Triple Playdate X4

... otherwise known as one insane afternoon. Almost a week ago on Friday afternoon we had the pleasure of hosting this little event that included 4 sets of triplets (minus one triplet who was in the hospital being looked after by her mom), a set of triplet parents, 3 parents who were alone with their trios for the day, 2 big sisters, one uncle, one Mimi, and a handful of other wonderful helpers. Of the 14 children representing our 4 families, only two are boys. They stuck out like little sore thumbs among all the girly girls there. The trios ranged in age from my girls who were the oldest at almost 2 to the Turner triplets who will be one in August. We swam, played in the yard, and basically just had a grand old time! Thanks everyone for coming; we'll have to do it again sometime.....

Mostly Wordless Wednesday- A New Swimming Hole

In my effort to catch up with my blogging, this week's Wordless Wednesday will only be "mostly" wordless.

The last time we took the girls blueberry picking they got bored pretty quickly. Instead of standing in the hot sun watching me pick blueberries, Mimi took them over to the pool to swim. They had a great time, and I'm sure they are ruined for ever picking blueberries there again... they'll run straight for this gorgeous pool every time instead! Thank you Mimi for always being prepared for anything (she had the swim diapers and swimmies in the back of her car just in case).

Fancy Girl

I am so far behind in my blogging about all the crazy adventures we've had the last few days.... I'm going to try and get caught up with new swimming pictures, a triplet playdate X 4, a trip to Babyland, and so much more! We're 2 nights into Campmeeting and already the girls are exhausted from the fun they've been having, and this morning we went to Unicoi with Amanda, Chase, Noel, and Kelli. Whew!! So, I've got tons of stories to tell, but for now this little tidbit about Ella will have to do.

Everyone who knows Ella can attest to the fact that the children's book character she most closely resembles is Jane O'Connor's Fancy Nancy. Not in the way she looks, but in her sense of style and attitude. (Cadi if you and Ashlyn haven't discovered these books yet, you should definitely check them out!)

She loves to have her photo taken. The other day she and I went to Mimi's for a little photo shoot. After I had taken about 30 pictures and was ready to stop, she looked at me and said "Mom, I understood you to say that you wanted to take THOUSANDS of pictures of me this morning... I think we have a few to go!" So here you go, one of her fancy toes.

Her new favorite Nancy book, Fancy Nancy's Favorite Fancy Words has been on the top of our reading stack every single time we've sat down to read for the last week.... she's only had it a week. She was already pretty hilarious using some really who-mongous words on a regular basis. Now that she has 27 new ones to add to her vocabluary we're in for some side splitting funnies in the days ahead!

In the pages of the new favorite book, Ella has found the inspiration for her big girl room when we get around to taking down her toddler bed and putting up a 'real' bed. I think it will be perfectly fitting for her to have a Fancy Nancy style room. Anyone out there have any great suggestions for a fancy toddler room? Ella mentioned this morning that when we finished the "transformation" in her room, she would happily move on to the rest of the house. Poor Daddy, when he gets home this whole place could be more girlie than he can stand!?!

Crazy for Blueberries

Maggie, Kate, Sarah, and I are absolutely crazy about blueberries. Thursday morning Mimi, Nanny C, and I took the girls back over to pick more blueberries from my great grandmother's 50 year old blueberry bushes. We are so thankful that our cousins have kept them in great shape and graciously offered to let up pick as much as we want there!



The only trouble with taking the girls along is the fact that they eat them and spill them as fast as I can pick them. But they look adorable doing it, and they have fun, so it is totally worth it!

Princess Ella loves to go along for the adventure, and she is quite an excellent blueberry picker. However, I don't think a blueberry has ever crossed her lips. She THINKS she doesn't like them, therefore she won't try them.

Kate usually picks and eats for a while, but isn't all that interested in dragging a bucket around. She prefers to play with the dog Jake. He's little, and she follows him around trying to play.

Sarah, my little fruitarian, is the main reason that I have been so busy picking and freezing blueberries these last few days. I think she would live on fruit, but blueberries are one of her most favorites thus far!

She likes to pick them and then eat them. She likes to take my bucket once it is about 3 layers deep and finish them all off while I pick more.

Many friends have asked, "MB, what are you doing with all those blueberries?" Three times now I have gone over and completely filled a sand bucket full of the sweet, delicious things. Two of those times I had the girls along, so I didn't make it home with all the pickings. But all the blueberries that actually make it home with me are going into the freezer to make blueberry popsicles.... not really popsicles, I just freeze the berries on a cookie sheet and then bag them up to eat frozen later. I'm trying to stock up since these girls love them so much.

Although, at this rate, our supply will only last until August!

One Whole Week Down

It has been a week since Scott left for training. I tried my best yesterday to come up with a beautiful shot of all four girls together to surprise him on this first little anniversary of sorts.

While we were playing at Mimi and Pop's yesterday morning I chased them all around the deck, garage, yard, and pool with my camera. At least I don't have to worry that missing Daddy will be the only thing about his deployment that the girls will remember.... they're also going to vividly remember how nuts Mommy was carrying around her camera everywhere we went!

I tried in vain to pose them nicely, but here was the result... sour Sarah, Kate holding a piece of sausage in hand, and Maggie all excited to get started "painting". Nobody wanted anything to do with picture making.

Thankfully Ella was more cooperative, as usual... at least where modeling is concerned.
My attempt at getting all four together was completely futile!
Instead I decided to just focus on capturing them all hard at work to show Daddy how they are spending their time. They washed and painted (with water and any kind of brush or broom they could find) the entire deck around the hot tub... and the pool furniture.... and the glass doors (sorry Mimi), and just about everything that wasn't already wet when we arrived. Sarah did lots of inspections of her sisters' work.
Kate mostly just bossed everyone else around... not that they were listening.

As is typical these days, the girls played very hard in the morning. After all that washing and scrubbing, we turned on the radio and had a little dance party in the garage. I need to get those dance moves on video very soon! It was too cute. After all that, some friends came over to swim with us. So we swam for a couple of hours.

Exhaustion around noon time is one of the key elements of my super scheduled days so that we can manage day to day during this deployment. I have lots of pictures from today to share, but another critical element to our survival this year is Mommy getting more sleep at night. So I'm off to bed now and will post those another day.

We've had many people call, and email to ask how we're doing. I'd definitely have to say we're missing Daddy, but because we're used to him being gone part of the time already, it is still pretty much business as usual around here.... except for the extra effort we're putting into our schedule every day.

And the Winner Is....

Boy am I grateful that I didn't have to judge the contest myself... even drawing randomly was nerve wracking! We had 53 entrants as of 10pm last night, and sometime around 11pm I printed them off, highlighted the names (just so I wouldn't miss anyone), and then carefully labeled them each with a number. Next I plugged in the info and viola:

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:

33
Timestamp: 2008-07-24 03:21:36 UTC


Go back and double check me, but my calculations (the first, second, and third time- yes I'm a little bit nuts) have Melissa from the Twincredible Twosome blog at lucky spot number 33.

Congratulations Melissa!! Thank you to everyone who entered. I want to say a huge thank you to the folks at Chicco who so generously offered this prize!! There were so many great, compelling entries, maybe they will offer another stroller some time!?!

Thanks again to everyone. It has been fun!! Melissa, sometime when you are not too busy chasing your fabulous twosome around please send me an email with your address so that I can pass it along to the folks at Chicco and they can get your stroller out to you.

Wordless Wednesday- Happy

For more Wordless Wednesday go to 5 Minutes for Mom.

Visitors and Little Miss Manners'

Just days after Scott got word of his pending deployment, one of his buddies at his Reserve unit also received an Iraq assignment. I'd never met anyone from Scott's reserve unit. This other fellow is a newlywed, and he and his wife live near us, so Scott and I invited them over for burgers and a getting to know you type dinner one night last week. You could say we were getting together so us wives could commiserate and swap phone numbers since our guys are going to be gone to Iraq over the same period of time.... although to different places and with different units.

We had them meet us at Mimi and Pop's so that the girls could play and swim while Scott worked his grilling magic. And they did just that...

After dinner the girls had some cupcakes that our new friends brought to share with us. You can see their great love for the cupcakes plastered all over their faces, and had I taken pictures, you could also have seen icing all over their little bodies. They had to be hosed off and dunked in the pool before they were clean enough to take home. The cupcakes were delicious, but I was most grateful to Ms. A for the white icing... imagine the mess had she used purple or blue!!


While this,

and this,
and this,

may not look like the face of Little Miss Manners to you all, I can assure you that these little ladies are definitely becoming pros at using their kind words, at least. In fact, they nearly "please, sank you, sah wee, and es m'am" -ed me to pieces last Wednesday night when we were up all. night. long with them!

I have had this post in my head and the computer for days trying to come up with some great examples of how funny the girls are about their manners, but I just can't seem to do it. Perhaps the funniest thing about it is that they can be seriously driving me crazy and still politely remember to use their manners. What can I say, they take after their big sister. Remember, "Here KayKay, could you hold this booger for me, please?"

The biggest change of late around the house is the amount of talking that is going on. At any given time throughout the day there are at least 3 out of four little girls vying for attention by talking... to me, with me, at me.... they really don't seem to care which! I'm seriously considering designating a leader of the day just so that I can know whose little voice to listen to first all day long. As it is, they just try to be the loudest so that I'll respond to them first. It is both nerve wracking and heart warming all at the same time. Perhaps I'll catch some of the chatter on video soon.

Fresh Blueberries... Yum!

Yesterday morning Mimi, Donna, the girls, and I all went over to our cousins' house and picked buckets full of yummy, fresh blueberries. I forgot to bring my camera with me, otherwise I could have taken several pictures of Maggie, Kate, and Sarah executing their blueberry picking plan.... two for me, one for the bucket, two for me, one for the bucket. They were so funny eating the berries right off the bushes. I bet they consumed 3 cups of berries or more while we were picking, and then we brought home 2 big sand pails absolutely full. I can only imagine what that would have cost if we bought them at the store! A very cool tidbit is the fact that we were picking blueberries off the bushes that my great grandmother planted when she and my great grand father lived on the property years ago.

On a completely unrelated note, we are now half way through our first ever contest, thank you Chicco, and I must say that I am loving reading all the comments from people who hope to win! A word to all my fellow bloggers, having a contest is a good way to bring the lurkers out of hiding. I am so glad that I elected to use random selection as my decision method! However, instead of the paper slip method, I'll be numbering the comments on Wednesday the 23rd and then using a random integer generator to come up with my winner. Same principle.... less mess for me. So if you haven't already, go and enter to win the Trevi Twin stroller that I'm giving away. Pass the word along to those whom you know could use it. Comments will close for the contest at 10pm EST on Wednesday the 23rd of July.

Happy Sunday everyone!

The Big Send Off.... Courtesy of the Trio

Wednesday afternoon at 5pm when Scott called the Reserve unit he is going to Iraq with to find out if he was, in fact, still going with them, he was told..."yeah, where are you, you were supposed to be here two days ago". The efficiency of the ARMY astounds me!! I wonder how long they would have waited to send him those orders if he hadn't called them?!?

So after all those days of waiting with no word or orders, we were forced into flash packing mode on Wednesday evening as he had a plane to catch on Thursday. Needless to say, there was a little bit of stressing going on over here, and the girls all certainly felt it.

I am certain that children sense the stress of their parents and the adults they are around because when Scott and I finally crashed into bed around 12:50am after finding, washing, and packing all his gear, we heard the noise of one crying baby.

Now, we were both tired, but I could tell that Scott was just then realizing how much he was going to miss out on over the coming year, so I encouraged him to go and take a peek to see who was crying. I assumed he could pick up the crying baby, snuggle her for a few minutes, and then get back to bed. Otherwise I would never have suggested he break my '5 minutes of crying before investigation at night' rule.

A few minutes later he came walking down the hall, but I noticed that the crying had not stopped.... it had gotten even louder! He was carrying one baby and then I realized that I now had to go get the other one. By the time I got in there, the one crying baby had become two, so we all five ended up in the living room at 1am. Thank goodness Ella slept through it all.

The rest of the night was a horrible blur of lots of crying and us scrambling to try and find a way to salvage it. We tried all our usual tricks to no avail, and finally around 3am I just made myself a bed on the couch, put on a Dora video, locked the girls in the living room with me, and sent Scott to bed. I was finally able to put them in their cribs around 4:15am without too much fussing, and then I crashed.

So our last night with Scott here for a while was not the best, nor was the following morning, but such is life with triplets and stressed out parents. At least we got photos of Scott and the girls before we left for the airport, and you will all now understand why we look so tired. We left the babies behind to nap because they sorely needed it, and just Ella and I dropped him off.

Ella and Daddy

Maggie and Daddy

Kate giving Daddy butterfly kisses

Sarah and Daddy

The whole crew.... boy do we look tired!

We've stayed very busy the last two days. I'm giving myself a little bit of a break until Monday, but after the weekend I'm hoping to put this little household on a great schedule that will help us get by until Scott comes back home. We miss him already, but as I've said before, now we can start the countdown until he returns. Thanks to all of you who have called, emailed, and commented to let us know you are thinking of us and praying for us. We really appreciate it!

Almost Wordless Wednesday- Beautiful Girl

We're finally getting some information... the girls and I will be taking Scott to the airport tomorrow to start his year long adventure in Iraq. We're anxious to have him gone so we can start counting down the days until he returns safely home to us. Crazy, I know, but that limbo stuff was hard!?!

On a completely unrelated note: Be sure to check out our first ever contest . We're giving away a new Chicco Trevi Twin stroller... a huge thanks to Chicco!

Happy (almost) Wordless Wednesday everyone!

Insomnia and a Contest

It is currently 2:07am, and I am fighting the worst case of stress induced insomnia EVER! This whole ARMY time frame thing... not knowing when Scott will be leaving, well it is driving me insane. I am quite sure it is much, much worse for him, so I try not to complain. Instead, I suffer the terrible, horrible, insomnia all alone (with my computer and all of you blog readers, I guess).


After lying in bed for the last 3 hours tossing, turning, and willing my eyes to stay shut, I finally decided to get up and announce our first ever blog contest.

Earlier this week I was contacted by a marketer for Chicco who offered me a brand new Trevi Twin Stroller to give away to one of my fabulous readers. Now, I've never done a contest before, but what an awesome first attempt! I am so excited for one of you to win this thing! Here it is.

According to the marketer, "The Trevi Twin is a double stroller, with full recline, built-in boot to ensure a safe ride for newborns, compact 3-dimensional fold, and great features for parents (an added bonus when you're traveling with twins!). While some double strollers may be too wide to fit through doors, or hard to maneuver, the Trevi Twin makes getting around a breeze. The stroller is recommended for children from birth to 40 lbs and retails for $219.00."

We have quite a collection of strollers in our garage, and I know firsthand that a good stroller can mean FREEDOM. While I can't speak for the Trevi Twin's awesomeness personally, I have many friends who absolutely love this brand.... I'm sure it will make a very nice addition to someone else's stroller fleet. So if this one has your name (or that of someone you know) written all over it, please enter to win.

Here's how:

- Leave a comment on this post stating why you need and/or want this particular stroller by 10pm, Eastern Standard Time, on Wednesday July 23rd.

- Because Blogger doesn't number comments and I could definitely not handle the extra stress of choosing the winner myself, I will print out all the comments and place them in a hat, or bowl, or baby doll stroller... whatever the Four Silly Sisters and I can get our hands on, and we'll randomly select the winner.

-It will be our great pleasure to announce the winner on Thursday the 24th of July.

Daddy's Muddy River Girls

I know I said I was going to take a little blogging break, but Scott gave me these great pictures last night of his trip with Maggie, Kate, and Sarah to Raven Cliff Falls, and I just couldn't resist. The littles are asleep now and Scott has fallen asleep in the floor of Ella's room while trying to convince her to nap.... of course, she is still in there singing and talking away, so I'm working on borrowed time.

Here they are running through the parking lot toward the first bridge. Kate is in green, Maggie's in blue, and Sarah's wearing pink.... their signature colors.

Scott says they all had a great time throwing rocks in the water, making splashes, and eventually even wading into the water.

Maggie was the only one to literally fall in, and here you can tell just how wet she is by the way her shirt is sticking to her belly. Her consolation was holding the bag of blueberries that I packed for them to snack on.... I think she ate them all.
I guess when you go out on a date with Daddy it doesn't matter whether your hair is pulled back out of your eyes or not, but it sure drives Mom crazy to see them squinting through their bangs.

They came home wearing only diapers because their clothes were too muddy for their car seats. Scott even offered to stain stick the clothes and put them straight into the washer.... they were pretty bad! We dipped the girls in Mimi and Pop's pool before taking them home for naps. We had to scrub the dirt (lots of red mud) off of their faces, arms, and legs. They were a mess, but what a great memory of playing at the river with Daddy!!

Meanwhile, Ella and I had a leisurely morning by the pool, her choice. She loves to swim by herself because when we are one on one she goes without swimmies. She amazes me with how comfortable and calm she is in the water.... not a bit afraid of going under, having the water in her eyes, etc. She just isn't quite physically coordinated enough to swim yet. I suspect that she'll be swimming before the end of this summer, though.

We're still awaiting further instructions for Scott regarding when he's to leave and where he'll go. We've passed his original and second ship out dates already, and while we're greatful to still have him home, the waiting and wondering stuff is really quite draining on all of us!! Hopefully we'll know more soon.

Whoa!!!

Has it really been a week since I've posted on the blog?!? I guess we've been spending all our days soaking in some good Daddy time. Scott and I took a 24 hour little girl break and headed to Atlanta for a night away last week. We had a wonderful dinner, wandered around Buckhead, had dessert, and even watched an entire movie in our hotel room uninterrupted. It was lovely, and the girls were none the worse for it.... other than the missed sleep and extra sugar from everyone we had watching them.

We're currently dealing with new quirks with the girls.... some better than others.

For instance, even though Ella has never been much of a tantrum thrower before now, she has suddenly at 3 years old found her fit pitching groove. I guess it is a combination of excess sugary treats and a sleep deficit (as a result of all the extra Daddy time she's getting). I fear it could also be a result of anxiety because she knows that something big is going down. She knows Scott is getting ready to go to Iraq, but she doesn't understand how long he'll be gone. She knows it is far, far away, but really has no concept of how far. So, just like the rest of us, I assume she is more than a little anxious and perhaps that is why the behavior change?!? At any rate, I feel like we've been given a little reprieve because after a tantrum a day for almost a week, she hasn't had one for the last two days.... hooray!

Ella's mini-me, Sarah has started with a lovely new behavior of late, too. She channels the very essence of Ella and demands things "RIGHT NOW!!". Unfortunately for her, we are working very hard to break her of this habit by never, ever giving in to her, um, requests.



Sweet Maggie is really using her words and conveying thoughts..... on almost every subject imaginable these days. She still loves to swim at Mimi's and wears her hair right in her eyes about half of the time. Shaggy Maggie is our little pet name for her at present.

Kate still has the most adorable little, can play all by by myself attitude. When she's feeling like interacting her favorite activity is to steal whatever she determines is of most value from one of her sisters. In fact, when Sarah sees Kate coming her way she starts saying, "Swiper, No swiping! Swiper, No swiping!" Kate thoroughly enjoys the attention, both good and bad, that she receives from this her favorite activity.

Overall, though, the gang is still a very happy group. Notice the attire, or lack thereof, in this last picture. Kate- no clothes, Maggie- hand bag, one inside out sock and one shoe on the wrong foot, Sarah- no pants, and clearly Ella dressed herself!

I'm sorry for the delay in posting, but I'll probably wait until the end of the week to post again. I want to spend all the time I can with Scott before he gets gone.

Oh, and perhaps I'll do a contest for a big baby item soon.... I've had a company contact me about offering a free prize for me to give away. Could be fun?!?