Wrapping up being 1

We are in our last week as 1 year olds.  WOWZERS.

We have had a lot of fun this month.  The biggest news is on the swimming front, Sammy is now swimming on his own with the bubble!  His technique is adorable.  The idea at this age is you run in place to keep you vertical and your face out of the water.  Well in true Sammy fashion, he is more of a wiggle runner, shimmying side to side and wiggling his head as he does it.  He is super excited and laughs the whole time.  It's awesome to watch.  2 down, 1 to go.  She is getting better, but still very skeptical of doing it on her own.

In today's edition of 'I left the room for a second'..

We have moved all the chairs out of the room to help with the climbing.  Apparently that was not enough.  He moved the elephant rocking horse near the table and balanced on it to climb up on the table to get the fly swatter.  He loves the fly swatter.  And look at that smile, so proud of himself.

We had fun watching the parade at the Apple Peach Festival!

Love her faces.

After the parade we hung out with our family for Liam and Abigail's birthday!

They did some work on the street last week, the kids were all about it.  They stared out the window all morning, and we went outside and checked out the truck and the machine.

September 15th was NICU nurse day, and we tried to hold some signs to show our love to all our nurses we miss so much!  This is not as easy as it looks.

We are still enjoying the nice days on the deck.  Holding on to summer as long as we can!

We had a great day trying out some skills at All Ranks Academy gym this weekend.

Practicing on the trampoline at the gym prepped us for the bouncy house at Dean's birthday party.  I've tried bouncy houses before with them, and they were uninterested. But not today.  Sammy loved it.  Elsie liked it.  Danny refused to go in because he couldn't bring his stick in.  

We also played with our cousins and had lots of fun trying out the scooters.  

Sam is crying while waiting his turn.  

This waiting thing stinks mom!

Finally my turn and I wipeout!

More words this week.  Elsie said purple.  All 3 are giving me versions of rasperry and blueberry.  They like trying to name fruits as I serve them every morning.  They are definitely starting to put more words together as well.  Nothing super consistent, but I'll catch a phrase while they are doing their triplet talk conversations.  Happy to see them trying new words everyday, not sure I want 3 talking toddlers yet.   :)

So this past few weeks, I've been doing a lot of reflecting as we wrap up another year.  I've recreated some of the pics I posted last year showing the difference from week 1 to year 1, and now to year 2.  

Here is a little sock doll to the right holding up his vent pipe.  It is almost as long as him.

And today here it is.

Here is Sammy on DAY 9 with his sock doll.

And today.

Elsie on Day 5 with our wedding bands on her wrist.  They slid right over her hands.

And today.

See how we had to fold over this diaper because it was too big?

And today holding one up to this big boy

Holding Sammy for the first time 14 days old.  I remember Donna rested his feet in the shelf part of my tank top, and his head didn't even reach my neck. 

And today.

Elsie holding our nurse's finger the night she was born.  Her whole hand doesn't even take up 3/4 of the top portion of a pinky finger.  Look at your pinky finger right now.  Holy crap.   

Now her fingers are well into my palm and take up my whole pinky.

I also decided to create a video of the past year, but then thought I should do one for the first year as well.  I had started one after we left the NICU, but I was too emotional to ever finish it.  I thought now was the right time.  So I am posting year 1 on the blog now, and will post year 2 after the birthday party next week so I can add those pictures in as well.  

It took me a few weeks to make this video, and I decided to set it to music.  When the babies were in the NICU, I never sang lullabies or common baby songs to them.  I'm not sure why, when I think about it now I think it's because it was so hard to really commit to doing traditional baby stuff when we kept hearing from the team of doctors that we weren't out of the woods.  I don't know if there was a place inside me as a mother that couldn't go there just yet, but needless to say I would sing songs from the radio to them.  Some of my favorites were 'Don't stop believing' and 'Firework'.  To this day I struggle to listen to either of those songs, I feel like they bring on a PTSD effect.  The song I set this video to is never a song I sang to them, but one that hits home when I hear it.