Summer Beginnings

We are thoroughly enjoying the summer so far. (and what made it even more fun is when I remember last night that KC has work off today!) Let’s see if I can be concise as I give you a list of what we’ve been up to.

After the babies and I took an extremely hot walk, we thought a rinse was in order with all the sweat, sunscreen, and bug repellant covering their plump little bodies. I wanted to bathe them all at once, and luckily all the bumbos fit in the tub perfectly. This was always my plan for our little pool until they can sit up more securely (though the boys are catching up to Ruby pretty quickly sitting up better every day). So I’m glad to know they like it cause we’re filling up the pool today as it’s supposed to be blazing hot.

I think one of the first lessons we need to teach these kids is sharing. It might be a toughie. Poor Ruby.

 

I love snuggling on the couch before bedtime while we listen to lullabies ( I joined them after it took the picture). I could never get enough of  these moments. Times like this are especially sweet when I’ve lost my patience a few times during the day. These sweet faces remind me of how trusting, forgiving, and innocent they are. I hope I can remember that the next time all three of them are crying at me for no good reason.

They love eating Graham Crackers. And they have also become fans of those little puff snacks. It’s crazy to me that they are old enough for this.  

I have learned that the boys don’t love vegetable, but I can hide them in other things that they do like. I didn’t want picky kids, but I guess they think they know better. I hid the cauliflower in avocados and they couldn’t get enough of it. Looks like I’m going to have to invest in Deceptively Delicious, or just figure it out myself.

 

We got this fold up wagon that I thought would come in handy for any future ventures. It’s not intended for children, but we couldn’t resist. They loved it.

Here’s  more play time. Sometimes they get a little loopy and don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This is one such time. 

 

We had a few friends over yesterday for a batch of homemade strawberry banana ice cream. It has been so long since we hosted anything and it was great to hang out with some of the gang like old times. The babies loved playing with the other kids. (So much, in fact, that they wouldn’t eat well, and Bennett cried like crazy when it was time for bed, only to have Alex join him 45 minutes later.  We may have broken our rules a bit that night. I did this for a number of reasons, yet I still felt like I was weak and hypocritical.  But after we did, they slept like logs for the rest of the night until morning, though a little too early still. Ruby didn’t even budge for 10 hours even with our new rules! We may be getting somewhere and start to have our 12 hour nights without crying again soon. Whoa, long parenthesis.)

The babies were in their beds. But I’m pretty sure one was crying so they are still kind of present in the picture.

I downed a few pieces of watermelon so they could enjoy the rinds. It kept them busy for a wonderfully long time while we enjoyed the ice cream. I love this age.

Ruby looked like a red ripe strawberry when we came inside, all plump and pink. They all got baths after this sticky adventure. Aren’t summertime baths the best? They give me such a calm and relaxed feeling for some reason. Clean babies are such a gift.

 

Projects de-swaddle and de-pacifier are still underway. It didn’t help our efforts that I cheated a little last night. (No more of that.) From now on the set up is swaddling from the waist down, and a blanky in the arms. They seem to really like that.  Hopefully we can get back on track and get this goal fulfilled. They just had a great morning, each of them finishing their full bottles without any help from me, playing happily for their entire wake time, and falling asleep for their naps after only a few minutes of Alex crying, so I’m hoping that’s a good start to the rest of our day.

See ya later pacis and swaddles!

No more getting up in the night to re-swaddle. or re-pacify! I am done! I think the entire family relied on those way too much for any sleep. We spoiled them a lot in Utah, and now my little children want to keep those bad habits up. No more, I say! We have been pretty successful on the swaddle front (as long as they have their paci in place, leading me to this next decision to rid them of those props as well). This seriously broke my heart. (I though we were done crying it out. It was a sad night and day for me and the babies, but we made it-phew.) We'll see how the pacifier plan plays out. I thought I was going to go to church today. Ha. We'll see how that goes. I'll let you know of our hopeful success in the next couple days. Wish me luck (Ipod is ready to go)!

They looks so big with their arms out, snuggled up with a blanky. Just precious.

Milk in the eye never hurt anyone.

So, my babies are pretty fun to hang out with. Beside the times when they are being naughty, of course. As we’ve been getting back on schedule the past couple days, they haven’t been as agreeable as they usually are. Not sleeping well means not eating well, creating an obnoxious cycle.  This is annoying for everyone involved since when they are tired and hungry, neither I, nor the babies know what to do with ourselves.

But those times are pretty few and far between . I just had a pleasant meal time with them, and it’s about time they started acting like the darlings that they have proven to be. Sometimes when they get bored toward the end of their bottles and don’t want to finish, I like to play a little squirting game.

Sorry buddy! He didn’t seem to mind.

Also, I thought I’d add this one I took right after.

The babies are getting so self sufficient, wouldn’t you say? Alex will even hold his bottle most of the feeding if he feels like being really cooperative. And he does that gargling all day. Bennett was a little preoccupied with his toy, which was great since he was just finishing up a fussy spell. And Ruby seemed quite relieved after that sneeze. Must’ve been a good one.

I am just have to say that I thought they looked SO cute in their new 2 piece PJs (12-18 month might I add). My tiny babies are growing up so fast.

(Gotta love the sad faces too, right?)

Everything in Threes.

Around here, as you know, we have three of almost everything when it comes to the baby stuff. Well, poop is no exception as I just changed three poopy diapers one after another. Usually when that smell catches my nose I have to hunt the guilty baby down (or I know exactly who it us by the grunting and red-face I just heard and saw a few moments earlier). This time it didn't matter who I chose, I was right every time. This isn't as common as you'd think. I'd actually rather they all pooped at the same time than staggering it so that I have my hands in poop the entire day. Thanks babies!

Farewell Utah once again.

So, we are done with our latest Utah excursion. I always hate leaving. In fact, I almost canceled this trip a few weeks prior, partly because of the fact that I knew I wouldn’t want to leave. I always go with a resolution to devise a plan to live out there. I don’t necessarily want to live in Utah, but it’s my family I want to be near, especially now that I have kids. I mean, how can I not be sad when this is what I see as I’m driving away. Oh Amber, you can always count on her for a laugh.)

But I love Maryland as well, and it’s my home for now. It seems that as soon as I am getting settled after a trip like this, I seem to adapt right back into life and somehow forget how sad I was to leave my twin sister, the rest of my siblings, their families, my parents, and everyone else I love there. Probably because I am so busy getting these babies back into their routine, and this house back in order after my month-long absence (my suitcases have yet to be unpacked, and I don’t even want to begin the loads of laundry that is piling up).

Speaking of babies, I have to hand it to them for being such cute little troppers during a long, late flight. We left Monday evening on a 5 pm flight, an hour before bedtime. I thought this would either be a really great flight with them swaddled and sleeping peacefully in our arms most of the time, or a horrendous flight with them screaming, flailing, needing their dark, quiet, warm room to fall asleep in. Well, as soon as we boarded, we fed them and they all did fall asleep pretty quickly, only to wake up about 15 minutes later thinking it was play time again. They had been awake for several hours so they must’ve been tired, in fact they would threaten to drift off now and then, but then wake right back up. They didn’t seem to care. There were a few bouts of fussiness from everyone, especially Alex, but soon they were probably in that extremely overtired, loopy phase. They were actually pretty entertaining since they were so delirious and silly, laughing and jumping about. After a while of silently begging them to take  nap so that I could rest, I just let myself relax instead of stress, since I had tried everything I could think of to get any of them to sleep, and they were being so good despite their lack of it. I think the individual TVs on the back of the seats helped too. A lot of the time they would just lay in our laps looking at it, or other interesting scenery that the plane provides. And a big thanks to KC’s dad for volunteering to help with the flight. Those necessary extra hands are greatly appreciated.

 

They of course attracted a lot of attention from the time we stepped foot into the SLC airport, until we got in our car to drive home. They made fast friends with our flight attendants and surrounding passengers. They know how to charm an audience. Good thing they weren’t screaming the whole time, or I don’t think people would’ve been so friendly. There were a certain pair of people that were especially memorable. A mother and daughter waiting for their ride at the baggage claim. The mother was 93 years old, hilarious, and smart as a whip. They had a terrible day of traveling with unscheduled stops, still had a long drive back to PA, and it was after midnight. They saw me pushing two of the babies and enthusiastically asked to see them. When I said there was a third, they went berserk. They commented on every move the babies made as if they were the first babies they had ever seen, jokingly begged to take one home, and the mother deemed them “Smart little sons-of-guns,” when they were playing with their toys. With such a long day behind them, they said this was a bright spot in their hard day. I’d have to say they were mine too, though my day wasn’t as torturous. I hope they got home okay.

Oh, and am I the only one who thinks the drive from the airpot to you house feels like the longest drive ever? (And it doesn’t help when your car battery dies at the long term parking lot-though KC got it taken care of pretty fast). I was happy to be home and get these babies to bed. They had only been up for 10 hours straight! 2 hours is usually our max. Wow. What angels babies I have.

And did I mention how great it is to have KC with us again. It was a long three weeks without him. I missed my man like crazy!

So I have a million pictures and highlights (those with Google reader will see that I accidently posted a draft with that as a title-oops) of my great month in Utah that I will be happy to post as soon as I get the disk with all my pictures that I downloaded onto my dad’s computer. Hey, if I’m going to leave something behind, it’s better pictures than a baby, right? So until then, here is a little slide show of what I have with me.

This is much better.

Enough of that silliness below. I'd much rather be here with these cuties anyway. Check out this communication. Do they have a secret language? (They were talking for a while before I pulled the camera out. The curse of the camera I guess. Babies always seem to get distracted from whatever funny thing they are doing as soon as they see it. I'm just glad I saw it for a few minutes before I ruined it with the camera.) I love Alex's almost-embarrassed look when he discovers me. And I know they always have bibs on in the pictures. They're to protect their clothes from the inevitable spit-up, or they are about to eat. Oh well. It's true to life.


Okay, maybe one more. (Ruby only looks so small because she is squished down. She is quite the chunker these days.) They just make me smile all snuggled up together.


I wish I had time to post more, but this is it for right now. Funny babies, I have.

The new mom makover that wasn't.

If you tuned in to Live with Regis and Kelly at all this week (I usually don't, I was just flipping through the channels a while back leading to the series if events to follow), you'll see that they are doing a New Mom Makeover segment each day. Well, unbeknownst to everyone except my family, a couple friends, and whoever they told, I was a finalist for this. Yep, I signed up online a long time ago after watching a few minutes of the show (which actually is one of my do-not-watch-cause-it's-annoying shows). It was such a silly whim that I'd actually forgotten about it until the intern from LIVE called to ask me more questions about myself a couple months or so later. She asked me to send a picture head to toe with my hair down, sans makeup. So I did what she asked while I laughed at the thought of being on this morning talk show. As the days went on I sort of forgot sometimes, and other times became more curious as to what would come of this mysterious call from New York. A couple days later I missed a call. When I looked at the caller ID, it was the ABC channel phone number showing up on the screen. Was is a courtesy call to let me down, a congratulations that I had made it, or something else? When I listened to the message it was "Shelly from LIVE with Regis and Kelly."Turns out I had the wrong email address or something, but they never got my picture. They left a phone number so I quickly returned the call to get the correct information. Hmm. . .they cared enough to call so they really must have been considering me since there were probably thousands of entries. I thought I better read up on what I had gotten myself into. In the rules and guidelines it stated that the top 25 would get a phone call and they could choose up to 10 new moms to make over. I called my sisters for a good laugh and make imaginary plans to all go to New York together. My mom was staying at my house at the time and she and my Grandma were also in on the New York fun, should anything come of this silly whim I had one day.

I was always aware that probably nothing would come of it, but it's not everyday you get a call like that, so I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a little excited at the possibility. After a few days of not hearing back, I had the feeling it was all decided and done. The excitement lost it's luster as the days went on anyway, and began to seem pretty silly. It's not like I am desperate for a makeover or anything, I just wanted to have an adventurous weekend with the girls (though free designer clothes, and a surprise weekend getaway-an added bonus they gave the mom today- with KC wouldn't have hurt). I guess having triplets isn't enough. You have to be an army wife with lots of kids and a full time job to get any attention. I'm half disappointed, half relieved. I mean, I'd have to leave my sweet babies I'd have to prepare so much to leave them here and I'd miss then like crazy! And I would worry about pumping the whole time I was gone. And I am almost certain I would've made a fool of myself on national television. It's just something I would do. See it's better this way, right? Oh well, it's a good story to tell anyway. We sisters have tried to make up for our non-trip with dinner once a week, lots of play time, and a sleepover. One day we'll take our girls trip together, and we won't have to rely on Regis and Kelly for it.

My Littles

How about a quick update? Let's see. . .Ruby has been the overachiever of the week learning to sit up! She looks way too grown up sitting up so straight. She balances very well, and can stay put for minutes at a time. We practice with the boys too, but they are just a little more plump than her, making it tricky. In time, they'll join her. She is such a happy, funny girl. Whenever anyone wants to help get them out of bed, I always let them get her. She is so happy to see people and shows it with crazily kicking legs, and HUGE smile. She can hardly contain her excitment. She also does this "cabbage patch" mouth a lot. Love it.
Bennett is still such a relaxed and sweet little boy. He'll probably be the clingy one. I just love to cuddle that little man. Even though he might look mischievous in this picture, it's not so. He might need extra attention now and then, but I don't mind giving it. I love his subtle dimples when he smiles. Such a darling, my Bennett. He isn't always calm though. When he gets to kicking, he can really move, as you've seen in previous posts. It just seems like he thinks he's really getting somewhere. I wonder if it's a foreshadowing of any athletic skills in the future.
Alex is such a crack up. He is still the talker, and recently learned that he love to gargle on any residual milk in his mouth. He really thinks it's pretty amusing, and in turn, so do we. He gets pretty excited in the exersaucer and jumper, which is hilarious. I'll have to show you some videos sometime. So remember this post? I loaned those adorable gowns to Amber when Brady was born several weeks premature. Well, he actually never fit in them. She returned them to me yesterday and I couldn't believe how small my little sweeties were. Here's how well it fits today. What used to engulf his entire little body is now just a hat on my chubby boy. How fast they grow.
Well, I didn't mean for that to turn into such a detailed summary, but it turned that way anyhow. It's mostly for daddy. We miss KC like crazy. He'll be here in a couple weeks, and I can't wait to introduce him to his older and wiser babies. So much can change in a few weeks.

Cece

Okay, THIS is way too realistic. I wonder how far they'll take it. Until she's in high school?! Hilarious. Jim and Pam do make adorable first time parents, huh?

For KC (and be prepared for a lot of pictures).

Here are some highlights to date. And for KC to see how his family is doing.

The airport and plane ride.
Penny's blessing.

(Some kids were forced out of the hot tub for this, and Gabe is asleep.)Amazingly we all fit in my mom's car. (Though it will be very nice to have a van again.)

We wished Michelle a Happy Birthday.

Who doesn't love a towel picture?

What? How did that get in there?

Starting to play already.
Ruby wanted to join in the fun.

Cousins Julia and Penny.

Who knows where she comes up with this stuff.

Grandma and Grandpa Robinson play with us too.

Studious little Ruby.

Pizzookie time!

Whoops.
Britney!
For some reason it's so amusing to take pictures of all the babies lined up. There would even be a lot if I only had one to add to the lineup, but when I add three, it just looks a little ridiculous. This is at Elise's, and my cousin Suzy's, double baby shower. The guests of honor Penny and Molly are on the left. What darling little dollies they are.
These are all the babies born in my family in the past year. Penny, Brady, Ruby, Alex, Bennett, Gabe. It's seriously baby heaven around here. And when mine are asleep, I can usually find another one or two to fill the voids. I love it.
And of course, a couple videos.

Such a fun cousin, that Juju.


Here's Ruby and her hyper self. Oh, she makes me laugh.



And just for fun, this is the latest snl clip we can't seem to stop quoting.



Other highlights not pictured:
weekly sister's dinner
slide shows/family videos
laughing to tears anytime Amber is around
hot tubbing

Utah is being good to me.