An Evening of Family Fun

Sunday evening Nick found someone to cover for him at work, so that we could have a fun family night out at the zoo! Normally the zoo closes by 5pm, but Sunday night was a special night just for members of the zoo! There was entertainment, food specials and freebies. The boys were so excited to go, especially when we started the night on the train....

Then we did something the boys had never done before.... we rode a boat! The 10 minute boat tour was full of cheesy jokes by the guide and we didn't see all that many animals, but the boys loved being on a boat.

After the boat ride we found a new-to-us place to eat our picnic dinner. There was no one else up there most of the time we were there and we had a nice view of the little lake. Nick said "doesn't this remind you of Maine?". Uh, not quite but it was pretty at least. Here's Chase offering me some of his cantaloupe.

During dinner, Nick helped himself to my camera. Wouldn't you know the one in-focus shot he got was of me? Lovely.

After dinner we headed to a part of Africa we actually hadn't visited before. The boys loved it! The animals were closer, so easier to see and it was nice and shady. The boys paused at one point for a heart-melting moment that I was just lucky enough to capture.

Then Jackson stomped in a big, muddy puddle even after Nick and I both told the boys not to step in it. He then proceeded to walk around the zoo like this, and complained that his legs were dirty.

After a couple of hours of fun, we joined the masses waiting for the tram back to the main gate. I'm pretty sure the boys would be happy if a trip to the zoo just meant rides on the train and tram....

Definitely a fun, family night!

No Way!

The boys have several funny new sayings they've introduced into their vocabulary. Ask Chase if he wants something or wants to do something that he likes and you'll likely get an "ooooh yeah!" out of him. Show Jackson something new and he'll say "ooooh! Special!". Flip past something on TV that isn't a cartoon and you'll hear "that's weird" from Tyler (unless it's Sesame Street).

Chase also has a little saying that can be cute and obnoxious at the same time... Ask or tell him to do something and you very well could get "no way!" thrown back at you. The constant "no ways" that we hear during tantrums are getting tiresome and Nick and I were trying to figure out where he picked that phrase up. Fast forward to last weekend when we were leaving church...

We demanded that the boys hold our hands when we walked across the street, which Chase didn't like. Then Chase wanted me to help him down the stairs, not Nick, but I was already down them with Jackson and Tyler so more theatrics ensued. Then he wanted to buckle himself into his car seat... As Chase was flailing, screaming and crying about it Nick said "No way!". We both paused and looked at each other and I said "Huh! Mystery solved! He got it from you!". We had a good laugh over that one as we drove out of the parking lot!

Speaking of Mr. Chase, he's acting totally like himself this morning. Woohoo! And the other two have been healthy since yesterday afternoon. Double woohoo! Makes me happy to see my kids happy.

Know what else makes me happy? The purses, diaper bags and cosmetic bags at Little Happys! Remember that Etsy shop that ran a giveaway here a couple of weeks ago? You all raved about her cute stuff and super reasonable prices. Just wanted to remind you that you have a few days left to snag something from her shop at 15% off! Just enter "Giggles" into the message to seller when you order and Little Happys will refund you 15%! Deal ends on the 15th, so hurry and order something to make yourself a little happy :)

Tantrums and Break Throughs

Tantrums: *sigh* I'm not a fan of these. At all. About 3 weeks ago Chase stepped up the tantruming (yes, I've turned "tantrum" into a verb) in a big way. Any little thing (and I mean little) would set him off and he'd go into a epic tantrum. He spent a lot of time in time out for about 2 weeks (maybe a little less) and now he's back to "regular" tantrum throwing. He now averages one a day instead of one an hour. Much more tolerable!

This week Tyler has started in his 2 week period of doom as I've now named it. Lovely! His tantrum on Tuesday morning resulted in him almost being hit by a car (thankfully I grabbed him just as the big Escalade slammed on the brakes). Yesterday he tantrumed the whole way out of church. This morning I lay in bed for 40 minutes listening to Nick deal with Tyler's tantrums (nice of me, huh? I figure I deal with 75% of the tantrums so I'm entitled). As a result of these lovely tantrums we are foregoing story time this morning. I don't need another fit being thrown in the library or in the parking lot. It's like I'm under house arrest until my kid learns to control himself! Gah!

I'll say this though - I am so thankful that the boys are being considerate enough to do these 2 week periods of doom 1 at a time! I think 2 (or 3) at a time would be more than I could handle. We'll see if in a couple of weeks Jackson starts in... Maybe he won't though - I realized this morning Jackson never throws tantrums! He'll cry if he gets upset (hurt or has something taken away) but never kicks, screams and throws a general fit. My easy going guy :)

Break Through: Speaking of Jackson, we had a break through yesterday!

For the last 2+ months Jackson has been scared to go in the bouncy house. He would walk around it, but never go in. It all started when about a week after their birthday he (and his brothers) were in it with Nick and the bouncy house become disconnected from the blower and it began to collapse on them.

Yesterday I set the bouncy house up and after 15 or 20 minutes Jackson actually got in! He was hesitant at first, but then he really warmed up to it and had a ball. Yay!!

 

Look at that concentration on Tyler's face!

Random Fun from the past week:

 

Tyler in Blue, Jackson in Yellow and Chase in Orange

 

Chase climbing up to give Jackson a hug after he woke up from his nap

Tyler climbing up to give Jackson a hug too.

Everybody now - Awwwwww!

Big thanks to those of you who clicked the button on my post yesterday! I'm in a much more acceptable place in the Best Baby Blog standings now - Went from number 171 to number 35!

Kisses, Hugs and Pushes - Video Clip of the Week

Last Sunday morning the boys were so cute I could hardly stand it! I was in the kitchen when I suddenly heard "more kiss!" followed by a lot of giggling coming from the living room. I grabbed the video camera, stuck it around the corner and caught this little gem...

Jackson is in the brown shirt, Tyler in white and Chase in stripes

If you love my blog, do me a little favor and click the button below for the Top Baby Blogs! It's a little sad being number 171 and with one little "click" you could push Three Times the Giggles closer to the top!

Towel Boys

Last night was bath night here and I just had to snap some pictures for you all. A week or so ago Nick started wrapping towels around the boys' waists instead of just patting them dry and turning them loose in the house. It cracks both of us up every time to see the boys walk out of the bathroom with their towels on!

Chase

 

Jackson (mid-spin)

 

Chase & Jackson

Tyler didn't make the blog because almost as soon as he dashed out of the bathroom to join the picture fun, his towel fell off!

I also just have to mention, today is the one year anniversary of my move from FreeWebs.com to Blogspot! Boy am I ever glad I made that switch too! My main reason for switching was for the storage space. On FreeWebs I was constantly needing to delete pictures or videos to make room for new ones. Since moving here a year ago I have yet to need to delete anything and last I checked I had only used about 1/3 of my space! On top of that, since moving to Blogspot I've gained hundreds of more regular readers and made some new blogging friends as a result.

I know it's been a while since I transferred old FreeWebs posts over here, so I'll try to do another chunk this afternoon for you! You can read old posts by clicking on "2007" under the Blog Archive header on the left hand side. Happy reading!

True Stories

I've had this cute little story all saved up to tell you for just over a week now. With all the fun of last week though it kept getting pushed back. Last night another, not so cute, story was added to the list of things to blog about. I've decided today to share both at once. First the cute story....

9 days ago we were leaving an evening at church and decided as a treat we'd take the boys to Chick-Fil-A for dinner and a chance to play in the play-area. While we were on our way there Nick was asking the boys questions from their GPS (Grow, Pray, Study guide that everyone in our church gets from age 2 to 102 - supposed to help us relate to that week's sermon or Sunday School lesson). Apparently the boys had learned about Noah's Ark that week because the first questions were about animals. Here's how the discussion (and I use that term loosely) went:

Nick: What is your favorite animal?
Chase: Jesus!
Tyler: Jesus!
Jackson: Jesus!
Tyler (again): Mommy!

Nick and I cracked up! In Nick's Children's Ministry Job it almost never fails that in a large group of children someone will always say the answer to the question is "Jesus". Isn't He always supposed to be the answer at church?

Story 2... This happened last night about 30 minutes before bed and about 5 minutes before Nick got home from the church. Here's how I imagine the sequence of events went down (I have to imagine because I wasn't brought into the picture until towards the end)...

Jackson pooped in his underware (it's something we've been working on with both him and Tyler).
The poo was small and pebble like so a couple of "pieces" fell out as he walked around the house.
Jackson walked back past the poo pebbles and thought it looked like a treat.
Jackson picked one up and ate it.
Jackson then came to me with a weird look on his face, his mouth open and something brown on his teeth.
I said "what on earth did you eat!" as I frantically used my finger to scrape the brown stuff off his teeth.
I then realized it was poop and was thoroughly grossed out and yet trying not to laugh at the same time.
I scrambled to pick up to two pieces I could see on the floor so as to prevent his brothers from eating "treats" too.
I then gave Jackson something to drink and we brushed his teeth.
Said tooth brush is now in the trash.


Saturday Savings will go up later today! Get excited for those Columbus Day Deals!

Today is the last day to enter the PJ giveaway!

Milk Mustaches

For the last few weeks we've been letting the boys practice drinking out of a "big boy cup" every day. As the boys will tell you, big boy cups have "no covers". They've gotten better and better at drinking water or nearly clear liquids from the cup, so yesterday at lunch I decided to take the plunge and let them try milk. Lots of adorable milk mustaches was my reward for taking a chance! (Oh and they didn't spill any either...)

Jackson is in blue, Tyler in yellow and Chase in white. And yes, they were wearing the same (or almost all the same) clothes the day before. And probably the day before that. They're developing "favorites" and with doing laundry every day right now they're lucky enough to get to wear their favorites everyday.


Now, for those of you curious (or just wanting a walk down memory lane) old posts from the boys' first 2 months of life are now here on the blog! Simply click here to read them or you can use the "Blog Archive" on the right hand side tool bar. I've "gone back in time" to post them, so you should be able to click for posts from 2007 to see posts from the birth and first two months. It shouldn't take you long to read the posts either, as I only blogged once every week or so back then!

There are some precious pictures on those posts just for you! Again, scroll to the bottom of the page and then read up in order to see them in order.

Things That Make Me Smile

I've been struggling for the past few weeks with some serious mom burnout. It hit me quite suddenly and I was relieved to hear this weekend that I'm not the only one struggling with this. In order to try to lighten the mood I looked for things that make me smile right now. In no particular order, here they are...

Cute moments I capture in a picture.


The Office. Nick and I started watching it this winter and some friends loaned us seasons 1-4 so we could "catch up". We watched 4 or 5 episodes last night (almost done with season 2!) and were laughing constantly!


Watching the boys learn new things. Look at how well they're balanced on these "big boy" swings!


Red Sox hats. Need I say more?


The Mom Song by the kids music group Go Fish. I came across this song yesterday on YouTube when looking for fun videos for the boys to watch.



Time out with Nick (which we hadn't had since early January). Yesterday a couple of girls from my high school small group volunteered to watch the boys for us so that Nick and I could attend the Royals/Tigers game with some friends! The seats were awesome (5 rows from the visitors dugout!) and the game was terrible if you're a Royals fan, but it was a good time.

Video Clip of the Week - 2 for 1 Special

Today I'm running a 2 for 1 special with our Video Clip of the Week! I found these two very short clips on the camera and decided to just give you both in one clip.

Clip 1 was taken by Nick. I guess he thought the boys looked super cute in their new PJs (first time wearing shorts/t-shirt PJs) and he was right! They're sitting in birth order there on the couch (Jackson, Tyler, Chase).

Clip 2 was taken by me the next day. Jackson is the one who falls on the floor and yes, towards the end he is the one about to take a bite out of Tyler's shoulder. Don't worry - he got a time out for that one!

A New England Tradition

Last night the boys got to partake in a New England tradition: the consumption of Whoopie Pies. My readers from New England are all probably nodding their heads at the thought of it being a tradition and at the same time drooling on their keyboards at the thought of eating their very own Whoopie Pie. For those not from New England or those who do not know any New England implants in their part of the country who have brought the Whoopie Pie to them, allow me to enlighten you.


That my friends is a Whoopie Pie. To put it simply it is heaven. It's rich chocolate cake with an equally rich cream filling. It's terribly bad for you (trust me, you don't want to know what's in that filling!) but as all bad things do, it tastes oh-so-good. In New England it is common to find giant Whoopie Pies (6-8 inches in diameter) wrapped in plastic wrap and for sale in pretty much any gas station or convenience store.

Yesterday I made a batch of Whoopie Pies to bring to brunch this morning. Yes, I realize this isn't a brunch food but they were requested and really chocolate at 9:30am is perfectly acceptable in my book. Anyway, I set aside a couple so that the boys and Nick could have one. The boys loved it! Lots of "mmmmms!" were heard in this dining room.




Chase and Tyler aren't eating Whoopie Pies here, but it is an adorable picture I snapped of them after nap time yesterday. I just had to share it!