Trouble and Fun

I tell you what, I cannot take my eyes off these boys! It feels like every time I turn my back someone is coloring on the floor, biting a brother, being rough with a book, throwing toys or unraveling a roll of toilet paper.

Ahhh, there's the pantless culprit, Jackson. Of course his brothers thoroughly enjoyed playing in the mess when Jackson streaked through the kitchen dragging most of a roll of TP behind him.

Thankfully, the boys also know how to just play together and have a good time. Check out this awesome slide we found at a playground. Isn't it just perfect for triplets?!

(cell phone picture)

L-R: Chase, Jackson & Tyler

Lessons From the Kitchen

Lesson #1: Be sure to turn your KitchenAid off before adding more powdered sugar!

Lesson #2: Never leave a canister of flour unattended on your table when your children are nearby...

I turned around from my place at the stove to see all three of my angels sitting on the table. One was tossing hand fulls of flour into the air while the other two were dipping their fingers in and tasting the flour. The minute I yelled "HEY!" they all scurried down and ran off giggling like mad.

Life is never dull.

Bonus! Laundry Lessons

When hanging laundry outside to dry, do not leave the socks and underwear unattended on the deck...

What's down the hole, Tyler?

Ahhh. All of the clean socks and underwear. Fantastic!

Mud and Whoopie Pies

Yesterday afternoon was filled with sugar and mud, two favorites of the boys. During nap time I did a little creating in the kitchen and made some St. Patrick's Day Whoopie Pies (they have green, mint filling!) for my Etsy Shop. After the boys woke up, I let them sample the treats!

 

Jackson

Chase

Tyler

  

Then we went outside for some fun! It was only about 40 outside, but with the sun it didn't feel so bad. At least until our fingers got too cold!

  

The boys seemed to forget their sandbox etiquette over the long winter! They were told repeatedly to stop throwing sand and dumping sand on each others heads. Jackson was the main culprit and landed in time out several times...

 

  

  

  

  

  

Ahhh yes.... mud!

Cookie Decorating With 2 Year Olds

Turns out the boys are still a bit young for cookie decorating. I'm thinking the decision to let them decorate gingerbread men with their older cousins (ages 3 and 5) was not one of my smarter moves of 2009. Oh well. Live and learn!

Of course, the boys thoroughly enjoyed their time with giant bowls of frosting on the table... Jackson alone had probably 5 or 6 spoonfuls of the sweet stuff!

 

 

Tyler had fun too and I saw him sneak a couple of spoons of frosting. I think he had more fun though watching his cousins decorate their cookies.

 

Chase wasn't into the whole "spoon it on in big globs" way of decorating. He wanted to try out the special decorating squeeze bottles. He wasn't really strong enough to squeeze much out though, so really he ended up just jamming cookie up the tip.

After their lunch of frosting and cookie bits, we gave the boys some meatballs for dessert... Oh boy was Jackson a mess by the end of all of that!

 

Why Aren't They Napping?

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the couch wondering why on the earth the boys still sounded so wound up nearly an hour after going down for their naps. I decided I should peek in and lay down the law with them (because "the law" means so much to them right now). As I rounded the corner into their bedroom I was hit with a wave of stench. Uh oh...

 

Wow. Jackson and Tyler really like this new found skill they have (removing their own clothes). Apparently Chase was a captivated and encouraging audience for these two hooligans as well. Thankfully the bulk of the mess was contained to the two cribs, I must have reached them in time before they started smearing things on the wall (there was a little on Jackson's wall, but not too much). I guess Tyler thinks there's such a thing as too much human waste in a crib though, because in addition to what you see in his crib he also peed on the floor in front of his crib...

Just goes to show you, 3 boys trapped in a room can be dangerous at any age. Good thing I know how to laugh and have the foresight to take pictures so that I can share my joy with all of you!

It Doesn't Take Much

It doesn't take much to excite the boys. You should see them running around and talking about the field trip we're going on later this morning with our Parents As Teachers group. I'm sure there will be some cute pictures to share later this week from that!


It doesn't take much to mess up our newly cleaned carpets. I learned this week all it takes is a chocolate chip or two falling out of a cookie and a blueberry falling out of a pancake. I  think Nick and I have officially given up on the carpet in the "dining room". It's a losing battle. Someday soon we'll just rip that carpet up and put something a little more practical down.

It doesn't take much for the boys to make a large mess with their desert.

 

I looked at my sticky boys and at my chocolate covered table and wondered how on earth they managed that. Then I caught Chase in the act...

Laugh or Cry

When raising children one must often make a conscience decision. Do you laugh or cry at whatever just happened? I've been trying really hard to choose "laugh" lately, even though I want to cry (or get mad at the very least). Here are two recent examples...

Lately Jackson and Tyler have had a hard time making it to the potty on time between the hours of 4pm and 6pm. It's really quite remarkable how many times the two of them can pee on the floor in those 2 hours (we're talking 4-6 accidents between the two of them in a 2 hour span). I don't know why they have such a hard time in the late afternoon/early evening, but they do. As a result dinner has been late several times because of all the, uh, activities here.

This past Monday night I decided I wasn't going to let these potty time escapades get the best of me or my dinner preparation. My plan of attack? Start dinner at 3:30pm in hopes it was done sometime between 5:30 and 6. Good thing I did too because it took me nearly 2 hours to get dinner into the oven! In those two hours we had 10 trips to the potty, 3 puddles on the floor and I got to rescue a sippy cup from a toilet. All I could do was laugh. And be glad I started dinner when I did!

The next night Tyler did something that had Nick and me rolling with laughter...

Yeah. That would be a large piece of poo you see there on the floor.

We were in the middle of dinner when Tyler suddenly jumped up and frantically said "potty! potty!" so I grabbed him and rushed him in there. I could tell he was starting to poop (something we've been working hard at getting him to do in the toilet rather than his underwear) so I was frantically trying to rip off his pants and his underwear. As I was doing this he also started to pee, so he was spraying everywhere before I finally got him on the toilet. That had me giggling enough and then just as Nick came to see what I was laughing at I noticed the poop on the floor. That sent me over the edge and Nick cracked up too. We told Ty he was so close!

What will you choose to do today when your kid does something crazy/obnoxious/frustrating? Laugh or cry? I'm choosing laugh again; it seems to make the days better.

Colors

It was a colorful weekend here at our house!

Friday night after I gave the boys haircuts it was into the tub for them. We decided to take a break from the usual bubbles and do something a little different....

They were slightly concerned at the site of the red water, but seemed to enjoy it!

Yesterday morning I gave them some blueberry/banana smoothie with their breakfast!

Tyler

Jackson

Chase

Then they finished the weekend by reading the Sunday Paper together.

 

Clean Up In Aisle 1

In the last 2 months I've mopped up more pee off the floor (both carpet and tile) than I care to count or even acknowledge. Let's just put it this way - potty training 3 is rough on carpet! I feel like my house must perpetually smell like urine, which is why I'm currently arranging to have a cleaning company come deep clean our carpets. Sorry, I'm getting off track here!

Early last week we had a horrendous 45 minutes here... I'll spare you some of the details because quite honestly they may cause you to lose your mid-morning snack (or lunch or dinner depending on when you read my blog). Basically though it all started with Tyler making the biggest mess on the carpet that I've seen yet and then that mess getting spread by Jackson. After I finished cleaning Tyler up I went into their bedroom and shut the door in hopes of cleaning the carpet before "stuff" set in.

While I was in the bedroom Chase had to pee, except he didn't bang on the door or even yell to me that he had to go potty... no. He peed on the floor (carpet again) right in front of the door. I whisked him to the other bathroom (bathroom #1 was still out of commission following Tyler's mess) to clean him up.

When Chase and I rounded the corner into the living room we found this...

 

  

I like to think Jackson noticed it had been a particularly trying 45 minutes for me so decided to take initiative and clean up his own mess. It should be noted they have NEVER helped mop pee off the floor - they've only watched me do it a hundred times. I was shocked when I came out and found him like this! He even had gone into their diaper bag, pulled out the container of wipes and pulled one out to mop the floor with. Needless to say, this was the silver lining (and something to make me laugh) on this very dark, very big cloud.