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!

Proof that I am crazy!

This picture was taken in the mall on BLACK FRIDAY, because yes... I'm cool like that. I've gotten up early to shop before, but never as early as I did this past Friday. Deana somehow managed to talk this sleep deprived NON-MORNING person into leaving the house at 3am. YES people, I said 3AM! My perky friend called me at 2:55AM and was already in my driveway waiting for me. She's certifiable (insane!) I tell ya! But oh what a good friend....She took me straight to Starbucks, which was open for all of us nuts! Mmmm Chai tea latte!

We were in the parking lot at the mall by 3:30AM! Our plan was to hit JC Penny. They were having a fab sale on small household appliances that I just HAD to have. (really...I had no choice. Things call my name and I can't control it.)

Anyway... We saw people actually getting INTO the store. So we jumped out of the car, but we weren't employees.... haha... The people getting in worked there! So we had to wait outside with the rest of them. We even tried to play the "triplet card" that usually works so well for me hahahahahaha...But not this time. I had to trample people to get to the front of the line. (Yeah right!)

Finally, 4am hit and we ran into the store. My plan was to go straight to the slow cookers, because who could pass up a $13 five quart slow cooker right? I ended up also getting a 7 cup food processor and a blender thingy (just like the "as seen on tv" Magic Bullet) but not the same brand....for a total of $70 for all three items. SCORE!!!

Took those items out to the trunk of the car because, clearly, carrying them around would hold us back from the rest of our shopping!!! (And a cute young hunk carried them out for us :) We went back in, and I ended up buying 3 shirts for myself and three SUPER cute Christmas pajamas for the babies. When the rest of the mall opened, we hit up Macys and I bought some unmentionables. Then we went to The Children's Place where I bought some cute white tights for the babes. After a quick break and some Wetzel's Pretzels, we decided to move on.

So we headed to Best Buy and bought a big fat nothing. Then I remembered Babies R Us was having a super cool diaper and baby food sale. I bought 8 packages of diapers for $40. Turned out to be just 13 cents per diaper, which as you know, ROCKS MY WORLD! Also took advantage of the BOGO sale on Earth's Best Baby food. Got 4 cases for $20. I LOVE good deals! Oh and I bought a toy for the girls too.

The thing that cracks me up about this shopping trip is that it was not MY idea and I spent more than Deana! I would never think to get up at 3am. I tell her that it is her fault I spent so much since it was HER idea. hahaha...I have to blame someone! I was handing out cash like candy!

We ended up having such a great time. I am totally game for doing this next year too. I think we're going to have to get up really early the day after Christmas as well. I'm hooked and the girls' first birthday is right around the corner! Also, we need at least a 12 foot Christmas tree for our tall ceilings. Can you say 50% off? (I can, I can!)

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and a fun weekend. We sure did!