Late night rambling....

I've been having trouble sleeping lately. I know what you're thinking. It must be Rachel. Nope, not this time. A little over a week ago, or maybe even two weeks ago because I can't remember, Rachel's swing kinda stopped working so well. It was making all of these weird creaky noises and was barely swinging. So we were forced to put her back in her crib. Much to my surprise, it was just a night or two before she was sleeping 11-12 hours straight....IN HER CRIB!

You know, I spent a lot of time worrying that I was doing something wrong by letting her sleep in the swing. Almost everyone who knew about our "dirty little swing secret" kept telling me what a bad habit I was starting. Turns out, it was the best thing for both of us. I got more sleep, and Rachel didn't have to spend hours "crying it out." I think the swing taught her to sleep all night on her own. I don't know. Either way, I am happy with the end result. She's not sleeping 11-12 hours straight every single night. I think we've had one or two nights in the past couple of weeks where she has cried a little bit, but things are much improved around here.

So back to my original point... I just can't seem to fall asleep easily these days. If I try going to bed at a decent hour (meaning before midnight), I just can't relax and actually quiet my mind enough to fall asleep. It's like my brain is on overdrive or something. My babies are finally sleeping well but I am still sleep deprived. Maybe my body has just been in the habit of not sleeping for so long that it will take some time before I adjust back to normal. Normal... what does that even mean anymore? LOL!

Would you believe the girls' birthday is just four little weeks away? I don't know where the last year has gone and I've been awake for most of it! My babies are quickly becoming toddlers. They have changed so much just over the past couple of weeks and are growing like weeds. It seems like we just bought them their 9 month and 12 month clothes. The 9 month stuff...well, you know.. doesn't fit anymore at all other than their short sleeve onesies which even most of those are getting too short. We had some blanket sleepers that they spent less than two months wearing them. Its so hard packing up the smaller sizes. I need to do an inventory in the next couple of days to see what we have and what we will need. YIKES!

I'm also trying to get organized. The girls were super spoiled for Christmas and got SO MANY TOYS!!!! And with those toys came so many parts and blocks and balls and clutter.... All welcome clutter of course, I just need to get some bins for everything. I bought a bookshelf from Target that I am going to need to buy some baskets for so I can start storing all of the toys when we aren't using them. Right now, they are just all over the living room floor where they play. I need the storage because they have too many toys out at once and it drives me batty.

I think this is enough procrastinating on my part. It's almost midnight. I shall try and go get some sleep. Someone please tell my brain to take a little trip to the place called SHUTTY TOWN!

2009

What a year this has been. I have never felt so amazed in my life. God has blessed us with three beautiful amazing little girls. We went from wondering if we'd ever be parents to an instant family of five. I don't really like the saying, "what a difference a year makes," but WOW...What a difference a year makes!

I have never been more sleep deprived in my life. Somehow, I've learned to make it through the day on less than 5 hours of sleep. Sometimes less than 3 or 4 hours....and never in a row. But watching our precious girls grow and discover everything around them is worth losing sleep. We went from preemies to almost toddlers. Just saying the word, "toddler," just .....I don't even know. I can't believe we are less than 5 weeks away from their first birthday. I wondered how we'd get through this year.

There are so many people to thank I wouldn't even know where to begin. The girls are 11 months old and we still have 6 volunteers (now friends) that take turns each week and come over to help us. I don't know where I would have been without them. They've saved my sanity on many occasions. They've all seen my meltdowns were I was so exhausted and overwhelmed that I would just cry. The best part is that they all love our babies and that is just the biggest gift.

So as we say good-bye to 2009, I will always remember this year. It was the year that God blessed us with the family we always dreamed of. It was the year where we've grown closer as a couple and now have a bond for life. It was the year that I met so many new friends that I can't imagine my life without.

I'm ready for 2010. As good as 2009 was (and well...sleep deprived), I think 2010 might be even better as we watch our little babies make the transition to toddlerhood!

Happy New Year everyone!

Our first Christmas

Yes, I am a little late posting this as Christmas was just about one week ago. But once again, I'm going to play the triplets card.

We had a wonderful first Christmas as a family. The girls were spoiled by so many. I think we have enough toys to run a daycare center. It was really fun watching the girls tear through the wrapping paper and try to eat the bows. They didn't care about the toys as much as they liked the wrapping paper. Morgan especially...She just wanted to taste it as fast as possible before Mommy and Daddy would take it away.

All in all, it was exactly what I could have imagined! We feel so blessed to have our three perfect little baby girls!

AND... the hubby...well he spoiled mommy with a diamond heart necklace. Good man!

Thank You Cousin!

A couple of days before Christmas, I got a surprise package in the mail. It was from my cousin, (and BFF) Donna. When I first opened the package, I saw an old black shirt with lace on the bottom. I immediately started to laugh so hard. I have been begging Donna for that shirt for a couple of years. Every time she wore it, I'd tell her it was mine. When I saw her wearing it in pics on Facebook (or MS back in the day), I would again...tell her I WANT THAT SHIRT! But of course she wasn't giving a new shirt up that easily. My day finally came.....looks like she was finally able to part with it. hahahaha...... It might be a little worn, but I am so still going to wear it. It's MINE now! Cracks me up......

As I continued going through the contents of the package, I saw this ornament wrapped in tissue paper. When I saw what it was, my eyes started to fill with tears. It is simply the most thoughtful and wonderful gift. I had been telling her that I wanted to get something special for us to mark this amazing year. She knows me well and knows that even though I wanted something like this, I would never do it for myself. This ornament is perfect. There is no better way to mark how special this year has been.

So to my cousin and my best friend; I love you. You have been there for me through thick and thin, and I don't know what I did all those years without you in my life. Thank you for making our Christmas so memorable and special!

You are the best!

A proud moment!

So Rachel has been sleeping through the night every night for around two weeks. Don't go jumping up and down just yet... She is sleeping through the night in her swing. That's right... in her SWING! The good part about this is that we have cut out the 11pm-ish bottle that she would always wake up for. She doesn't wake up for it anymore. I've been enjoying more sleep. I'm still anemic, so I've been enjoying this sleep! Plans are being made to get her into her crib....you know...kinda like a new years resolution. haha... Whatever.. I'm just happy I'm getting better sleep and so is she.

Sleep isn't what this post is about though. Rachel did wake up around 11pm, but this time it wasn't for a bottle. She had pooped a nice big messy one. Poor little baby has the poopies along with some gas so I guess that is what woke her up. I took her downstairs to change her diaper. She still sleeps in our bedroom so I wasn't about to take her in the girls' room and change her there. Anyway... as I'm changing her, she rips this loud adult sounding fart.... and then looked up at me with her big smiley grin and LAUGHED! Giggled like it was the funniest thing she has ever heard. I'm not even sure if she knows that she is the one who made that funny noise! It was just the cutest thing.

Laughing at farts.... She is definitely her mother's daughter!

Family of five

Last year at this time, I was on bed rest and medication worrying almost daily about making sure our babies didn't come too early. I didn't (couldn't) leave the house unless it was to go to a doctor appointment. Christmas just didn't feel as much like Christmas. There were no chestnuts roasting or yule tide carols caroling. We didn't even bother with a Christmas tree.

What did we have? We had sweet denial. Oh sweet sweet denial. We had no clue of what we were in for. Plans were made for how we would take care of three babies, but none stuck. How could they have? Unless you've been there, you don't know what its like.

And here we are. The girls are a little over ten months old and we're about to celebrate our first Christmas as a family. I've dreamed of this day. I remember two years ago, when right before Christmas, we had yet another failed cycle of fertility treatments. I was crushed and just wanted to cancel everything. I know a lot of people can't relate to that, but its something I still think about. I'm really counting our blessings this year. As hard as taking care of three babies is, I wouldn't trade our crazy life for anything.

So what are we doing now that we are 10 months old? I know you want to know!!!!

Morgan is pulling up to standing, cruising the furniture or the baby gates or us if we lay on the floor. She loves being on her feet. She can walk around all of the activity play tables if she is holding on to them. She's feeding herself certain finger foods and talking to us all day long! She thinks she is part of me...kind of like an arm or a leg... When she finds out she is her own person...... man.....

Rachel is finally sitting well on her own. We were worried for a while there, but she's really getting it now. Her favorite thing to say is still the letter H. But she's added things like hhhiiiiiiii. And mamamamamamamamama..... Mooooooooommmm She loves to watch tv too. I know its not the best thing for her, but this Mama needs a little bit of break once in a while and Elmo really has a way with our kiddos! If the tv is on, Rachel likes to crawl to the edge of the play yard, pull up to her knees and watch it.

Sophia is also finally sitting better on her own too. AND...I finally got her to eat Gerber puffs. Morgan and Rachel have been feeding themselves Puffs for a while, but Sophia finally just picked one up a week ago...and ate it! We haven't looked back! Sophia is really into discovering the world with her pointer fingers. She touches everything that way. See exhibit A.

Exhibit A (hahahahahahahahaha)


As hard as this job is, I am constantly reminded how blessed we are. No, we can't go out into public without the paparazzi (haha..that's my new name for all the stalkers and rude people who ask inappropriate questions.) following us around. And yes, I am exhausted most of them time. But we have three beautiful and healthy little girls. You can't complain much about that.

So as you are celebrating with your family this year, please think of and say a prayer for all those couples who are still longing to be parents and who are dealing with infertility. I couldn't have guessed in my wildest dreams that God would bless me with triplets!

So we've had some drama lately...

First it was the car seats. Of course the girls have outgrown their infant seats. We recently purchased the Sunshine Kids Radian 65s. They are well known in the multiples community. They are the only car seat that can fit three in a row when you have a tight space. Our van??.... Definitely a tight space. Long story short, Bob wasn't able to install the seats. We had a couple of days where we wondered if we were going to get these seats in at all. I seriously thought we might have to get a new van. Anyway, I ended up taking the seats and the van into a local fire station and they got them installed for us. They had to have one of the female employees do some of the installing though. It was such a tight fit that a man's hands are too large to tighten the seat to the straps. So....it was just a stressful couple of days. I'm really thankful that our local fire department does this service for us.

So the car seats are just fine. Everything worked out and I thought I could relax.

Yeah......

A couple of days later, we start to smell this musty smell in the house. Our first thought was.... "the girls are eating more solid foods"..."and pooping more." lol... I started considering what I should do to keep the poopy diaper smell under control. I put baby powder in the trash bin, I considered buying one of those Diaper Genie thingamabobs..I had to figure something out....The smell was getting out of control.

Then I found the real source. I went into the closet that is under our staircase to get the Christmas decorations out. WOW...that closet smelled like a musty muddy rotten river. And what do you know??? We had a musty muddy rotten river flowing right underneath our house. NO JOKE! As soon as we realized that the crawl space access to our mid-level (tri level house) was at the end of that closet, we knew there had to be something wrong down there since we don't put diapers in the closet. A very good (and brave) friend of ours came over to diagnose the problem. At first he thought it was the outside sprinkler water draining under the house somehow. However, when he went under the house, he came back with a "not so positive" look on his face. Poor guy had to tell us that we had a busted pipe and that ALL the kitchen sink water and ALL the dishwasher drainage was draining under our house. The piping was completely broken. And we all know I run my dishwasher at least twice a day!!!

We were so worried it was going to cost us thousands. We ended up having to get a plumber out here to fix the pipe and then a different company to clean up the mess and pump the water out. Total bill: $1,100. I wanted to cry! Its always something isn't it? Thankfully it wasn't more so we paid the bill and our house doesn't stink anymore. The smell was the worst during the clean up. We had to open all the windows up and bundle the girls to keep warm. It was either that or smell nasty musty-ness all day...... But everything was all cleaned up this past Friday and by today, our house smells fresh again. Whew!

So that was last week.

Here's hoping for a much better week this week.!!!!

And coming soon.... We had some really cute pics taken by some pros. I will be posting them and giving the ten month update really soon!