Goodbye Grandma

Last Thursday I had plans to pack up the boys and drive to the small town of Hillsboro, KS to see my Grandma Thornhill.  She had been admitted to the hospital and wasn't doing well.  I really wanted to get the boys up there so she could meet them.

Sadly, I didn't make it to Hillsboro on Thursday.  Instead, I made the 2.5 hour drive to Herington...alone...for my grandma's funeral.

Rewind.  Sunday night, I left work and had 8 missed calls/texts from various family members.  My heart sank when I saw this.  It's never good news.  Ever.  I found out that night that my grandma had passed away.  She died without ever meeting her triplet grandsons.  I have tried not to beat myself up over this fact, but at the end of the day, I should have found time in the last 14 months to make the trip out to see her.  By the time I had made it a priority, it was too late.

My grandma was a wonderful quirky person.  She collected clowns, called potlucks "pot parties", was convinced her dog could talk, and was famous for her fried chicken and sour cream cookies.  I will miss all these things about her.  

After her funeral, my family got together for a dinner in Ramona (where my grandma used to live). There were tons of photos on display that I really enjoyed looking at.  This was one of them.  I decided I needed to have it and took it home with me.  I think it's lovely.

I love and miss you, Grandma!

The Cutest Thing - Pt. 3

If you haven't seen my The Cutest Thing and The Cutest Thing - Pt. 2 posts, you should definitely go check them out.  Every few months I like to make note of what I think the cutest thing about each of my children is at that time.

Oliver - We have a couple different shape sorters and Ollie loves them both.  He's really good at getting the shapes in.  It's really cute to watch because whenever he gets on to go in, he'll then stop and clap for himself before going on.  It's adorable.

Nolan - Nolan has been learning his animal sounds.  Anytime we ask him what a sheep says, he'll reply, "Baa baa!"  It's really cute.  The funny thing is he'll say "baa" for most other animals as well. The only other animal sound he knows is the sound a duck makes.  He doesn't always do it on cue, but anytime we watch the Micky Mouse Clubhouse Theme Song, he'll start quacking like a duck whenever Donald Duck comes on screen.  It's hilarious.

Lucas - Lucas has become quite the collector.  He's always walking around with his hands full of something (puzzle pieces, pretend cookies, etc) and he gets really mad if anyone tries to take them from him.  We have a Melissa and Doug transportation puzzle in the basement that he's obsessed with.  He doesn't actually play with it, he just gets all the pieces situated in his hands and then is very protective of them.

Teeth.....everywhere!!!

A month ago I posted an update on the boys' teeth.  The amount of teeth in those kids' mouths is NOT normal.  I've talked to many friends who have kids the same age and they generally have 4-8 teeth (sometimes less).  This past month, we've had molars and eye teeth popping up everywhere. 

Our new count:

Oliver: 13 teeth (all 8 incisors, 2 bottom molars, top left molar, & top 2 eye teeth)

Nolan: 14 teeth (all 8 incisors, 2 bottom molars, bottom 2 eye teeth, top 2 eye teeth)

Lucas: 14 teeth (all 8 incisors, 2 bottom molars, top left molar, bottom 2 eye teeth, top left eye tooth)

We've got three mouthfuls!  

First Winfield Experience

This past weekend our boys got to experience their first Winfield.  If you know anything about me and/or my family, you know that Winfield is a big family tradition for us.  I've gone every year of my life with the exception of the year I fractured my back (2007) and last year since the boys had just come home from the hospital.

This year, I decided we were going to make it happen.  So we packed up EVERYTHING (clothes, diapers, wipes, snacks, toys, 3 pack n' plays, our wagon...you name it, we had it.  We had decided ahead of time we weren't going to camp like we always had in the past.  Instead, we made arrangements to stay at my sister, Nicole's house in Wichita.

Overall, everything went really well.  It was forecasted to ran all day, which I was dreading.  Instead of rain, we had lots of sun...hot sun.  It ended up being really hot all day, so we spent a majority of our time in the shaded campground instead of up at the fairgrounds listening to music.  It was great to see family, especially my oldest sister Michelle and her husband and kids who came out from Colorado.  The boys seemed to have a good time.  They napped well and we were able to put them down in pack n' plays that night around 8:00 since we weren't going to be heading to to Nicole's until 10:00.

It was definitely a very different Winfield experience than ever before, but I was glad we went.  The boys loved the music and the people watching.  Looking forward to going again next year!

Napping in Grammy & Papa's camper

Lucas got the best seat in the house

My dear little thumb-sucker

Cooling off

Nolan sportin' his new hat from Auntie Cole

Ollie liked his new Shockers hat

It's not Winfield without a drum!

Walking around the fairgrounds

Lucas trying on hats

Rasta-Nolan meets Johsie 

Heading back to the campground after listening to music

Our Schedule

Our schedule is forever changing, but currently, this is what a day with three 14-month-olds looks like!

7:00 (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) - Nolan and Lucas wake up (Ollie will usually sleep another hour before being ready for the day).  These two don't ever seem to wake up happy.  So pretty much immediately I give them their milk and put on the Baby Einstein First Signs (ASL sign language) video.  I feel like this calms them down a bit and gets them ready to start their day.

8:00 - Ollie wakes up and has his milk.  Everyone plays until breakfast.  If it's nice out, we go on a walk.

9:00 - Breakfast & Story Time

9:30-11:00 - Naps

11:00-12:00 - Music Time/Play Time

12:00-12:45 - Lunch & High Chair Learning Time (we usually either do flash cards or look at a book together)

12:45-2:30 - Play Time (if home) or Outing - If we are home, I will oftentimes try to venture out to a different location in the house, so they don't get board of always playing in the living room.  This may be the basement or their bedroom or the kitchen/dining room area.  If weather permits, we might go outside and swing or play in the baby pool or water table. 

2:30 - Milk & Music (to calm them down and get them ready for nap)

2:45-3:30 - Naps

3:30 - Nolan and Lucas will often wake up after 30-45 minutes.  I always give them a snack as soon as they get up (most of it gets fed to the dog).  Ollie will usually sleep for another hour.

4:30-6:00 - Play time with Daddy.  If Daddy gets off work a little later than usual, Mommy sometimes has to put on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Pocoyo for the boys so she can get started on dinner.

6:00-6:30 - Dinner

6:30-7:15 - Wind Down

7:15-7:45 - Baths (if it's a bath night)

7:45 - Milk & Story

8:00 - Bedtime

Now obviously, things change from day to day and we have to adjust our schedule accordingly.  The boys don't always wake up at the same time everyday.  Some days they're up as early as 6;15 but other times they may sleep in as late as 8:30. Obviously we have to be somewhat flexible with the times we do everything based off when they wake up.  We also do play dates once a week in the morning.  Depending on when the play date starts, we'll either do an earlier or later morning nap that day.  

And in another month, everything will probably be different!

14 Months

The boys turned 14 months last Friday.  Unbelievable. 

Life these days:

Sleeping:  For several weeks, everyone was sleeping through the night.  Woohoo!  The boys go to bed at 8:00 and wake up anytime between 6:30 and 8:30.  We go through phases, it seems.  Currently they're waking up around 7:00.  This past week, Nolan has been having a rough time at night.  He'll just scream and can't be consoled.  Poor guy has so many teeth coming in, I know he's in a lot of pain. It's pretty heartbreaking.  We are still holding on to our two naps.  In the morning, they'll nap for about an hour and half (Ollie an hour longer), but in the afternoon, Nolan and Lucas will be up after 30-45 minutes.  I know this is probably an indication that we need to drop the morning nap and then they'll sleep longer in the afternoon.  I just don't think we're ready yet though.  First off, Mommy loves having to "breaks" during the day.  It gives me a chance to get everything cleaned up and ready for the next "round".  I also don't know how they'd be able to make it through the whole morning. We've had occasions where we've had to push back their morning nap because we were out and about.  It was pretty ugly.  So for now, we're going to stick with two.

Eating:  For the most part, we've been blessed with three good eaters.  They pretty much eat what we eat and are really good about eating a variety of different foods.  Fortunately, they all three love their veggies.  We do a lot cooked carrots or just mixed veggies. Green beans are hit or miss.  Lucas likes them.  With Ollie and Nolan, it just depends on the day.  We also put spinach in smoothies, quesadillas, and grilled cheese.  Ollie LOVES fruit.  He'll literally put away a 7 oz smoothie in less than a minute.  The other two boys aren't huge fans.  They always loved the purees when they were littler, but now they are pretty picky about their fruit.  They do both like watermelon and bananas, and they'll eat smoothies (just not like Ollie).  They all do well with grains, proteins, and dairy.

Playing:  We recently got some pretend food and dishes for the boys.  They absolutely love playing with it.  Nolan in particular, is always pretending to eat something.  It's really cute.  They all love the ball popper, though oftentimes they have more fun stuffing Little People and other small toys down in it than actually popping the balls out.  Oliver is really into the little shape sorters.  We have a ball and a cool VTech rocket ship one.  He's really good at getting the shapes in, though occasionally he'll have trouble and will get really frustrated and scream.  Nolan does okay with the shape sorter too, though he's not quite as fascinated with it as Ollie is.  Lucas can get the easier shapes in (circle and square) but doesn't quite have the hang of the more complex shapes.  Nolan loves to throw or roll our big blue ball around.  He and Lucas have recently learned the sign for "ball".  Sometimes the boys just love to look at books or chase each other through their tunnel.  Probably the all time favorite would have to be going to "the other side".  We have our kitchen and dining room gated off, so they don't get to scramble around in there unless we specifically take them over there and watch them.  They absolutely love it.  They'll chase each other around the island and crawl around on the little Osh Kosh chair we have in there.  It's just to just stand back and watch them giggle and interact with one another.

Walking!

One of the fun things about having triplets is being able to get excited about big milestones three different times.  While these boys have similarities, they're also very different from one another in a lot of ways.   This includes developmental milestones.

We knew months ago that Nolan would be our first walker.  He just seemed to have a little more coordination than the other two and was the first (by almost a month) to start pulling up and cruising around the furniture.  He was cruising at 11 months.  Shortly after his birthday, he took his first unassisted steps.  A lot of people say their babies took their first steps and then a week later they were running.  This was not the case for Nolan.  He took his time.  I think this was partly due to the fact that both his brothers were still crawling around on the floor so he didn't really see the point in walking.  Within a couple weeks of taking his first steps, he went from being about to take 2 or 3 steps to being able to take 9.  He could pretty much walk across the room, but again just didn't really choose to.  It wasn't until these past couple weeks that he realized he's actually quite good at this whole walking thing.  Now he's starting to do it more and more and is realizing he can get around pretty quickly this way!  The look on his face as he walks across the room is priceless!  He's just so proud of himself.  It makes my heart melt every time.

Nolan walking (almost a month ago)

Lucas has been working on the whole walking thing too but hasn't mastered it yet.  He's been a little behind Nolan's timeline.  He started cruising around the furniture right before his birthday.  Then about a month later, he took his first steps.  The thing with Lucas is that he just wants to dive into you (or face-first into the floor).  So he doesn't typically get very far.  At this point, he's taken about 6 steps, but generally he only does 1 or 2 then face-plants.  I hate to say it, but it's kind of hilarious.  It doesn't seem to bother him much.  I'm hoping he'll soon realize how much fun Nolan is having and he'll take off.

Lucas TRYING to walk...

Ollie hasn't really expressed much interest in walking.  He's great at cruising around.  He, like Lucas, started doing this right before his birthday.  It wasn't until yesterday, however, that he took his first 2 steps.  Hooray for Ollie!

So everyone is making progress.  We can definitely say Nolan is a walker.  And I think we'll be able to say the same for Lucas soon enough.  Ollie is on his way...it may just take him some time.

I've heard from several people that ideally, you'd like your babies to be walking by 15 months and if they're not walking by 18 months, physically therapy may be needed.  Our boys around 14 months old (but only 12.5 months adjusted).  So we still have a few months to get it all down.  I'm not too worried :)

Watermelon!

I don't typically do photo-only blog posts since I'm so active on Facebook and post a lot of pictures on there.  However, we took this pictures yesterday when Dakota was here and they just turned out so darn cute!