All About M

Check out my nose...

Playing piano

M has a twinkle in her eyes. It is definately going to be hard to keep up with this gal. She is constantly on the move and into things. We have nicknamed her Dora. Yesterday afternoon all three of the little gals got into some gift wrap tissue paper; they were all three eating it. I noticed when I got to them that she was literally the one holding the bag.... handing out the contents to her sisters. (A leader in the making?) She has already managed to fall off the bed and get a nice carpet burn on her nose. Cute isn't it? She really enjoys music. She can often be found pulling up to the piano bench and waiting for someone to help her up to play the piano. She actually plays nicely and beams with pride over every few bars of music she makes. It is adorable! She also stops whatever she is doing and moves toward the sound of music from the radio or cd player. Just like the others she adores Big Sis. In the mornings after she has finished her bottle, she always heads straight for E's room. At 9 months she has 6 teeth, waves hi and bye(as of today), can sign more when she wants more cheerios, and did I mention she is climbing on everything? She has an easy grin that you can watch spread across her face; it always starts in her eyes. M is always the one I choose to dress in blue thanks to her beautiful eyes. She is a real pistol, and I love chasing her around!

One Brave Mommy

I actually let Scott get out of the water today long enough to take a picture of me and all the girls! It was very scary, and M wasn't the least bit happy about it (she's in the pink float). I think we are going to have four little water bugs by the middle of summer. E is doing great already, and she's only been in the water 3 times this season!! We have had a very relaxed day... not accomplished anything, but we weren't trying. Gotta love the occasional break like this.

Daddy's Girl

If you ask E her Dad is the only person in the world who makes edible pancakes, he can read her books in English or Spanish (she loves that), she loves to talk about what city Dad is in, and he usually brings her a pack of gum when he comes home from a trip (hey, a little bribery never hurt). She informed me the other day that she wants to be a mommy AND a pilot when she grows up! This little girl sure loves her Daddy.

Memorial Day Photos

E and Carter upside down

So many children he didn't know what else to do.....

Super E Attacks the Pool with a Vengeance

M and K with Great Grandparents, Nanny & Pop C.

S with Doodah, Just a Swingin'

9 Months Old!!

Happy 9 Month B-day to us!

I can't believe they are 9 months old already! The girls are amazing us daily with their new skills. They had their first tupperware cabinet party today... I should have taken some pictures of the mess that ensued. M is proving to be a true little explorer. She is also the risk taker of the group. K has been the snuggle bug for the last few days. She also has the most teeth right now-6. S was the last born and tends to play the role of the baby of the family. Amazing that they were born within minutes and she still gets away with that! E is loving them, helping with them, and just recently has become not too thrilled with the idea of sharing her Mimi with them. I guess I can't complain; she is great about sharing everything and everyone else! Scott got home from a trip this evening, so it looks like our family is set to have a wonderful Memorial Day! Hope everyone else has a great one too!!

Early Risers

This morning the babies started crying to get up at 5:30am. They never start that early so I went in to see what was going on. I only heard K crying, but when I got in there everyone was awake. Aughhh! I decided to change diapers, replace pacis, and put them back in bed for another hour... hopefully. Then I turned on the light. Major aughhhhhhhh! Not to be graphic, but there was poop everywhere on two of the three babies. One bed had to be completely disassembled except for the matress and frame. By 6am I was working hard to contain them while I cleaned up the mess so they all 3 ended up in one bed. At that point they were so cute I stopped what I was doing (it wasn't fun anyway) and went to grab the camera. They were so sweet and being their typical selves... M was pulling up and sitting down again over and over, K was chewing on the bed frame, and S was hamming it up for the camera. Sorry for the low light; it was only 6am so the sun wasn't exactly shinning yet. Here's a short video of them being their best "sorry for the trouble, mommy" selves.






In other news, Mimi is home from her vacation to the beach. Hooray!! I hope she had a great time because we sure missed her bunches around here!!!!

The Picture of Trouble

If this isn't the new face of trouble, I don't know what is! We found M, who had been missing for about a minute, under the babies feeding table helping herself to their toy basket... she has also pulled herself up and over into the toy basket in the living room several times in the last two days. She has a serious drive to explore. Thankfully the other two aren't trying to stand up on everything they come in contact with just yet.

We've Come a Long Way, Babies!

I asked Scott to help me retrieve some pictures I had taken with the digital camera while the card wasn't in last week. I found them this afternoon... along with a couple of other amazingly old photos that hed also been lost in the depths of the camera. I had to share them. It is just amazing how big these girls have gotten over the last 9 months. Guess I should have saved these for a few more days and posted on the actual 9 month birthday, but I just couldn't resist. Perhaps I'll come up with some sort of photo collage for Sunday, hmmmmm........

My friend Sara was here today so she took a couple of me and all the girls for our now shot. It isn't the best picture, but in all the others I seemed to be the only person smiling... in fact, E and S were making such mean faces they could both get a job scaring people for a living.

Miss Independence

I've heard about the phenomenon where after a child turns two some switch is flipped and they suddenly begin talking and understanding on a much different level than before. I personally didn't expect to experience this because E is already so much of a talker... her nickname is "Chatty Cathy" after all. However, over the last three days she has been in an almost stream of consciousness like state... if it crosses her mind, it comes out of her mouth, and I'm frankly amazed at the things that are crossing that little mind of hers! She has been incredibly independent, interactive, willful (what 2 year old isn't), and even lots of the time helpful. Yesterday morning, as I was feeding all the babies, I had M's bottle propped and E informed me that she was going to hup me. She looked down at M, grabbed her bottle from her, and said, "You're not huppin' M. It's not your job. You're not da big sista." Later, she was eager to call her Gamma but she wasn't home. When Scott asked if she wanted to try again she said, "No- too bad, so sad!" There have been 1,000 other little things over the last few days, but of course I can't recall them at the moment. So I've included a short video of little miss independence who, after picking out her own jammies and brushing her own teeth, wanted to blow dry her own hair tonight before bed... the look on her face was too funny!

No More 3rd Nap, and Visitors

The last couple of days we've been having schedule issues. The girls are outgrowing their third nap of the day, I think. So one or two or all three of them haven't napped during the late afternoon as they had been doing. Today I decided to just skip it and see what happened. Not a great idea.... and then we had a visit from Scott's North Carolina cousins. I hope that they don't think it is really this awful around here all the time! E skipped her nap today as well, and that made her a real "joy" to be around. At any rate, we certainly enjoyed their company and having them meet all the girls and hope they'll come back again. With any luck the babies will be back to normal again once they make this big transition down to two naps.... and hopefully I'll figure out how to keep E taking at least one nap for a little while longer. She's only two- I'm not ready to give that nap up!!!

More Sunday Photos

More Oreo's please

Princess K inside with her dress on- not outside enjoying the weather

By the Pool

E "helping" Mimi with the pool

S- squinting at the sun

M & S enjoying the baby pool

E with a dirty face

Sunday, Busy Sunday

Sunday's are our busiest day of the week! Sunday is the only day of the week that E can tell you what goes on... it's church day for us. Even when I wasn't able to go because of RSV season and not getting the babies out, she went with Mimi. This morning we decided to load up and take all the girls. The babies hadn't been in quite some time. They wore their new dresses Ms. Debbie gave them. (Thank you Debbie. They looked very cute, I must say.) Everyone was impressed with how notably they have changed in the past couple months. They were all good and made it all the way through the service... of course, we started out with bottles and ended with Gerber Puffs. (If anyone knows of a cheaper substitute for Puffs, please share. I also use Cheerios, but the puffs seem easier for them to handle right now.) E made it through the children's sermon, maybe a little longer, but that is about her limit even on good days.



After church, lunch, and naps we all went to Mimi's to play by the pool which has recently been opened for the season. S loved the ice cold water (only about 72 degrees) and wanted to jump out of my arms. M had only lukewarm feelings for dangling her feet in. K wanted absolutely nothing to do with it... can't say as I blame her, it was too cold for me too! Because of the mixed reactions to the big pool, we put about 1/2" of water in the baby pool to warm and then let them all try it out later. It was a big hit with M and S, but still not K. She stayed inside most of the time. E worked hard alongside Mimi getting the big pool all fixed up. It is hard to fathom what it will be like this time next year when I'm trying to keep up with all four of the girls at the pool.... definately something that I won't be doing unless there are equally as many adults as children, I suppose.



We ended up the day by going to dinner with Mimi, Pop, DoDah, Scott, the girls, and I. It was a terrible ride there and back... thankfully we only went to a place 15 minutes or so from here. Each time only one baby was screaming, and it was a different baby both times, but really one is all it takes! I think it was too much for Scott, as all he said on the way home over the loud crying was , "Guess it'll be a while before we go to Thomasville." Hopefully not, but I don't think even I could ride for hours on end with all that noise.

On the Move

We have finally gotten out some of the riding toys and the babies are having a blast. They are on the move officially and much harder to keep up with now than even just this time last week! Here we go.....

New Tricks

This afternoon Ms. Faye and I took all the girls for a walk. It was pretty hot out there, so when we got home I filled E's water table and put the babies in the new plastic pool that Mimi got them without any water in it... thanks Mimi. E stripped down and thoroughly enjoyed playing with her water and boats while the babies played with a pool full of toys. I decided to test out the video capabilities of both the camera and the blog this afternoon... we've got lots going on these days, and I want to be able to post the occasional video. The one we made today is of E telling her ho nam (or whole name) . About a month ago an older couple with grandchildren at a playground was talking with her and asked what her name was. She replied, "E S Chatty Cathy B". She has certainly got the Chatty Cathy part right! I believe she even added Elizabeth Ann to her name as well the second time that she said it on video today... who knows why? Anyway just wanted to test it out... look for more videos in the near future.

I believe E becomes more of a girly girl with every day... I'm not saying she doesn't occasionally play hard or get dirty, but she truly notices and appreciates all things feminine. For instance, she loves to put on make-up and nail polish, have fashion shows, pretend she is Miss Amanda and Miss Amegan (her name is actually Megan)- the two gals who have cut her hair at the salon, she loves Ms. Debbie's lipstick and never fails to notice what color she is wearing on her weekly visit, she has quite a thing for shoes...i.e. her comment regarding a new pair of crocs at Christmas, "Oh, Mimi. Did you shind these at Belks?". Anyway, yesterday morning she told me that my legs were grouchy. I'm pretty sure she meant scratchy. Next thing I know she'll be telling me when my hair needs color and my eyebrows need attention! I must say that raising a girly little girl is proving to be quite fun, even for a tomboy like me.

In other news.... M has been pulling up to her knees all day long, and tonight (while I wasn't looking, of course) she pulled up to standing all by herself on the side of her crib! Fortunately Miss Kelli and Ms. Nancy were there to witness the feat. It is really going to be nuts around here in a couple of months with babies crawling, pulling up, and toddling all around. Yikes!!!!!!!!

Hump Day

Me holding sleepy M
Rub a dub dub, three babies in a tub

Miss Kelli having her toenails done

After my lament the other day about not ever getting to hold a sleeping baby, M fell asleep while I was feeding her tonight. Scott kindly snapped a picture so that we have record of my holding her while she was sleeping. It felt great to have a sleeping baby in my arms!

The last couple of nights we've been bathing all the babies in the big tub instead of using the baby tub. They absolutely love playing in the water together. Hopefully soon I'll be able to shoot a video of them enjoying themselves, but they are still not steady enough for my hands to be that tied up... probably not too long though.

Finally, I wanted to include a picture of E and Miss Kelli having a spa session at our place. I am pretty sure that much more polish ended up on Kelli's skin than on her nails, but E was thrilled to have someone to "practice" on, and I had a bottle of polish remover handy (turns out that was as much fun as the polishing). I usually only let her use a makeup brush with water... Kelli's soooo much cooler than me!

Way to go WCHS Seniors....

This afternoon E, Mimi, and I had the opportunity to see WCHS's final performance of their senior play Footloose. I wasn't sure how things would go... a 2 year old in a dark theatre for 2 hours? Guess it could have been awful, but it turns out the play really held E's attention. She enjoyed it, and so did mom and I. Just wanted to say great job to Bee and Erica! At one point E looked over at me and very loudly said, "Mom, this ball game is fun-tastic!" Given that the only other times she has been to the high school was to watch Erica play basketball the comment made perfect sense.

Mother's Day

Dr. and Mrs. Peacock with S

Cayden not cooperating

M and K

S

Mimi and S

Last night M and K gave me a gag gift for Mother's Day... tag team crying from 11:30pm to 3:30am. Awful and defeating just barely begin to describe it considering they had been sleeping through the night for the last month or so. Perhaps they were just feeling a little under the weather or I was afraid they were and went in too soon to check on them the first time. Who knows? All I know is I hope that things go back to the way they have been soon.... 6:30pm to 6:30am all babies asleep! I think I need that for my sanity. However, as I sat in the nursery holding M (one of the times that K wasn't actually crying too), I realized how very much I miss holding just one baby... I hope and pray that these girls are not being slighted by my having them three at one time. Actually, I know they are getting less of me, but hopefully what they will have in the closeness of sisterhood will make up for anything they are lacking. I know E had tons of one on one time at this age. They are such fun, snuggly, cuddle bugs right now. Soon enough they'll be toddlers and constantly on the move like big sis... I just ache for the one on one time to spend with each of them. As they grow older I'll probably devise some system for making one day of the week "belong" to each child, but for now I'll just continue to steal all the time I can to love on them every day and enjoy every second of it.

Other than last night's crying jag and the fact that Scott was away on a trip for work, this was a perfect Mother's Day Weekend...all thanks to my AWESOME friend Joan. She devotes a weekend each month to coming over from Athens to spend time taking care of the babies, making E & I waffles, and just generally making life easier on me. This in turn makes life easier on my mom too because she can feel free to do whatever she wants without worrying that I'm home alone with my 4 kiddos, and for that I am especially greatful. E and I did a little shopping and went to her favorite park on Saturday. While we were gone Joan tried her best to teach the babies to say Mama to no avail. S babbles all the time... mostly dadadada. K loves to screech and shrill. M is pretty quiet and sneaky still. I'll definatley post a message when someone says Mama for the first time. Sorry that it didn't happen this weekend, Joan!

We had a great time today visiting with family for special Mother's Day meals. After church E went to Nanny and Pop C.'s to have lunch with her cousin Cayden. They love to play together every chance they get. Then she played with her cousin Joshua at Granny Ruth's this afternoon. Finally we had dinner at Uncle Al & Aunt Ginny's this evening. Again E got to play with Cayden and was as bossy as ever. She got flustered with him at one point and said, "He is just NOT cooperating!" Poor boys... she is quite the mother hen. An added bonus to this evening with all our cousins was that some other family friends were there, and my childhood pediatrician actually got to meet my girls! I'll attach some photos... one is Dr. Peacock holding S.


Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers in our lives!

Babies on the Move

I just wanted to document that we officially have 3 crawlers who are rapidly turning into climbers. S and M really get around quickly in the proper crawling fashion... K is still getting the hang of going forward, but she has reverse down pat. We've broken down and pushed all the furniture in the living room up against the walls.... I suppose one day we will put our house back to normal, but who needs normal when you have this much excitement? Just putting the new rug down was an adventure. The babies crawled over and around like it was great fun!

Girlfriends

We had a great visit with our friends Matt, Erin, and their daughter Morgan (or Muh'-gan as E calls her) this week. The girls had fun playing in the sandbox, taking a bath, and finally playing dress up while we caught up with Erin and Matt. One of E's favorite things is to put on her dress up clothes and have p-tend fashion shows. Morgan really enjoyed the high heels and jewelry too! Don't they look sweet? It was amazing to watch them run in plastic heels... I don't think I could even walk in heels until I was in college!

Practice Runs

With Scott home for the last few days we've been practicing taking the girls out all by ourselves... well, sort of. I know that it sounds absurd for us, the parents, to be practicing such a thing, but they outnumber us two to one and three of the four can't walk yet. Wednesday we loaded them all up and went to the city park. E played and the babies strolled. It was pretty fun but far from easy. Everything takes longer for the obvious reasons and also because strangers tend to stop and ask about the babies. I usually end up feeling like a broken record when we go out in public.... yes they are triplets and here's the big sister, yep, all girls, yes our hands are full, we are definitely very blessed. Then last night we went to a Mexican restaurant with the whole crew. Ms. Kelli met us there after we were inside and Mimi and Pop got there about 30 minutes later. Just getting inside was crazy. Scott had to take two babies ahead while I helped E get unbuckled and out of the back all the while holding S and the huge diaper bag. Once inside we took all the high chairs they had and everyone was happy... E with a quesidilla and cheerios for the babies. They were all actually very good; I didn't mention yet that we arrived at the place at 4:50 pm so it wasn't exactly a busy time. There was only a very small crowd there, and no one stopped us to ask any questions for a change. We are having to do practice runs at dealing on our own for our first trip to Thomasville (which we hope will happen sometime soon).

Sweet Big Sister

This morning as I was managing the circus, E was helping, and S was crying for no apparent reason. Suddenly E let out her very best p-tend cry, and I inquired. She said, "Mommy, S blesses my heart. I don't 'ant her to cry." She is an amazing big sister... and she is blessing my heart everyday as I watch her with the babies. Don't get me wrong; she sometimes has her moments, but for the most part she is great with the girls. Their eyes follow her non-stop when she is in the room. They absolutely adore her!!!

She's Baaaaack!

To her old self again, that is. E woke up this morning and was feeling "just shine". Hallelujah!! She went down for her nap as usual this afternoon with her only ailment being the "hay-dake" she had from walking under the swing while S was enjoying a good ride. I'm posting a few pictures from this morning while we were on the front porch... wow this weather is just perfect.





M taking a turn in the swing









S chewing on her fingers










K chewing on the swing