Oh no! I'm one of "those" moms!

Today we had a play date with my friend and her twins who are about the same age as the girls. We hadn't been on a play date in quite some time because Sophia has been going through the "cling to mommy and cry if we go anywhere" stage. Much to my surprise, Sophia did great. She walked right into my friend's house and just started playing. I was in shock. Rachel, on the other hand, entered the phase that Sophia is apparently done with. She cried on and off for about the first half hour or so, but them warmed up and played just fine. Morgan, as usual, jumped right in and started climbing on my friend's furniture.... LOL...Yeah.

My friend has taught her little ones to actually sit on their bottoms on the couch. Honestly, it never occurred to me that you could teach an almost 17 month old anything like that. I KNOW! I just haven't thought of it. I let the girls climb all over our couches in their play room. I figured they have fun doing it and it keeps them entertained. You know I'll do anything to keep them entertained. I guess I just never fully thought it through. If you let your kids climb all over your own furniture, how are they going to know not to do this at someone else's house? Yikes!

After were were there playing for a while, the kiddos were getting hungry. So we decided to give them some goldfish crackers to buy us some time before lunch. We had a couple little bowls of crackers. My friend's kids ate the crackers nicely out of the bowl.

What did my girls do you ask?

They stuck their feet in the bowl, kicked the crackers out of the bowl and then ate them off the floor.

We are classy peeps!

Once again, I didn't know you could actually teach a toddler this age to HOLD a bowl of crackers and eat them like a civilized human! LOLOLOL! I've always just let my girls get crumbs everywhere when they are snacking. They also throw food off of their high chairs during meals. I thought this was what all one year old's do! I think part of me wanted to crawl under a table and hide while my kids stuck their feet in crackers and threw their lunch on the floor.

Our play date really opened my eyes. I've been too busy just being in survival mode with the girls. The thought of teaching them manners on top of..... um, keeping them alive and well, is very overwhelming to me. I started yesterday afternoon at dinner. Every time one of them threw food on the floor, I grabbed their hand and said, " No, we don't throw food on the floor. Then if they tried to throw food again, I took it away and repeated myself. Yeah, I really made them mad at me during dinner last night. Breakfast this morning was the same. They threw food, I took it away...lather...rinse...repeat! Goodness gracious me oh my!!! Mealtimes are about to get worse around here before they get better.

However, as overwhelming as it may seem, I am going to stick this out. My girls need to learn manners. I don't want to be "that" mom who lets her kids run wild and throw food at other people's houses.

I wasn't raised in a barn you know!

Sippy cups and therapy

Over the past week, I've written many blog entries. Unfortunately, they've all been written in my head. Can I just say that I've been busy again? There is a lot to update.

Last week, I decided to take bottles away. A lot of my friends with kids around my girls' age have been off bottles for a while. I hung on to them as long as I could. It was more me that wasn't ready to move on to the sippy cup. My girls LOVED their bottles and I loved watching them get all excited to lay in their pillows to drink their milk. I think it was a comfort for them and for me. I'll admit it! Sophia and Morgan are doing just fine being bottle free. Neither one of them has had a bottle in almost a week. They don't seem to care that they are no longer offered a bottle. On the other hand, I had to bring bottles back for Rachel.

She had her first appointment with the food therapist last week. While we work on getting Rachel to eat more foods and to accept texture, she needs to keep drinking enough milk to make up for the fact that she doesn't eat very much. I tried getting her to use the sippy cup for milk but she refused to drink anything for almost two days. Her therapist doesn't want to make Rachel deal with too many changes at once. So she's getting two bottles a day and I'm working with her in the middle of the day to drink milk from a cup. There are several food exercises that I'm doing with her now. It's more difficult than I thought it would be, but I'm happy to do anything that will help her adjust. I also have to let go and let the girls get a lot messier at meal times. I've been stripping them down for their meals and trying to get them to learn how to use a spoon. Yikes!

Sophia has a new word!!!! She can say "cheese." She loves string cheese. Every time I give it to the girls, I say "cheese." over and over again. A few days ago, I showed Sophia the cheese before giving it to her. She looked at it and said, "cheese." It sounds more like cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese. She is so cute. She says cheese a lot while she is seated in her high chair. I'm so happy she has another word. She's can now say, Mama, Dada, Hi, and CHEESE!

Morgan went to her first birthday party this week. Well, other than her own. My friend's twins turned one over the weekend! I just took Morgan with me since Sophia isn't quite ready for a big crowd. She is still going through the mommy attachment phase. So Rachel and Sophia stayed home with Bob. We had a good time at the party. Being out with just one kid is so easy compared to what I normally deal with!

Oh last Friday I had lunch with a pregnant triplet mom to be. She's almost 18 weeks along. I met her at my last mothers of multiples meeting. She reminded me of myself when I was pregnant. She seems to have a lot of the same fears and anxieties that I did. I'm really glad that I can introduce her to a few more triplet moms in this area. I keep saying it, but I wish I had joined my club sooner than I did. It would have been nice to have the support! I'm so glad she joined this early on.

Well nap time is up so I think I will stop boring you for the moment. I hate to keep saying how busy I am, but I just can't seem to find the time or energy to update this as often as I'd like!

Hello FREEDOM!

Do you see what we have here? I'm calling it sweet freedom! We're no longer tied to our stroller to shop. Yay! A couple of weeks ago, I sent out an SOS for help..... to my local triplets group asking them for advice on how to shop without the stroller. I can't even tell you how hard it is to push a stroller and try to pull a cart or carry a basket. One of my friends told me that her favorite place to shop was Costco and Sams club since they both have double carts. Then she told me to strap a booster chair on the inside of the cart. Genius! It worked great!

I'm so excited. Going to the grocery store isn't that hard. I can order groceries online and have them delivered, or I can go at night after the girls are in bed. Costco and Sam's close earlier so it's always been hard for me to get to these two stores. Now that we can go during the week, my weekends won't be as hectic anymore. I don't need to sneak out to shop and then feel rushed to get back home to the girls.

I think we all enjoyed being out. This was obviously the first time all three were in the cart, and it was like a new fun adventure for them. I'm loving this age with them.

Dare I say shopping was easy today?

Someone punched me in the eye and other stuff

I accomplished absolutely nothing today. I had plans to clean the kitchen and then start organizing and pricing things for our upcoming yard sale. Instead, I woke up with a big fat swollen eyelid. Bob said he punched me in my sleep. It must have been some punch because you should see my face. I look like some sort of swollen eyed freak from the planet "psycho triplet mom." It was so weird to just wake up like this. I immediately sent Bob to CVS for some benedryl because I was sure it was an allergic reaction to something (perhaps waking up at 7am?). I took 2 pills and promptly passed out for about 4-5 hours. When I woke up, my eye was even bigger than before and I couldn't see very well out of it. I was close to visiting my friend in the ER who happens to work there. I finally ended up calling her instead and it sounds like I'm going live. I'll have to see if I am any better tomorrow. Otherwise, I'll try to get in to see a doctor. The difference between seeing a doctor in clinic vs. the ER is about $90 and 6 hours of my time. I'm hoping my eye is just better tomorrow!

So enough whining about it. I obviously can see enough to be able to type this.

Bob and I had a really fun little vacation in Lake Tahoe. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures to share. I brought the camera, but we just didn't use it. We started at our favorite local breakfast spot and then headed out of town. We had the BEST dinner at a restaurant called the Tahoe Grille. The food was so delicious I'm seriously still thinking about it. The next day we went to the lake and relaxed. While we were walking around on one of the trails, we saw a map that showed "things to do in the Tahoe area" on it. There was an ice arena around the corner from where we were. Bob asked me if I wanted to skate. Of course I did. I hadn't ice skated for years, but I had so much fun. They had public skating, but a lot of their figure skaters were practicing. It was fun to skate around with them. I didn't do too bad either. I pooped out after about a half hour though. Plus, I wanted to quit while none of my bones were broken. I do have three toddlers to care for. (With my one eye hahaha..) After skating, we did a little gambling. Bob actually won $90 at one point. We left only $20 in the red, but we had plenty of free drinks so we say we broke even. We acted like such old people because we were in our hotel room by 5pm. We ended up watching movies and ordering room service for dinner. We really know how to party. When we woke up Thursday morning, I was so ready to come home and see the girls. I missed them so much. We really did have a nice time away though. It was great to have that alone time as a couple. We're better parents for it.

Let's see...what else.

Morgan is walking pretty well now too. I'm so proud of her. She's so funny. Her favorite thing to do right now is dive head first off the couch. She scares me every time she does it, but she just does it over and over again. Silly girl.

Oh! Sophia was released from physical therapy. She had her last appointment last week. She is doing so well she doesn't need Erin anymore! I'm so proud of how far she has come.

Rachel has her food therapy evaluation this week. I'm really looking forward to it. She can be such a little stinker to feed. She's also so much smaller than Morgan and Sophia. I realized that the baby food she is eating doesn't have nearly as much fat and calories that the foods that the other girls eat does. I started adding a little bit of olive oil to her food at dinner time to add some fat and calories. She is definitely still my peanut!

My mom had her 60th birthday party last weekend. (Happy Birthday again Mom!) When we arrived at the party, Sophia had an immediate meltdown and cried for 20 minutes straight. I ended up having to call Bob to come and get the girls. (He was at home working....again.) He came and brought the girls home with him so that I could stay and enjoy the party.

The next day we were supposed to go up to my dad's for a family reunion. I ended up leaving Sophia behind with Bob and just brought Morgan and Rachel with me. We didn't need a repeat of the night before.

Well, I think I'm going to go rest my eye. Hopefully, I'll be as good as new tomorrow.

Oh and a big shout out and THANK YOU to my mom and neice. They stayed at our house with the girls while we were away.

Until next time!

Back from a little vacation....

Lots to talk about.

Bob and I just got back from a couple of days away together.

We've got another walker.

My mom had a fun birthday party.

Ahhhh.... Will update soon. My poor neglected blog.

Hopefully, I will have some time during the girls' nap tomorrow.

Now I must sleep.

4 Years Later....

Four years ago today, I married my sweetheart.

I couldn't feel more blessed to have my husband and our three beautiful daughters.

I am truly a lucky girl!

Grandma and Grandpa's House

This past weekend, we took the girls to Grandma and Grandpa's house. They had SO MUCH fun. Grandma and Grandpa have a huge yard and the girls took full advantage of it. Playing outside is something that they, unfortunately, don't get to do as often as I'd like. Bob has been working so much lately that our backyard isn't near childproof yet, so I can't get them outside while I'm alone yet. Anyway, I'm so glad the girls got to be outside for such a long time. They loved every minute of it. We even took them for rides around the yard in their choo choo wagon!

Here are some pictures from our day.

Grandma and Grandpa bought the girls their very own lawn chairs! They liked that they could climb into the chairs so easily.

Here's Grandma playing with Sophia. The girls LOVE their new dolls Grammie got for them!

Grandpa and Rachel. She loved walking around (on her knees of course) outside!

Here they are playing with the water fountain. I think this was their favorite thing in the yard. They splashed around in this for the longest time. Morgan tried to get in it..... with her shoes on of course! They were completely soaked within minutes!

Grilled cheese and fruit for lunch. YUMO! No bibs needed. They were already a mess! lol...

The girls had such a great day that they were zonked out within five minutes of the one hour drive home. Luckily, I brought some nice comfy (and clean and dry) pajamas to go home in.

We had such a nice time. The girls loved being able to roam all over the yard. They were so excited to be outside and somewhere new. We can't wait to go back and visit again very soon!