Taking It Like a Man

This morning 4 members of this family had to go to the doctor's office to get shots... Flu Shots for the boys and a Tetanus shot for me (Nick and I got our Flu Shots last week). Wanna guess who took their shot like a man? Nope, not me! Well, I mean I didn't cry but I am quite whiny now because my arm hurts...

Chase took the shot like a man. The boy didn't even cry! I wish the same could be said for Tyler (who cried for about a minute) or Jackson (who cried hysterically for about 4 minutes). Now the question is, will Chase take his next vaccinations "like a man" in December?

For those that are curious (I know I was!) the chunkers had to be weighed before getting their shots... Jackson is king now, weighing in at 23 pounds even, Chase is a close second at 22 pounds 12 ounces and Tyler is trailing by more than usual at 21 pounds 2 ounces. To be fair though, Tyler does more running than his brothers.

Food from the Floor

Apparently food that falls onto the floor tastes better. Or maybe it's just fun to crawl around under the table looking for scraps to nibble on (much like a dog, which is ironic considering we don't have a dog and the boys have never been around one).

The boys eat pretty well while they're at the table, but they make a MESS! It's not usually on purpose (although we have those moments too) though. They just shovel food into their mouths so fast that half of it falls out of their hands before it makes it to the mouth. Generally we pick up the food off the floor before letting the boys out of their chair or we put them right into The Pit so that they can't get into the food on the floor. The other day though I let them down without cleaning up first and noticed an interesting thing.... Even though they had appeared "all done" at the table, they were picking up food and eating it like they hadn't been fed all day!

Now when I see a lot of food on the floor (especially if they're of the vegetable variety) I will intentionally not clean up before letting them down because I figure they'll eat some more! When I told Nick what I was blogging about today he confessed to doing the same thing lately too. Maybe we should just serving all meals on the floor... Jackson would be happy about that!

Finally A Sign!

Seven or eight months ago Nick and I began a quest. A quest to teach our boys simple signs (from American Sign Language) in order to ease the communication barrier. We've had friends teach their children these simply signs quite successfully, so we decided to give it a go.

In the last 7 or 8 months we've checked out Baby Einstein's My First Signs from the library half a dozen times. Nick and I have also been diligent in always signing when saying the following words: eat, drink, milk, sleep, more, cereal, mommy, daddy and a handful of other words. We knew consistency was key and also that it might be several months before the boys signed back...

We knew fairly early on that the boys knew what the signs meant even though they weren't doing them back. I would do "Daddy" when Nick was pulling into the driveway and they'd all get excited and try to look out the window. Or we'd do "eat" and they'd head for the dinner table. As we were inching closer to their 1 year birthday though with still no sign of a sign we got a little frustrated. I even contemplated giving up on the signs.

The first day we gave them milk (2 days after their birthday), we signed "milk" for the first time to them (they'd see it on the video though) and immediately they all signed it back! We were so excited! Then we went a solid 6 weeks of them only doing "milk" and none of the other signs. Then a couple of weeks ago we had a break through - Tyler and Jackson both started signing back "eat" and then a day later they added "more" to the mix! Chase can do both now too and just today I figured out that Tyler is signing "drink" but we didn't recognize it as that.

Here is Tyler demonstrating "eat" and "more".

Let me assure you though that just because the boys can now communicate with us, does not mean we no longer have tantrums. Just yesterday Tyler came up to me, pulled on my pant leg and signed "more" (he had just shared a cookie with his brothers) and I had to sign back "all done" and tell him no. Know what he did? Started to cry, pull at his face and sit on the floor for the next 5 minutes. Poor kid thought that just because he signed it, he'd get it!

High Five!

This past weekend Nick taught Chase a neat new trick. The ever popular "high five"! It really didn't take long for Chase to figure out that when Daddy put his hand up in the air he wanted Chase to slap it.

Chase is quite generous with his "fives" too as he routinely does not just give "five"... usually it's more like fifteen or twenty!

Next time you see Chase, hold your hand up and ask him to "give you five". Hopefully he won't leave you hanging :)

Also, I added a few cute pictures to the new 14-16 months album (yup, the boys are 14 months old now!). Check 'em out!

Brotherly Love

There are few things more special than witnessing sweet moments between your children.


Yesterday afternoon Chase fell and bumped his head, resulting in a lovely little goose egg on his forehead. I sat on the floor to hold and comfort him while he cried and while we were sitting there something sweet happened....


First Jackson came over to us. He looked very concerned when he saw Chase was crying. Then I heard Tyler coming towards us from the other room. He walked right over to us, put his hand on Chase's back and just looked at him. My heart about melted then!


Then Jackson started doing silly things. I swear the kid was trying to make Chase laugh! Unfortunately it was then that the sweetness ended... Jackson bumped his head while being silly for Chase and started to cry. I held out my other arm to him and he came to me. As he was crying and burying his face in my neck he started to try to push Chase out of my arms. The little bugger wanted me all to himself! Ahh brotherly love.

Our Story

After several years of dating, including some long distance, Nick and I were married in October of 2002. Immediately following our wedding in Maine, I joined my husband in Michigan where he was Director of Children's Ministry at a church located between Detroit and Ann Arbor. We made some friends, some great memories and then God decided it was time for a change.

In November of 2004 Nick received a phone call from a church in the Kansas City area - they wanted him on their children's ministry staff! After a trip to see the church for ourselves, we decided to move to Kansas even thought this would put us further away from our family. In January 2005, the Kansas City area became our new home. Things were wonderful! Nick loved his new job and I loved my new job as copy writer for a large Christian radio network and we were enjoying life in the Midwest.

In August of 2006 we decided it was time for kids. Actually, we decided it was time for one kid... Fast forward seven months to February of 2007. I am finally pregnant! We eagerly shared the good news with family and friends and were looking forward to the ultrasound that was scheduled for the end of March.

March 30th, 2007 - a day to be remembered for sure! I was 12 weeks along and getting cranky! I remember the nurse telling me my bladder needed to be full for the ultrasound to work better but it was almost an hour past my scheduled appointment and I thought I was going to burst.

Finally it was our turn and little did we know, our lives were about to take a dramatic change. I remember looking at the screen, anxiously praying that our baby was OK. You know, first time mom jitters. I remember thinking to myself "That kind of looks like the pictures of twins that I've seen in my pregnancy books". Wouldn't you know it, twenty seconds later the tech asked us if twins ran in our family, to which we replied "No!". The tech said, "Well they do now"! We were thrilled with the news! We didn't think we had a shot at twins but had discussed how fun that would be. That wasn't the end of the shocking news though - about a minute later the tech said "hmmm". I jokingly said "There are only two, right?" That's when she discovered baby number three! With this, my husband started laughing and I started crying - tears of joy and fear, all at the same time.

Multiples certainly aren’t a rare occurrence in this day and age. However there weren't any multiples anywhere in our immediate families and we hadn't been using any fertility treatments so we weren’t thinking this was something we’d ever be experiencing.

In late August 2007 at 33 weeks and 3 days, Jackson, Tyler and Chase entered our world. They were beautiful, healthy babies and spent only a couple of weeks in the NICU as feeders and growers. It was then that we received confirmation to more stunning news: our boys are identical triplets. This is very rare, and depending on whom you talk to or what you read you'll finding varying degrees of rarity - everything from 1 in 500,000 to 1 in 200 million. I think it's about 1 in a million - maybe 2 million, but certainly not 200 million.

Life with triplets is crazy, exhausting and fun. I’ve put my radio career on hold and have taken on the roll of stay at home mom. While it’s true that triplets are more than Nick and I bargained for, we wouldn’t trade our crazy life for the world!

Six Years Ago

Six years ago it was a cold and rainy day in Maine. The rain didn't stifle the excitement of my wedding day though!

We've had a lot of adventures since that day in Maine. We lived in Michigan for a few years, moved even further from "home" when we came to Kansas City and the biggest adventure of all was the arrival of Jackson, Tyler and Chase.

If someone had told me on my wedding day that in less than 5 years I'd be the mom to triplets I would have laughed in their face. How was I going to have triplets? Multiples don't run in the family after all! I didn't even know identical triplets were medically possible until it was happening to me.

If someone had told me on my wedding day that Nick and I would be moving even further away from New England than just Michigan, I'd of told them they were crazy. No way would I agree to that! Guess God had other plans.

If I've learned one thing over the last 6 years it's to never say never. Sure, I'd like to think that we'll get to move back east someday but I no longer put a time frame on it (like I used to). Sure, at this moment I'd like to have another baby (in the future! not now!) but I know better than to say without a shadow of a doubt that it would only be 1 baby and not 2 or 3 at once (even though the medical statistics if I had multiples again would be out of this world and would probably get us a show on TLC). Life is funny like that! I'm finding it's better (and more fun) to just hang on and enjoy the ride.

New Best Friend

I have a new best friend! I can't have conversations with this friend (if I did people might say I was crazy), but boy does this friend help me out... it's my new Dust Buster!

I've been saying for months now that a dust buster would come in handy. Picking up tiny bits of food after ever meal or snack gets old, as does dragging out the vacuum 2-3 times a day. When my parents were here my dad helped me pick up after a couple of meals. I guess being under the table picking up tiny bits of food wasn't as much fun as he thought, because he came back to the house one morning with a dust buster for me!

Oh how I love my new friend! Clean up after a meal is so much faster and I don't have to drag the vacuum out nearly as often as before.

Jackson, Tyler and Chase seem to like the dust buster too... as soon as they hear me click it on they come as fast as their little legs will carry them! They especially enjoy when I try to suck up their shirts. Ahhh the simple fun we have here.

New Video

Now you can experience the glory of the pudding incident by clicking on the "video" link on the right hand side and watching our newest YouTube video! Or, just click here.

Good Messy Fun

Last week pudding was on sale at the grocery store. Know what my first thought was when I saw that? "I bet the boys would have fun finger painting with that!" Call me crazy. Go ahead, do it!

Friday night Nick was still in Virginia and Laura was over here keeping me company for the evening. After dinner Laura and I moved the boys onto the tile floor (boy was that a good move!), took off their bibs and shirts and prepared for some messy fun.

They didn't know what was happening but they were pretty excited!

Well that didn't take long....

Jackson and Tyler

Jackson

Tyler - his arms were covered in pudding because his brothers kept trying to grab him!

Chase

It's been several days since that night of fun and I'm still finding pudding splatters in the kitchen! The mess was worth it though and I've promised Nick we'll do it again sometime.

Welcome!

Welcome to our new home!

I know I conducted a poll a while back about whether or not to make a move to a more "traditional" blog set up or to stay with Freewebs. At the time of that poll, Freewebs won in a big way. I was only too happy to stay there too as I enjoyed the set up of our website.

Last night as I was attempting to load a few more pictures onto the website I discovered I was yet again out of space on Freewebs! It seems like I have to delete pictures, videos and/or blogs every few weeks in order to put something new up and I'm tired of it.

If you look on the right hand side of the page, you'll notice links to our photo album and our YouTube channel. I will also be including many more photos in my blogs now that space isn't such an issue.

The old site will remain up for a few months for people who want to read our older posts as I'm going to just start fresh here.

If you have our site linked on your blog, please remember to change the url link!