Teaching for 14 years I never knew how nice the weather is in September. We love it and we've taken full advantage of our last weeks of summer. Here are some September pics.
This boy would stay in the pool all day.
resting after swimming at auntie cathy's pool
this girl and her tablet
playing at Sherri's
arms crossed. stink face.
love this pic
aftermath of playing in the sprinkler
3 little monkeys swinging in the park
ready to fix things with his saw
these pics never get old. I love when they cuddle.
We went to Children's Art Lab in Mattapoisett. Elsie liked painting
Sam loved playing with animals and feeding them in the tub
watching their sister make her creation
she couldn't see the guys working in the yard, so went to the high ground
in her pajamas still. ay yi yi
who loves french fries?
these two!
the never ending yard project.
look mommy! it's a sea horse.
ready to work if they'd let him out of this fence
she says 'hey vovo, you forgot to water this plant!'
the boys watching them move a tree
Elsie watching and narrating their every move
Here is a pic off the fridge of the 3 invites. What a difference a year makes!
at the zoo
Elsie telling Grammie she won't share her cheddar bunnies
she took off her shoes outside then skinned her big toe running on the walkway. soaking the wound
love that this boy loves to snuggle
watching the guys work on the yard with vovo
selfies with momma
The boys helping build the fire pit
back yard coming along
loving the trampoline at gymnastics
with the backyard under construction, we have some dirty kids. play hard kiddos, play hard.
We got a new table! Saying goodbye to our triplet table
Sammy loved getting his face painted! Look at how relaxed he is
As soon as Elsie saw Sammy was a pirate, she wanted to be one too.
Vovo and his girls
We were outside coloring and Elsie kept hoarding all the crayons, so Sam took a few and went and colored on the bench.
Danny took this pic and I love it because this is the look he gives his momma all the time. That soft sweet look.
We gave up naps this month. Kids were just running around playing most of nap time, and Mommy was doing more work to get them to sleep. So we bumped bedtime from 8 to 7:30 and the kids are sleeping within minutes and waking around 8:30am. But every few days we get a tired crew that can't make it through the day without a quick crash on the floor. So cute when they are sleeping.
Sammy doesn't care where he is, drop and sleep.
he loves snuggling
reading a book on his momma's lap
Sammy's turn. afternoon snuggle
look at her face, totally up to no good
Elsie's new thing is trying to wash her hands after the potty without the stool. She pulls herself up and then hangs there. She had a romper on, so now she's naked after going potty, and notice the potty seat marks on her bum. Seriously, what am I gonna do with this girl.
yoshi
where did my baby go? she is so grown up
so handsome
Emmie
everyone thought it was funny when sammy tried to run off during group shot
I said 'where are your listening ears?' because they weren't listening very well.
Elsie won't hold her brothers' hands, but loved walking with Jazzy and Gianna
Even Danny wanted to hold hands
Sammy had no interest in holding hands, just wanted to puddle jump.
Her first french braids :)
Here are some pictures of our 3rd birthday party. We were lucky again to have great weather, and loved spending the day with family and friends. Thank you to everyone for coming and all the wonderful gifts for the kiddos, they've been in toy heaven all week.
I made Dory cupcakes, the kids loved them!
Finally, our year in review! Every year I'm stunned to see the comparisons.
This year I saw an article about toddlers taking pictures holding their NICU pictures. It moved me to say the least. I decided I would do it with our babies this year. People don't realize how much normal stuff you get robbed of when you give birth to a preemie. You can't hold them (for us it was 14 days before I held a baby), get the sweet little paper with their hand and foot prints and weight and length (I had to have a nurse look up our lengths on their medical records 4 months after they were born so I could record them), cuddle them, take cute little pictures without tons of wires and tubes coming out their mouths, you can't hear them cry (Elsie was the first to make audible sounds at 3 weeks when her ventilator was removed), put adorable little outfits on (6 weeks before we could put a onesie on), the list goes on. I never focused on what we were missing out on, probably because I was too busy learning all the medical stuff so I could add knowledgeable input in rounds everyday, but always focused on the small positive successes they made that could get us to the normal stuff. So when the normal stuff that goes on everyday here with 3 year old triplets gets me mentally exhausted, I try and remember that this is the pot at the end of the rainbow.
I picked some pictures from the first 10 days and framed them up. I labeled them with their date and time of birth, and their weight.
Let's start with Sammy. Born at 9:30pm weighing 770 grams, or 1 pound 10 ounces.
This picture was taken on day 9. You can see he is laying next to his sock doll. I took the sock doll and put it on top of the picture for you to see that it is almost to scale. So this sock doll is from Sammy's mouth to below his knees, and wider than him. He is on his side and the sock doll is higher than his body.
here he is holding the sock doll. WOW. This gives you good perspective of how small they actually were. My baby wasn't much bigger than that entire sock doll and now half of it fits in his hand.
He loved his picture and couldn't wait to hold it up for me
checking it out
he took a break from holding his picture to play with the basketball and I got a good pic
Next is Danny. Born at 9:31pm weighing 780 grams, or 1 pound 11 ounces.
This was taken day 5. I put the band-aid on his belly to show how big that was on their little body.
Here is the band-aid on my thumb. So my thumb was a third of his midsection.
he was less than enthusiastic about holding his picture
but excited to be playing at Fort Phoenix
and we're back to taking our picture...
He liked the picture, just not looking at me to take another one
and break for basketball and fun!
I liked this one with Sammy in the background
And last but not least, our feisty girl who broke her water first and got this party started...
Elsie Mae, born at 9:32pm weighing in at 700 grams, or 1 pound 8 ounces. That is 6 sticks of butter. Take that in a minute. If that isn't enough to wow you, check out the goggle comparison...
This was taken day 7. So Elsie wore these goggles for about 2 weeks nonstop because she was in light therapy to break down bilirubin.
To show you how small her head was I took out a can to put the goggles on but that was too big. I was able to squeeze them on to the bottom of a sippy cup
My thumb is bigger than the bottom of the sippy cup, so Elsie's head was smaller than my thumb. Look at your thumb from this angle, and imagine her entire head fitting in that width. WOW.
and look at her now
who would have guessed it
She liked taking her picture
Sammy kept pointing to it saying her name
one of her usual faces. she's saying no right now because Sammy is getting in her picture.
My little girl. My heart.
Hard to believe another year has passed. I made our year 3 video, I let the kids watch it the other day, Sammy loves it and wants my phone all the time to watch it.
