we did for a few weeks in utero :) Alyssa was Abigail.

That was until I had a conversation with a good friend of mine. She mentioned that she liked the name Alyssa and I commented that Alyssa had been on our original list of names we liked. I mentioned it to Kirk and as you can see we decided to go with Alyssa instead.

Alyssa Elaine - Elaine is a family name - it's my mother's middle name.

Alyssa Elaine 11/16/06



Alyssa Elaine 11/16/09



As for Rachel - Kirk picked Rachel.

Rachel Gabrielle - not a family name - daddy chose it for her.

Rachel means "Little Lamb" - she was baby C in utero and her name couldn't have been more fitting - she was always the smallest so we made sure the doctor told us who was who as she took them out of me. Rachel should have been 3rd but she was 2nd but the doctor was sure to tell us that it was still Rachel.

Rachel Gabrielle 11/16/06



Rachel Gabrielle 11/16/09



Julianna Mabel - Mabel is a family name. Kirk's mom's name was Mabel June - she died when I was pregnant with Caleb. It seemed fitting to use her name for one of our daughters and I am glad that we did.

Julianna Mabel 11/16/06



Julianna Mabel 11/16/09



Did you consider the popularity of a name as a deciding factor? In some ways, yes. I prefer less common names - after all my name is Dorinda - talk about unpopular! I probably didn't break the top 1000 the year I was born :) But being popular didn't rule it out for us - we went with what we liked.

What were your second choices? For girls we really didn't have any - 6 was enough to come up with! Though we did have the name Natalie on the list - we haven't had a Natalie yet.

For boys - we had a number of names: Logan, Micah, Tyler and Jacob were all in the running just in case any one of our girls was actually a boy :)

And that's how we named our babies! Three years later we still like their names - I'm happy with our decision not to rhyme their names or use the same initial especially when we need to label things! For Christmas we got them pillows with thir own initial on it - if they'd had the same there would be no telling them apart!

But more importantly than still loving their names we still love our girls :) We still love Kaitlyn Brianna and Caleb Ralph too (yes, Ralph is definitely a family name!).

This was fun :) Want to read more naming stories or share one of your own? Head over to Multiples...and More!

Way Back When-esday: Happy Birthday Michael

Timeline: Summer 2009

Okay, not that long ago but it's a great photo of my brother and all my kids. It's proof that he can tolerate children! And I wanted to wish my "baby" brother a very happy birthday tomorrow.

Brother, I hope you have a great day and that this year brings you much joy, happiness and love. Love you :)

Play along at Twinfatuation.

Pretty, Pretty Princess

My original title for this post was Potty Princess but I decided I didn't want that in any searches :) Julianna is moving along very well in potty training. I am so proud of her and sooo thrilled to be using less diapers every day even if it's by 1 kid!

Julianna is a girly-girl. She was thrilled to dress up in her pretty dress, her shoes and her crown.

She asked me to take a picture of the back - check out those shoes!


And then she wanted me to take a picture of the sleeves. A natural model :)



In an interesting turn of events Alyssa has taken an interest in potty training as long as there are treats involved :) Treats are Smarties in our house - a few for each trip make it all worthwhile. Rachel still wants nothing to do with it. And given her stubborn streak she may take till Kindergarten to catch up to her sisters. I echo my previous post - I hate potty training. I will add, though, that I am so happy when it's over :)

I Hate (Loathe) Potty Training

Few things bring me great dread when raising children like the thought of potty training.

I hate it. I really do.

I also hate the stories of kids who are potty trained at 18 months. Who are these children? I have 5 and not a single one of my kids was potty trained before 3.

If you remember we started potty training a while ago but it didn't go anywhere. The girls didn't care and Pull-Ups are a joke - at least for my girls. We have Pull-Ups that has some design that disappears after they get wet. Yea, they don't care. Mostly they think it's funny.

For Christmas they got underwear. Exciting I know but come on they needed it :) They loved them but not to wear just to look at until Friday when all three asked to wear them.

Yea, progress!

Alyssa quit after a few hours. She hated it - didn't do it, she was done.

Rachel lasted till Saturday but spent all day today begging for a diaper and not going. But wanting to wear underwear all at the same time. What the heck? Make her stick with underwear? Go back to diapers? I hear it's confusing to go back and forth so I don't want to confuse her but I don't want to make her. Aagh! Crazy frustrating.

And Julianna is doing great. In a day she's now day-time potty trained and quite happy about it. Although more than anything she's happy about how many times she gets to wash her hands. Yep, that's her reward - hand washing. So she tries to go every 3 seconds just to wash her hands. It's cute but annoying because while she can do everything else she can't turn on the water or turn it off.

So that's potty training triplets at 3.2 years. Crazy hard.

But on the plus side 1 down 2 to go right? And someday the chance of NOT having diapers in my house. I can't even imagine - we've had diapers in our home for the past 9 1/2 years.

Counting down the days...

Found Cat and Field Trips

Thankfully Lollipop has returned home and Kaitlyn is back to her normal self. I am so grateful for answered prayer even when it comes to a missing cat! He came home late Wednesday night just after Kaitlyn finished crying herself to sleep. I had spent hours worrying that something may have happened to him and wondering how in the world Kaitlyn would cope. Having him show back up on our doorstep was a huge relief to us all!

And thankfully he showed back up before our light dusting of snow on Thursday and before Kaitlyn's field trip on Friday allowing her to have a wonderful time at the museums in DC.

Our first stop was the National Geographic Museum to see the Chinese Terra Cotta Warriors. It was very interesting though I can't say the kids were overly impressed. No cameras were allowed in so you'll have to go HERE to see what I'm talking about if you're interested.



Then it was back on the Metro, across the mall:



And into the Museum of Natural History where Kaitlyn ran away from crazy dinosaurs (hey, I saw that movie I bet they DO come alive at night!)...



Looked at real but dead Giant Squid and enjoyed some very life-like mammals.







But Kaitlyn's favorite stop by far was...the Gift Shop. Aaagh! The whole museum was right there - lots of other stuff we didn't have time to do but what she really wanted was to buy something in the gift shop.



And with that cute face who can deny her?

Missing Cat

In our house we have one animal and that is Kaitlyn's cat, Lollipop (yes, she named him). He's more of an indoor cat - he'd prefer to go outside but we try to keep him in. Occasionally he gets out and comes right back. But yesterday morning he got out and we haven't seen him since.

I know he's just a cat but Kaitlyn loves him and she is such a wreck. Lollipop was a birthday gift to Kaitlyn when she turned 6. It's her cat and she loves him.



I would so appreciate prayers for Kaitlyn and that our crazy cat would come back home!

Happy New Year 2010!!

And goodbye to 2009...

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