Picture Perfect!

How did we get them to hold still to get 2 cute poses?  They brought in extra remotes for the camera.  They were all fascinated by pushing the red button and seeing the big flash so we'd give them each a turn and then run out of the picture.  I even had them Photoshop the big scab off of McKay's forehead from falling on the cement the night before.  They're such a handful, but I'm so glad I tough it out and go get the pictures done.  In a few years I'll still have them and won't have to remember all the disasters.  Actually I won't mind remembering them as long as I'm not still cleaning them up!  I watched some videos of toddler triplets and felt so much better that the backgrounds of all the videos were a complete mess too!  And they were hitting each other and screaming!  It's the only way to do three at a time.

Yet Another Disaster

The kids have all been sick.  Nicole got an awful flu for a week and passed it to all the babies who passed it to Jason and now me.  Nicole is doing better, but the rest of us feel awful.  Last week I ran up to give Nicole her medicine as she laid in my bed and came downstairs to the babies filling pans with their own bottle of dish soap.  Yes, the cupboards have locks, but if they don't get shut tight, they can open them and the garbage can is usually the one I leave loose so I can get to it 50 times a day.  Once we put the locks up, they stopped trying to open them because they knew they were locked, but this time they lucked out.  Thank goodness for the dishwasher.

 

Today was even worse.  We were all upstairs getting dressed this morning when Caleb and Brooke followed Nicole through the gate downstairs while I was still dressing McKay.  Who knows what she was doing, but she came up to tell me the babies made a mess in the pantry.  The doors are all supposed to be closed!  I was hoping they had made a tower of cans as usual, but no, they dumped out and spread around a bucket of wheat flour, a bag of goldfish, and a box of raisins.  Needless to say after their 2 minutes of fun, they all had a 45 minute time out in their cribs while I cleaned it up.  Anyone know of an all day preschool for toddlers?

Christmas

These geniuses created their own ladder for decorating the tree.  I knew it wasn't going to look nice this year, so I didn't even try.  I let Nicole decorate it and just told her no candy canes or breaky ornaments.  After a day, there wasn't a single ornament on the bottom half of the tree anyway.  We put a gate around it and then they didn't seem to care too much about it.

Nicole made the babies Build a Bear's for Christmas and was glad she had three babies!

We eventually made it to Riverwoods for a single shot at Christmas lights, Santa, and a horse drawn carriage. 

I knew this was our year for this, but I made them do it anyway.

This year for Christmas the babies caught on to opening their presents.  We spent Christmas Eve evening at the Clements' and then came home and had Christmas morning at home.  We got home late so the babies slept until 9:30.  Nicole was very patient and got to do her stocking and open some presents before they woke up.  We didn't get pictures of unwrapping presents because it was kind of crazy, but they all get plenty of new toys.  They all especially like the little tramp, especially for Brooke, our queen jumper who we're sure is going to jump out of her crib sometime soon.  She hangs on the edge and jumps so high her feet are almost above the rail.  She also got a little playhouse with a wooden washing machine that she hides everything inside.   Caleb got a Thomas train set, and the little builder, McKay, got his first set of Duplo Legos.  Nicole got her requested Play Do and big box of new crayons as well as remote control Strawberry Shortcake car, lots of art supplies, and easy reader books.

Christmas afternoon we headed up to Grandma and Grandpa Hurst's for more fun and gift giving.  We stayed a few days, but the babies were my never ending nightmare and then we came home to the whole family having colds.

Caleb of course helping himself to any leftovers.  He loves sitting at the table and using a fork, neither of which I allow.

Brooke loves her little baby doll, almost as much as Caleb.