Buy One Get Two Free!: Saying goodbye to 2015

Here we are wrapping up another year. Wowzers. It has been another incredible year raising triplets. Many days are hard and exhausting, but so rewarding. Someone once said to me 'the days go by slow, but the weeks go by fast.' So true. There are many days I count down the minutes to their nap or bedtime, and then I blink and a month has passed. I can't express how much joy they bring to our lives, even when they are driving us crazy.

I looked at the kids standing by the door yesterday and couldn't believe they can easily reach the handle and open the door. They have grown inches in the last few months. This has been the fastest growth spurts we have seen to date. In June Elsie was wearing 6-9 months (and still a few 3-6 mo outfits!) even though she was 21 months. By September she was in 12 month clothing and now she is in 18 months. That girl is whizzing through wardrobes. It's nice to see her catching up in height with her brothers. They have also had a good spurt going moving from 12 months in June to 18-24 month clothing now. All their pants are getting short, but they aren't chubby enough to hold up 24 month pants yet. I haven't weighed them in over a month, but we were all between 21 and 26 pounds and 30-34 inches.

We had a fun month with holiday festivities, going to Miguel's parents for Christmas Eve, hanging out in our jammies on Christmas Day, and going to my family gathering on the Sunday after Christmas. I use the term fun here very loosely, as the kids are challenging to coral in any non-gated place for any length of time to open gifts, are easily distracted and run off in different directions, and are curious and want to investigate everything (think cup of coffee on the table, fireplace pokers, how the oven door works, the button on the cable box...) Usually by the time we get home from these 3 hour events, Miguel and I feel we've run a marathon and are spent for the day. I have almost no pictures from these events because I didn't have a minute (or a free hand) to take any. Luckily, some family members did, as they were laughing watching us chase our tails. As exhausting as it is, it is really awesome to watch the kids learn new things in new places.

We've started speech therapy with Early Intervention. The kids are in the program until 3 years old due to their extreme prematurity, and although they are speaking more and more, they are not closing the speech gap between corrected age and actual age like they are closing the other categories (cognitive, motor skills). It's great because the therapist comes to the house once a week and works with them, and what a difference I've seen in 2 weeks, as they are really imitating words and spontaneously coming out with new ones. It's really exciting hearing them make sense.

Speaking of hearing, we are working on our listening skills. Sam is a selective listener, hears everything you say, chooses what he wants to respond to. He'll pretend he didn't hear 'let's clean up', or 'let's get dressed', but will quickly respond to a movie request, or a new toy, or any phrase that starts with 'don't make me turn the tv off...' Danny is a great listener. This kid continues to surprise me every day, If you would have asked me if my most mischievous child would be the best listener, I would have belly laughed. I don't know if it is because he is the middle child, but he aims to please. He likes to clean up, and gets genuinely excited when you praise him. If you ask him to bring something to his siblings, he runs it over to them. Elsie, ahh Elsie. Boy are we in trouble with this one. When one of the kids aren't listening we ask 'do you have your listening ears on?' Well Elsie now points to her listening ears, and looks at you like 'yea I hear you', and then continues to do whatever the hell she wants. We are trying time out, restricting rewards, praising only the good behavior, we've slapped her hand and her bum, to no avail. Now, she will go to do something she knows she is not supposed to (like unplug the tv) and she will stop, look right at you, smirk, point to her ears and yank it out of the socket. She'll even slap her own hand after she does something wrong. Great. Glad her cognitive abilities are intact. And she loves time out. She sits there and laughs. She thinks the time out chair is her personal throne. Oh boy. And poor Sammy is so sensitive he cries the second she gets in trouble. So he delivers the emotional response she should, while she sits there in time out giggling and clapping. Meanwhile, Danny stands there saying 'uh oh', 'no way', and 'sorry' while she is being disciplined. It's a 3 ring circus.

Lots of videos this blog post, but not as many pics considering it has been a month. I feel like I am so busy I don't get that many, and a lot that I do are blurry because my little tornadoes don't stand still for a second. I'll make it one of my new year's resolutions to take more pics. Hope everyone had a great holiday, on to 2016!

Finished their sweaters! And 2 out of 3 smiling! woot woot

We love spending December days in the park! So glad the weather has been nice

snack time

ready for the game

He looks like such a big boy, tall and thin

lounging

selfies

another day at the park, stopping for a snack

on the big boy swing

my heart

love his smile

watching a movie

the selfie king

no caption needed

riding the bikes upside down

they love raspberries

Danny telling me he is all done

we love reading

out cold on the way to Vovo's

Christmas jammies

runaway naked boy

they love the truck

christmas jammies!

she loves her guitar

and her minnie mouse hat

sam figuring out his tablet

making a puzzle on the tablet

these next few pics have the best faces

Love this pic. Brothers.

This is my aunt's tree, we weren't brave enough for a tree this year

Danny's way of saying I'm sick of ham leftovers. Made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and he pulled out all the ham and threw it on the floor, then at the grilled cheese.

Sammy feeding the dogs

3 piece band

typical saturday morning in our house

selfie

pictures from my family gathering. I love Sammy listening to Bean intently here

Daddy and Sammy

Grammy, Mommy, Danny and Elsie

This is the best video. The guys are building a stone wall, and Sam watches, then picks up a golf club (hammer) and chisels his own rock like the guys are doing. He is Daddy's boy.