Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Family time at The Cove


















Pics: Kendall saw the camera and wanted to get it. Mommy and her little buddy, Clark. Emma seems to be interested in a videography career path. Emma in the pack n play sleeping and holding her feet. Clark flashing another beautiful smile. Emma hamming it up. Emma enjoying the outdoors and the sun on her face. Clark napping after a long afternoon at the park (the reason he doesn't appear in as many pictures as the girls). Emma, Daddy and the ducks. Clark being a ham. Kendall and Mommy having a laugh. Emma finding the grass. Emma and her beloved paci. Kendall finding the grass. Kendall and Daddy. Kendall getting sassy with her paci.



We had a great afternoon as a family at The Cove (a park in our area). The weather was PERFECT and the babies did really well being in a new place for such a long time. We tried to get a lot of pictures as this was sort of their first visit to a park (aside from their first walk in a stroller back in March). Kendall and Emma had their first experience touching grass on film, but I missed it with Clark (sorry buddy). All three of them saw ducks, geese and the lake and they also felt the wind on their face (and blowing their hair!!!). Mommy even put socks on the girls because people are always telling me that their feet are cold and it seemed pretty breezy(Clark was napping at the time and wrapped up in a blanket).
Prior to that, I had taken a few pics in their denim (just because), so there is a little mix of scenery (our living room, the park, the pack-n-play).
They are all doing really well. (We will probably mess that up as tomorrow is flu shot day in addition to two more vaccinations.) They have been so much fun to play with and watch them start to interact with each other. Kendall is crawling more and more each day. They are all LOVING the jumperoos and jumping like crazy. They have also really enjoyed spending more time outside as the temperatures have been so pleasant. We sit in rockers on the front porch, exersaucers on the back porch, plus time spent on walks in the strollers. Emma still has the loudest voice, though she seems to be the quietest in terms of the number of times she uses it. Kendall is full of laughs and giggles. And Clark is somewhere in between (starting to chat more and laughing a lot as well). Emma has really started to get pretty giggly in the last couple of days also. It's just so much fun to get them laughing.
I need to get to bed, but hope that you all enjoy the pictures. My thoughts as we left the park today: "A good time was had by all." :)

Monday, September 22, 2008

Babies still sharing their VOLUNTEER spirit!





Just wanted to share a few pics of the babies in their Volunteer garb. Kendall on a walk. Emma and Miss Patti(our sitter). Clark and Miss Patti again.

We are sorry that the Vols didn't win this past weekend (but for our Gator friends, congrats!). No time for a big update, but I wanted to post a few pictures.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Household in a frenzy

Well, we are having company this weekend, so my household is in a frenzy. Normally preparations for company would take a lot of time, but with triplets living here now, time is not something we have a lot of. With that in mind, I have chosen carefully the things that have been the priority 1.) planting fall flowers in pots for the outside of the house 2.) cleaning windows around the house 3.) cleaning the garage door windows 4.) packing up books and various things in an effort to babyproof. As you can see, Aunt Tami is in big trouble because I still haven't put sheets on the bed, cleaned the bathroom, checked for toilet paper, vacuumed the floors, etc. Just kidding Aunt Tam. I promise that the bathrooms will DEFINITELY be clean. :) We also have other friends coming in from Gainesville for the big game this weekend. Obviously, they are rooting for the "other team". Our babies will show them some VOLUNTEER spirit in their fun outfits and you all will see the pics VERY soon.
On top of the other preparations, we ran out of homemade peas and green beans, so the babies are getting more of the store bought stuff. This isn't "against the rules" or anything, just expensive and we had hoped to make as much of our own food as possible. It has just been really hard to carve out the time to make it, though it isn't THAT time-consuming, see above where I mention that we are short on time these days. :) So, that is something else I need to do tomorrow - make peas and green beans for babies.
The baby food choices are expanding: peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, bananas, applesauce, pears, carrots, blueberries (combined with applesauce or pears), rice cereal and we've added back squash (since the dr felt Kendall had eczema not a reaction to food and Ems and Clark just have sensitivity to the acidity in dirty diapers rather than to the food). We are hoping to add other breakfast options like oatmeal soon and more veggies like broccoli, spinach, etc. We are still using the 4-day rule for introducing any new food, so it's taking some time to get a large menu for them.
They are gobbling down their plates of food at each meal (three times a day). They get about 5-7 tblsp of food each time (which seems like a lot to me), but they seem to really enjoy it. Emma is even doing better at eating and almost always cleans her plate. Kendall is a riot when she gets veggies that she doesn't seem to care for at first. She crinkles up her face and gags and then tries to make her "motor boat sound" and ends up spraying the person feeding her with what she is eating - yummy. Clark still keeps his mouth open just like a little bird. They all seem to eat fast - by choice, not just because we shovel it down in an effort to hurry. You simply cannot get the food into Emma's mouth fast enough. We are still giving them four bottles a day, the last one being between 7:45 and 8:15 just before bed. We also try to get them to eat more rice cereal just before putting them to bed. Some nights we are very successful and others...um, not so much.
We did have a full night of sleep on Tue night when they went down at 8p and no one required any intervention until after 7am. It was heaven since it was my night with the monitor. Of course, there were some moments of fussing, but it always subsided quickly and then I just wake up wondering why I haven't heard anything from them all night. I think it's a mommy-thing. But Wed night was anything but restful, so you just never know. They are definitely improving though and we are happy to see a potentially full night's rest on the horizon. :)
We now have three jumperoo things - two Rainforest Jumperoos and another Baby Einstein version. They really do love these things. Emma has just learned how to jump in them and is so princess/ballerina-like. It's the funniest thing to watch her as it looks sort of Riverdance-y while she jumps with her feet sort of to the side. All three of them can be in them at once and seem to encourage each other to jump more. Kendall really gets on a roll and starts jumping like crazy and loves to have an audience.
They have also begun tooling around in a walker (downstairs only). Kendall seems to love it the most and is enjoying her new-found freedom. She is attracted to the garbage can - or at least the plastic bag inside of it, so babyproofing is a definite issue these days. She seems to be the one who is teaching us quickly what needs to be taken out of their reach the fastest. She created an avalanche of kitchen things the other day when she rammed the walker into the side of our baking table, so we found somewhere else that we need to look when deciding what to put away from babies' reach.
We had a very windy Sunday and had the babies with us for a quick trip to Sam's and Wal Mart. The wind was blowing their hair around - even Kendall and Clark. How cute it was! They are all growing so fast and it appears that the food is really helping them "bulk up". It certainly has changed the diaper-changing situation in our home. Boy howdy can they make a diaper dirty now that they are eating food! But it is all a part of growing up and it's still fun.
Gotta go get that bathroom clean! I apologize that I don't have any pics, but I didn't have one of each baby that is recent and didn't want to appear to have favorites. So, I will get pics up in a day or so.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Just cute pics









Pics: Kendall trying on her GO VOLS smile (more of that to come). Emma at 7 mos looking oh so precious (sorry it's a repeat, but I wanted to get the others up here and didn't have one of Ems - sorry baby girl). The morning lineup of exersaucer parking at the front door, although they are usually all bunched up so they can see out of the front storm door.
Aunt Sandi and Clark showing off the bib she gave them (don't worry, they are ALL VOL, but we are trying to please the Ohio State relatives :) ). Clark and a cute crooked smile with Daddy - but we cut him out of the picture. Kendall being a superstar!

No time to post a lengthy update. Babies are eating, pooping and sleeping (sometimes). They are making all sorts of new discoveries each day and growing fast. More updates later. Hope you enjoy the pics.