THREE YEARS OLD!!!

It's so hard to believe that these amazing little boys have been with us for 3 years now, yet sometimes it feels like they've been here all along & it's difficult to recall what life was like before them.

The boys sweet Triplet BFFs!!!

Well here is what these crazy boys are up to lately...

They have come so far verbally! It seems they never stop talking now, lol... Caden is more assertive in his speaking, beginning or ending his sentences with "mommy." "Mommy more milk please?" Or "I'm ready to get out of the tub mommy." His tantrums have cut down significantly since he has been able to communicate so much better. :)

Since they are talking more they are expressing some of their knowledge more, saying colors instead of just pointing to them, singing their ABCs instead of just identifying the letters, counting anything & everything, finding & calling out shapes in random objects. They also love to identify animals & make their sounds along with other objects like fire trucks & airplanes.

Strangely the more the boys talk the more they sign. I didn't start out teaching them to sign because of their speech delay but it did help out in that situation. When the boys started speech therapy it was said that as they start talking more they would drop the signing but just the opposite has happened & they are picking up more & more signs, combining signs, Kellan even signs his ABCs.

Caden; 1, 1.5, 2 & 3 years old

Their is no shortage on curiosity here. Garren & Caden ask what everything is & Garren asks what's it for. Kellan is more quiet & just looks at things, opening & closing them, driving them back & forth, really getting a good idea of how it works. All 3 of them get into everything & they've gotten really good at getting to where they aren't suppose to be. As if it wasn't bad enough when they learned to open or take down the baby gates, now they can put them back up too, so if I'm looking for one of them and see the gate still up I usually don't suspect they are in that room but not now! They will take the gates down, sneak into the room & put it bak up without making a peep, it's the silence that gives them away every time!

Adventure is a hot commodity for the boys too. Even Caden who was apprehensive to even climb on the playground equipment & go down a slide is now diving head first on his belly down the tallest slide he can find. Kellan has become a runner, though that is really NOT a good thing! He's really scared me a couple of times when he has run out doors of places we were shopping! He WILL get a harness & leash if he does that to me one more time! Garren is just a little daredevil, climbing up & hoping off of whatever & now leading his brothers right along with him.

The boys have been very challenging the past couple of months but I think (& hope) we are over the hump now & things are calming down. The boys wanted to test EVERY SINGLE LIMIT & pitch the most horrific tantrums when they didn't get their ways. Listening was also a huge challenge but is getting better with some old fashioned counting, 1... 2... 

Kellan; 1, 1.5, 2 & 3 years old

Keeping them busy has also helped a lot. We got somewhere to play everyday, a playground, (we have some good ones here) the tennis courts to chase some balls or just run or we travel a little for someplace new, indoors or just different. I usually save new/indoor places for bad weather days. 

I'm also planning to start a preschool homeschool curriculum soon. We've been working on letter sounds, sight words & the boys started trying to write letters on their own so we're running with it. Garren's learning style is different than Caden & Kellans so that's why I want to start with a curriculum. He needs a more hands on approach (like his mommy) than his brothers who seem to learn things by just seeing or hearing them a couple times.

The boys have a new obsession now, well since Easter. They had a few random items with Toy Story characters on them & had been inquiring about who they were so for Easter we got them the DVDs.we took them to pick out their birthday gift from us just knowing Garren would choose Jessie & Caden & Kellan would choose Woody. They completely surprised us & all 3 chose Buzz Lightyear! Kellan does have a little figure he picked up someplace that he is calling Woody, it's not actually Woody but we won't tell him that, lol...

Garren; 1, 1.5, 2 & 3 years old

Thomas, & Lightning are still a big par of our days, they have not lost their love or interest in them. Actually they also picked out some new train tracks to add to their current ones for their birthday too.

We are looking forward to the boys starting some sports & other activities soon, now that they are 3, they are all so active & busy i think they will really like soccer, gymnastics & t-ball! 

All 3 of the boys are so rough & tumble! They keep bumps, bruises & scrapes most of the time. They've turned our home into a giant wrestling ring or obstacle course! they really REALLY need a back yard!!! All 3 of them are also incredibly loving! They love to hug, kiss & cuddle, even with each other. When anyone gets hurt they are quick to offer a kiss & hug. With their big smiles & dimply grins they make it very difficult to get mad at them.

And of course we are looking forward to being a diaper free household in the near future too! Potty training has gone really well so far, Garren & Kellan have it down & Caden is "trying" he asks to "try pee pee in the potty?" & we of course let him. It's hit & miss for him though, I think he just doesn't have the feeling understood yet but he will in his time.

***This post is really random & all over the place but these are little details about this age that I want to remember so I wrote them just as I thought about them :)

17/52

Project 52; Almost 3!

Garren; Mr GQ

Kellan; Mr I must have a hat to leave the house, even if I'm going to fall asleep 5 minutes later :)

Caden; Mr I was afraid to even go down a slide at the playground 2 weeks ago but now I'll climb anything & everything!

Short & Sweet Birthday Weekend

The boys & I had a whirlwind Birthday weekend! It actually started Thursday evening... My mom & bonus dad took us out for a birthday dinner. Donna & I recently discovered a new pizza place with AWESOME pizza so that is where I chose to have dinner. After dinner we came back to our place for what I thought was going o just be coffee but my parents surprised me with an ice cream cake, my favorite! We played with the boys & visited a bit befor e they headed back home & I finished packing for our weekend trip.

Friday as soon as the boys were done at speech therapy, we jumped in the van & headed to Grandma & Grandpa Tilyou's house. We arrived about 3 & spent the afternoon playing outside, running around the yard, climbing things in the old horse stall & riding the tractor (riding mower.) We had a delicious supper of spaghetti & meatballs & after we got the boys to bed Donna & I got to sit & visit with her parents the rest of the night.

Caden, Garren, Kellan 

Caden

Kellan, Mom Mom, Caden

Kellan

Garren

Saturday morning the boys woke up early! Too early for grandma & grandpa so we tried to keep them entertained quietly but were not quite successful, so we opted for an early morning bath at the opposite end of the house from grandma & grandpa. Once everyone was up the boys played some more & opened birthday gifts from grandma & grandpa & Their Great Aunt & Uncle. After lunch we loaded up the van & headed to Marie's, my bonus mom. We spent the afternoon opening birthday gifts from Grandma, then headed out for a little shopping & dinner.

Sunday morning was a much anticipated day for me! As I'm sure you know by now, I LOVE photos of our boys!!! I had a session planned with my sweet friend from college, Kareen. She's such an amazing photographer & I was so excited to have her taking our family photos this year! It had also been a full year since we have had photos done, you may remember she took the boys 2 year photos last year & we somehow never got around to doing fall pictures last year :( 

So we played catch up & got the boys 3 year photos & some family photos done this go around. I'm going to try really hard not to harass my friend about sneak peeks but that doesn't mean I won't stalk her on fb for the next couple of weeks looking for a sneak peek ;)

After pictures we grabbed some take out for lunch & headed back to Grandmas again. We put the boys down for a much needed nap & when they woke up we had BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!

Kellan

Caden

I really wasn't feeling up to a party this year with the sudden loss of my dad recently, Donna agreed so we kept it low key. It was a short, sweet & busy weekend but it was perfect for us this year. Donna & I will be celebrating the boys actual birthday here tomorrow & the boys also have their 3 year check up later this week. Stay tuned for more BIG THREE YEAR OLD posts to come.

Flash Back Friday

It's so hard to believe these tiny munchkins (6 weeks old & 5lbs each) will be 3 on Monday!

Hard Stuff

I knew as this week approached that it was going to be a very, very hard week emotionally. Never did I imagine celebrating my 37th birthday not having my dad anymore & really it's not just my birthday but the boys birthday too just 3 days after mine. And I really, really never imagined our boys growing up without any of their grandparents! Maybe it was naive of me but I had all of my grandparents well into my teens, which I still thought was fairly young to lose grandparents.

I've been all over the place this week, sad, angry, hopeless & resentful. I want the time back that I thought we still had together & I want to be able to do the things I had imagined doing as the boys got older & I don't want to be celebrating my or the boys' birthday without him.

16/52

Project 52; Kepping busy indoors during a rainy week.

Caden. 

The boys turned the sofa & cushions into their own personal gymnastics course.

Garren.

A visit to see Mom Mom at work resulted in Garren confiscating these funny sunglasses from her office.

Kellan.

I set up the boys tent in the living room for them to lounge & watch movies from.

No rainy week blues here! :)

Easter

Easter is a bit of a nostalgic holiday for me, especially when it falls in late April like it did 3 years ago. Easter of 2011 I was in the ante-partum ward of Forsyth Medical Center going on my 3rd week of hospital bed rest & trying to keep the boys cooking on the inside for as long as I could. Little did I know that after celbrating my birthday the next day, 3 short days later, I'd be meeting our precious boys in person!

It's so hard to believe that was 3 years ago, sometimes it feels like it was yesterday, yet sometimes it feels like an eternity ago. It's even harder to believe that in just one week we will have three 3 year olds!!!

Onto this Easter...

Like the past 2 Easters, we spent the day with my mom & bonus dad at their house. The weather here has been cold & rainy for the past few days including yesterday, so hunting Easter eggs outside was pretty much out of the question. It didn't keep us from doing other fun Easter things though like coloring Easter eggs. This was the boys first time coloring eggs & I wasn't sure what to expect? They loved it! They couldn't dye the eggs enough & ended up coloring already colored eggs over & over again... We ended up with some very interesting colored eggs, lol. They didn't make as much of a mess as I had expected but Garren did like to drop his eggs in the dye from about 8" above the cup, so we had some splashes & some dribbles when transferring the eggs but no spills :)

Garren, Grandma, Kellan, Mom Mom, & Caden

Grandma looks like she may be reconsidering that this was a good idea, lol...

Not too awful for being dyed multiples times in random colors :)

My mom cooked up a delicious feist of ham, devil end eggs, au gratin potatoes, cauliflower salad (like potato salad but with cauliflower, it's super yummy!) baked beans, rolls & of course a couple of pies. We ate until we couldn't eat anymore & then, we had desert! The boys actually ate really well this year, ham has been kind of hit & miss among the boys but Garren & Caden ate a bunch of it this year (Kellan still doesn't eat much meat at all) they all ate olives & deviled eggs, the veggies were hit & miss amongst each of them but we were able to get them to try a bite of each (veggies aren't an issue for them, they just prefer green veggies) Everything was amazingly good & my mom sent us home with enough food for the week!

Papa, Grandma & Bella, their new puppy

I took a ton of pictures, I even remembered my camera for once but for some unfortunate reason nothing saved & when I went to upload the photos I just got solid black files :( I did happen to take a few photos of the boys coloring Easter eggs with my phone thankfully & one photo of just my parents (the boys couldn't sit still for a photo with grandma & grandpa) but that was it :(

I'm hoping I just need a new SD card & not a whole new camera, although I wouldn't complain about a new one since my DSLR is 7-ish years old now & pretty outdated.

I hope you all had a fabulous Easter too with your loved ones! 

Flash Back Friday

Easter 2012

Friday Fun!

On Friday mornings the boys have speech therapy.

{Did I ever mention that somehow Garren got approved for speech therapy too? The speech therapist doesn't even really know how the insurance approved him with his evaluation score but they did, we're already there & it can't hurt, so he's been getting in on the action too.}

So Fridays are speech day & since we have started speech at the new place my mom has been coming out every couple weeks & hanging out with us. It's been pretty fun, we have lunch & then hit up some poor unsuspecting store with the boys, like Joann's where I can never take the boys by myself without them dismantling the store. 

This past Friday my mom treated us to lunch at a place we hadn't been to yet. We set up the boys at a table & looked over the menu. My mom went to place the order, while she was at the counter ordering the boys got super excited & started calling for her across the restaurant, 3 boys yelling "GRANDMA..." at the top of their lungs, lol... We were only the second people to arrive for lunch so the restaurant wasn't full but all the employees & the elderly couple there thought is was hilarious, so did the boys! 

I think, or at least I hope Grandma felt a little extra special & not too embarrassed by all the attention :)

Potty Training Triplets & Avoiding Public Restrooms

I don't know about other triplet families or families with multiple children period, but potty time in this house is chaos! One of the boys will decided they have to potty & all 3 head to the bathroom. One will decide between the toilet or the potty chair, meanwhile one is already flushing the toilet while the third is either running the water in the sink or the bath tub. All the while I am trying to get to the bathroom in time to make sure the one who actually had to pee is aiming correctly & not peeing all over the toilet or the floor.

With this much chaos at home I shutter at the thought of taking the boys into a public bathroom! I was actually adventurous enough to take them all into the restroom at the speech therapists office & I'm pretty sure not only did everyone in the waiting area hear us but the entire office heard me hollering at the boys to "get out of the trash," "turn off the water," "leave the toilet paper alone," & my favorite "get your hand out of the toilet while your brother is peeing!"

I've kept a potty chair in the van since Garren started potty training a few months ago because he wasn't saying when he had to go when we were out, so I just had to have him try in between stops. Kellan has always been great about telling us when he has to go, but to avoid taking 3 kids into a public bathroom by myself I have each of the boys potty before we head into wherever we are, especially the playground! It never fails that one of the boys is always at the very top of the playground when another announces he has to go potty :-/

So that's my solution to avoiding dirty public restrooms & public restroom chaos, a potty chair in the van. Also a surplus of restaurant napkins/paper towels/baby wipes to wipe out the potty chair after emptying it (I park near a grassy median & dump the urine there) & some hand sanitizer to keep the good hygiene going. :)

Happy potty training to everyone else out there who's going through it right now! :)

15/52

Project 52; Playground Fun!

Flash Back Friday

My Dad holding Garren & meeting the boys for the first time

Milk & Cereal

While we were all at my parents house in Florida last month the boys discovered eating cereal with milk on it, opposed to just eating dry cereal which is what they had done up until then.

Their cousin Aliyah was eating her cereal that way, so of course the boys had to try it out and they have been eating it that way every since, slurping the milk & all! The boys love it so much they ask for "milk & cereal" for just about every meal & snack time too.

Kellan, Caden

Garren, Caden 

14/52

It's not the greatest photo of the boys but it what I've got for this weeks photo...

Project 52; Warmth & Sunshine!

Flash Back Friday

Caden

Garren

Kellan

The boys first birthday & first taste of cake, I can't believe our babies are going to be 3 this month!!!

When It Rains...

We've all heard the cliche saying "When it rains it pours." The past few weeks have been really hard grieving the loss of my dad & dealing with life in general but last week was the torrential downpour to my already dreary rain.

Last Monday our oldest pup Haddie had a couple accidents in the house. It was very out of character for her but tra the traveling & being away from home I thought (hoped really) that she was just upset. Tuesday she had another accident in the house but this time her urine was followed by bright red blood so I called the vet & Donna took her in that afternoon. She was there a while & had all kinds if tests run, turns out she had kidney stones, several really large ones & needed surgery ASAP. We took her back the next morning for surgery & had a pretty pathetic pup in our hands for several days.

Haddie just home from surgery

Eason was so worried about his big sister!

The girl a few days post-op

The week before my dad passed, we got a call from the property manager letting us know a 3 bedroom apartment was coming available. There was a waiting list when we moved in which is why we took a 2 bedroom so we decided to go ahead & take it. We spent the weekend moving out of our old place & into the new, so much fun with 3 toddlers in tow!

C, G & K taking a moving break

A couple of weeks ago Donnas dad went to the doctor for some back pain & blood in his urine. He had an ultrasound & the doctor saw what he believed to be a tumor in his bladder. Tuesday he had surgery to remove it, the doctor is pretty certain it's cancer so he sent it off to pathology to be tested & now we wait for those results.

Thoughts & prayers would be greatly appreciated by all of us right now! 

13/52

Project 52; Our Happy Helpers Taking A Break