Almost their birthday..

Grandma Di came to visit for the trio's birthday weekend. The weather was forecasted to be pretty bad (snow! at the end of March!) for Sunday and Monday. Of course we had planned almost all outdoor/sports toys for their gifts. So, since the weather was nice on Saturday, we gave them some presents that afternoon.

They tried out their t-ball set (all foam, in case someone gets bonked in the head).

Then they had a snack. They love dining at their outdoor table.

They also tried out their soccer net, but I guess we don't have pictures of that.


That morning, Jason and Grandma Di took the kids to a Book Festival event involving episodes of Clifford the dog.  There was a giant Clifford...

And they sat in movie theater seats for the first time! Jason said they did really well, but they only stayed for one episode since it was time to get home for lunch.

Saturday night we stayed up late making the kids' birthday cake. Well, really Grandma Di and Jason made it and I watched. :) 

Zoey

And last but not least - Zoey!

Zoey's favorites:
Color - purple
Animal - not sure - she doesn't seem obsessed with any particular ones
Beverage - milk and water
Food - peanut butter, hummus, cheerios with milk, cantaloupe
Toy -  dolls, kitchen
Expression - serious
Phrase - "actually..."
Loveys - her "baa-baas" - one white lamb and one horse


Zoey is a bit more independent than the others - she usually has a firm idea of her agenda, and does her best to get other people to follow along.

We think she is left-handed - she seems to eat and color with her left hand, and when we got this t-ball set she held the bat in her left hand.

She can be very serious and focused when working on something.

Zoey can be serious, but she has her silly side too. She loves dressing up and dancing, and changes clothes many times per day. Almost always into something purple.

She knows how to say cheese for the camera!

Lucas

Now it's Lucas's turn...

Lucas's favorites:
Color - blue or green. sometimes red.
Animal - dogs, cats, bears
Beverage - milk, water
Food - peanut butter, raisins, all carbs
Toy -  blocks, the TV remote, anything he can pile into his bed at night
Expression - Smile
Phrase - "hey!" "It's not big!" "I want three" [which actually means 2. and 2 means 3. very tricky.]
Loveys - his giraffe and frog

Some of Lucas's favorite activities include...dress-up

...sleeping...

...eating...

...strength-training...

 ...and spending time outside...

 

Lucas loves figuring out how things work, such as the TV remote or the iPad. He is always looking for the "on button" on his toys, whether they have one or not.

Lucas also likes helping me around the house, with things like folding and putting away laundry, wiping the floors after a spill, and bringing things to people. He also loves making messes and dumping out entire bins of toys. So I guess it all evens out.

One of my favorite things about Lucas is how much he loves his sisters. He always wants to be with them and is sad when he's separated from them. Sweet boy.

Abigail

As we approach the triplets' third birthday, we thought we would do a separate post about each child (baby? toddler? preschooler? kid? nothing seems quite right). They are alike in so many ways, but are also so distinctly different from each other.

First, Abigail...

Abby's favorites:
Color - pink
Animal - bunnies
Beverage - milk
Food - Nutella on waffles, broccoli, cauliflower, and more milk
Toy -  anything she thinks is hers, especially if it's pink or is a bunny
Expression - Smile
Phrase - "that's my _____!" [anything she sees that she wants]
Loveys - her "baa-baas" - she has to sleep with two white lamb loveys every night

Some of Abby's great personality characteristics include her sense of humor and silliness, and her sense of empathy. She seems to really be in tune with others' emotions and needs - even when reading books and watching TV she's usually the first to notice when a character is sad.

Abby is also great at making up words. Two recent examples:
1. We were eating cauliflower at dinner. Abby found a really big piece and said "here mommy, eat this mommyflower"
2. We were playing with toy computers. Abby found a similar toy that looked like a clock, and she called it a "clockputer".

Summer Fun

Braids!

Picking strawberries at the orchard

Haircuts

On Sunday I took the kids to my hairstylist for the first time. For the last couple of years we've had someone come to the house to cut their hair, but she's moving on and we thought the kids were ready to go to a salon for their cuts. My hairdresser has a salon out of her house, and I tried to get the kids excited about going to sit in a big salon chair.

The kids were a little uncertain when we got there, and when we asked who wanted to go first, Lucas said "Abby". With a little convincing, we got Lucas to go first while sitting on my lap. He did a great job sitting still - he has really thick hair so it took awhile. I don't have any pictures of him getting it cut, but here's one afterwards:

(all the photos with cool lighting were taken by Nicky, hairdresser extraordinaire)

The girls watched carefully, and once they realized it wasn't too bad, they were ready to go. Abby sat in the chair all by herself. She loved the pink cape with the dogs on it:

Then Zoey took her turn, and wanted to sit on my lap. Please excuse the flash in this picture:

Afterwards they got lollipops, got to play with Nicky's daughter's drums, and compared lollipops with little Sophie:

Thanks for great haircuts and a fun time, Nicky!

Big Snowstorm

Once we got to March we hoped the worst of winter was behind us. Alas, the biggest snowstorm this season hit us on March 6. And of course, this was a week when Jason was out of town Mon-Fri. Since we knew the storm was coming, my mom stayed with us Tuesday night [I didn't want to pack everyone up after work to stay at their house]. We woke up in the morning to no power and 6-8" of wet heavy snow. It kept snowing throughout the morning, and I think our total was maybe 8-10".

Our back deck

It was a rough wake-up. The kids woke up way too early, and they were scared when they saw that their nightlight wasn't on. Then we started hearing weird noises outside. We realized that our beautiful birch tree in the front yard had split down the middle, and one huge limb and all its smaller branches was scraping against our house, right along the kids' windows.

View out the kids' window - the branches were rubbing up against it

So, we were all up for the day at 6am, no coffee for the grown-ups, and no hot breakfast for anyone. Our water is from a community well, so we didn't have water either - no power = no water pump. We were able to get little trickles from the faucets though.

The kids didn't understand why we couldn't watch TV - Abby said "it needs new batteries" and "it's ok, we can watch a show on the big TV downstairs". My mom played piano for awhile, but then they wanted to listen to a CD, and we had to have the whole "no power" conversation again. We tried to lay around as much as possible, reading books and dozing. My mom and I rationed our diet cokes, and we ate lots of PB & J sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies.

After lunch, I went outside to start shoveling. Thankfully, the neighbor across the street was out shoveling too and he came to help me. We were able to shovel out the driveway enough to get the van out of the garage. Our prospects for getting power back before dark seemed slim and the house was getting colder, so we didn't want to spend the night there if we didn't have to. My parents had power at their house, so that's where we headed later. But first, a little playtime in the snow:

They didn't last long outside: "It's cold!" "It's windy!" "My mittens are wet!" They enjoyed tromping around a bit in their boots though. Poor Abby was stuck inside with a fever.

By late afternoon we made it to my parents' house and I enjoyed some hot coffee while the kids turned my dad into a short-order cook. Then they took a bath, with Annie supervising.

We ended up playing musical beds that night. Here's the bed they all started out in:

Eventually, Zoey ended up in bed with my parents, and Lucas and Abby ended up in the full bed with me. Abby was still feverish and sick, and by bedtime Lucas had a fever too. So I was also sweaty all night - sleeping with two hot toddlers who kept waking up throughout the night was exhausting!

Notice the sick, glazed look in Abby's eyes. Poor baby.

Unfortunately I had to go to work on Thursday. I went back to the house in the morning and the power was back on. So I went on to work while my parents brought the kids back to the house. It was a tiring week. Thank goodness Jason got home on Friday!

Bye Bye Hannah, Hello Preschool

We had to say goodbye to our sitter Hannah today. She needed to move on to another (full-time) job, and today was her last day. She was with us for about 18 months - the longest we've ever had someone. Can't believe the kids were only 18 months old when she started taking care of them!

I'm not sure the kids really understand that today was her last day, but we explained it the best we could. We're going to try to have Hannah come back to babysit on some occasional date nights, but we know she'll be busy with her new job.

So what's our plan now?? We were able to find a new nanny fairly quickly, and she starts next week. I think she'll be a good fit for us and the kids, but we also already know that she's temporary - she'll be starting medical school in the fall. That's ok, though, because we decided to send the kids to preschool in the fall, and my parents can take care of them a few afternoons a week when the school day is done. At first we had ruled out preschool because of the cost and the hassle of coordinating afternoon care, but after having to interview and hire our 4th nanny in three years, we are just feeling done with the process. So hopefully the kids will love their new school and will love having afternoons with Meme and Hat-Dad. And hopefully MM and HD will love switching to afternoons instead of mornings!

Finding a preschool was kind of tough. We were late to the game in terms of fall registration, and several schools we liked couldn't guarantee we could put all 3 kids in the same classroom. That just wasn't an option for us - no way am I putting my babies in school for the first time and separating them from each other! Luckily, we found a sweet in-home preschool right near our house that had room for all 3 of them. I think it will be a great mix of nurturing, play, and learning. I'm not looking forward to figuring out how to get all of the kids out the door on time 4 days a week, but hopefully it will be ok. Maybe the fun of shopping for backpacks and lunchboxes will take the sting out of it.  :)

And today I was reassured about the correctness of our decision not to put them in separate classrooms, especially at the place that wanted to put Lucas in a room apart from his sisters. Here are the two conversations I was a part of:

1. At breakfast this morning, Zoey wandered away to follow Jason and the guy who was giving us an estimate on new windows. Lucas kept saying "where's my Zoey? I need my Zoey!" and was so happy when she came back in the room.

2. Tonight at bedtime, Lucas and Abby were having a hard time settling down. Zoey was already in the pack n'play in our bedroom so she could get some peace and quiet. We asked Abby if she wanted to sleep downstairs in the other pack n' play and she said yes. Lucas got upset and kept saying "but I need you to stay with me, Abby!" It made me tear up a bit to see how much he loves his sisters.

So, I guess those are all our big updates for now. It's been a crazy few weeks of interviewing nannies and visiting preschools, but in the end I feel good about the decisions we made. Wish us luck next week when we transition to the new nanny!