Olivia

Seriously now, isn't she just the sweetest looking thing you've ever seen! Okay, so I may be a little bias but she really is the sweetest little girl. Olivia is my little helper, my little mini me. She is kind hearted, caring and sensitive. She is a protector of her younger siblings, always watching out for them and sometime tattling on them. :) Liv has been learning so much at school and she loves to try to teach her brother and sisters. She is also getting more into fashion and doing her own hair. So far she has learned how to pull her hair back into a ponytail, and braid. I'd like to say I taught her how to do both but I'm pretty sure she learned it at recess. Don't get me wrong, this little girl can give some attitude from time to time but she is always quick to turn it around.

These two pictures and the one at the very top of all four kids were taken by Adam's cousin Muffy Sadler. She can capture some pretty amazing things with her camera. 

The rest of these pictures are just a few of my favorites from this summer.

 After she lost her first tooth.

 In the suite at the Kernels baseball game.

 Having fun on a giant blowup slide!

 Talking with some new friends she made at dad's Red Top baseball games.

Trying out the pool on our first big family vacation.

I just love this little girl

Okay, So It's Been a While...A Long while

Alright I know, it's been a while since my last post, but what can I say I've been pretty busy the last two and a half years! There's been potty training, tantrums, toddler beds, big kid beds, birthdays, holidays, preschool, kindergarten, first grade, field trips, family trips, and moving just to name a few. All of which I am wishing I would have recorded in this blog, because lets face it, unless I have it written down and documented I am probably not going to remember it. It's a sad fact for me, but now that I am willing to admit it I am hoping that it will help encourage me to keep on journaling in this blog. 

It would take me days, weeks, and probably months to try to go back and talk about all the things I have listed above so for right now I am just going to talk about right now. And then maybe if I get in a grove I might post some throwbacks every now and then.

So here we are. This picture was taken at my beautiful sister-in-laws wedding. I would like to thank the hair, makeup, and the fake tan people for making me look less like a frumpy, yoga pant wearing mom, and more like normal person. Also the things you can do with the right photo editing tools is amazing!

Olivia is 6 and in 1st grade at Prairie Ridge Elementary. She is a little mommy and an awesome big sister. 

Hannah, Hayden, and Jonathan are 4 years old and in preschool at the same school as Olivia. They are having a great time learning, exploring, and making new friends. So far we are keeping them all in the same classroom. I'm not sure what we will do in Kindergarten but for now that is the plan. They seem to be pretty independent so I don't worry about that, but what I do worry about is everyone forever asking them them "Which one are you?" Obviously this only only happens to the girls. :)

This summer we moved to Fairfax, which is literally less then 5 minutes from our old house. We loved the house because of the neighborhood, location, backyard, and space. But there were a few things that weren't really going to work with our family dynamics so for the last four months we have been working on a few thing things to make our "new house" our "new home" and I'm happy to say that we are finally there, just a few minor details left to complete. I am planning on posting more on the remodel later. 

So I'm really hoping that in between dropping kids off at school, running errands, picking kids up, meals, family time, church, clubs (and I'm not talking about nightclubs), cleaning (or my attempts to clean/pickup) I'll be able to take some time and just write.

Two Year Check Up Stats

Here are the kids stats from their two year check up. They all are continuing to follow their own growth patterns so that is good. Dr. Sarah was very pleased on how well they were doing and thought that they are right on target with normal two year olds (non-triplet/preemies) developmentally. She even said she thought that they were better behaved then most too! HAhaha! I tend to think that they were just having a good day!

So here they are:

Hannah
Height: 32 inches
Weight: 22 lbs 8 oz

Hayden
Height: 32 1/4 inches
Weight: 23 lbs 3 oz

Jonathan
Height: 33 1/2 inches
Weight: 27 lbs 5 oz


Here are some other things about the kids:

Hannah and Hayden are the best eaters. They will try anything and usually like it too! They also eat a ton! Although you wouldn't guess by their size they eat way more then Jonathan and Olivia combined.

Jonathan is getting picker the older he gets. He use to eat all kinds of veggies and now they are always left on his plate. His favorites are fish sticks, chicken nuggets, pancakes, applesauce, cottage cheese and yogurt.

Hayden speaks very well and you can understand her all of the time. She is also pretty independent, but plays well with the others.

Hannah is a little quieter, and loves to snuggle especially with daddy! She loves to play with Olivia. She is also very brave and loves to jump!

Jonathan talks a lot but I really can't understand much of what he is saying. So I just pretend and he just keeps on talking. He is a pretty happy kid and loves to play by himself or chase Liv around.

They all sleep very well at night. Going down to bed at 7 and usually waking up at 7:30/8ish.

They are also still taking one nap a day after lunch. It usually lasts anywhere from 1 to 2 1/2 hours.

As for potty training, the girls are still showing some interest, but I'm waiting for warmer weather so pants are such an issue. Jonathan still shows no interest other then wanting to take apart and put back together the potty.

That's all for now, here's to happy growing!

Two Year Pictures

On the babies birthday Angie Jungling  of Jungling Photography came over and took the kids 2 year pictures for me. She does a good job and has a ton of patience. So much easier to have her come here then to try to have them taken somewhere else. These are some of the raw pretouched-up photos that were taken.

Hannah, Olivia, Hayden, and Jonathan

Jonathan "Big Boy" Austin

Hayden Sophia

Hannah Alexis and her blankie.
It's an automatic fingers in the mouth if you have the little silky in your hand. I don't know how we are going to get that to stop. But that is for another day.

Sad about something.

Squashing Gold Fish.

The kids got a new kitchen for their birthday from Nana. They needed some groceries for it so I gave them a couple of boxes of vanilla pudding mix. Apparently Hannah opened the box and poked a hole into the bag of mix while we were trying to get pictures of someone else, because all the sudden she just slowly walked over like she thought she might be in trouble. It was so cute and funny though we just had to laugh.

I think she like it.

Giving it another try.

Hayden comes over to see what is going on and has to try some it herself.

She has to smell it first to make sure it's ok.

Jonathan brought over a pan from the kitchen and wanted to show us a trick.

Here it comes. Get ready for it!

"Tahdah!" That's it folks, taking the lid off the pan is the trick. He thought he was so clever.

Over all the kids did pretty good. It was really hard to get them all together and I forgot to have her get one of just the three of them, but it probably wouldn't have happened anyway. My babies are TWO!

"YOU GIRLS GET BACK HERE!"

I'm back home! Yeah!!! But it's back to reality folks! Things have been going good, and I haven't been doing TOO much lifting so far. I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday morning and I am hoping to get an all clear to resume normal daily activities.

Now about my title. Today after the kids got up from their nap I had Cassie (our new helper) take the kids out in the screened in porch to play since the sun was shining and it wasn't too cold out. While they played I ran to Toys-R-Us and Hy-Vee. Once I get back home and inside the garage door I hear Olivia screaming about Hannah pulling her hair, but she is quickly distracted when she sees a can of pringles in my grocery bag. Cassie is trying to get supper ready, and I assume that the kids are in Big Boys room playing since they didn't come mob me at the door. After I get the grocery bags set on the counter I go back out to the Suburban to get the rest of the stuff. When I am reaching into the back I hear this voice. "Big Boy???" "Hi there mommy!" he says in his muffly deep voice. "WHAT!!!!???? What are you DOING?!!!!" There he is in his coat, NO shoes, standing in the cold, wet, grass at the edge of the sidewalk leading to our front door, smiling from ear to ear. Mom mode has instantly kicked in as I run and pick him up looking towards the front door knowing that Hannah and Hayden would, or should, be coming down the front steps, but they weren't. Then I hear something... Giggles from far away. I look down to the road and there they are NO coats, NO shoes, past our neighbors house, ON.THE.ROAD!!! "YOU GIRLS GET BACK HERE!" I yell down the street running toward them still carrying Jonathan. And as they turn and start running away laughing and giggling, I knew I was no match for them since I was already starting to feel the strain from holding Jonathan. And that's when I yelled for Cassie, "CASSIE, GET OUTSIDE NOW!" Poor thing probably thought I was going to murder her, but I needed her to get out there now, and she had no idea what was going on, so my tone was very urgent and demanding. Cassie comes running out in her bare feet through the melting snow and sandy road as I shout out directions to her and she snags the girls. I couldn't believe it.

Once we were all inside, and the front door locked things calmed down. I know what had happened. I had unlocked the front door earlier in the day and had forgotten to lock it back up, it was my fault. So here's the thing...They were all inside when I arrived home, remember Olivia was screaming at Hannah, and I was only inside for maybe 2 minutes at the most, so ALL this happened within a couple of minutes. Hannah and Hayden were halfway down to the end of the cul-de-sac in 120 seconds! Thank God that we live on cul-de-sac that has very little traffic and Thank God that no one was hurt. This could have had a very unhappy ending. Life Lesson #104: Always keep your doors locked when you have young children, things can happen in seconds. Oh and this also affirms Life Lesson #76: Never assume anything when it comes to husbands or children.
Funny or not so funny thing is, is that I can distinctly hear that same phrase, "You girls get back here" coming from my Grandma Eekhoff's mouth many, many, years ago while getting into trouble when I my cousins and I would stay at their place. And I can remember giggling and screaming while running away from her too. (We had so much fun out there.) God Bless you Grandma for putting up with us!

What do you want to bet this won't be the last time I say those words?

Yep, it's back to reality folks...back to reality.

Adventures in Birthday Cake Baking or Making..

For some reason I have decided to try making the kids' birthday cake this year. When I told my mom this, she reminded me of Olivia's first birthday cake that I insisted on making and then me declaring that I would never try that again. Well, just like the pain from child birth, time heals all, and you start getting crazy ideas again. Anyways, I am going with a monkey theme this year and when I was buying the decorations they had a cake pan, and all the reviews said it was so great and it even came with step-by-step instructions! Naturally I thought I can figure out how to do that so I bought it. HAhahah! Below are some pictures of my trail runs so far. There are 4 different kinds of things you can try in the pan. You can use a brownie mix, cake mix, rice crispies, or something called the monkey primate (I haven't figured out if it is suppose to be a big cookie or what).

My First Attempt.

Behold the Monkey Brownie.



 Even with using a ton of non-stick spray and dusting it with flour it still stuck to the pan in places. The brownies themselves didn't taste too bad but there were some weird rubbery spots throughout it. Hmmm...looks like I'm going to need to practice this one again. I couldn't even practice frosting it!

Next Try.

The Crispy Monkey.



 This actually turned out pretty good. Cocoa Crispies on the top, regular crispies on the bottom and frosting for the face, ears, hands, and feet. I used ivory and brown food coloring to make the frosting the right color, but it took forever and I had to use a TON of the brown food coloring. When my mom saw this she said, "Why didn't you just get some chocolate frosting?" Mom's are so smart sometimes. So on my next trip to Target I got vanilla frosting AND chocolate frosting. Along with that I bought two cake mixes, a vanilla and a chocolate, thinking marble cake monkey. Which leads me to my last attempt as of now.

The Marble Cake Monkey

So my detailed instructions say to use a mix for making two cakes. I wanted to try a marble cake. Note: I've never made a marble cake before. First I poured in my chocolate mix, and then thinking to myself I said, "I wonder if I can just pour my vanilla mix right on top and instead of a marble cake it would be like a layered cake. That would be cool!" Well guess what. It doesn't work that way. As I poured in the vanilla mix it was like the chocolate was eating the vanilla alive. After seeing this I then thought, "Well, I will just go with that." The pan was filled to the very top and I had a little bit of extra mix left over so I decided to make a few little heart shaped cupcakes. As I was filling the little heart shaped tins I thought to myself, "I can't fill these completely full or it will spill over as it starts to cook." Then I looked over at my very filled monkey tin. Nievely, I thought, "Surely they would have said something in the directions if I was only suppose to fill it to a certain height. Right?" So I stuck my monkey pan in the oven and under that my pan with my heart shaped cupcakes. Thank you Jesus for the pan under my monkey tin. It didn't catch all the droppings that flowed from my little monkey muffin but it did catch most of it. Therefore, my house only smelled like burnt cake for one day instead what could have been one week.

My Marble Monkey Cake Muffin



This is the cake after I pull it from the oven. It's huge! Luckily I had bought a cake cutter thing that is suppose to help you level your cake. And guess what, after I had chiseled away the burnt pieces that were wrapped around the sides of the pan it worked! And look....


It didn't stick to the pan either!!! I have yet to frost this cake because that night is when I ended up going to the ER for my appendix, but my mother-in-law kindly wrapped it up tight for me and put it in the freezer, so that when I do get back up and running again it will be there ready for me to try to frost it. But look at it! It looks like a monkey! And the top part that I cut off actually tasted really good! So maybe there is hope yet!

Getting Tired of Taking it Easy

My soreness from surgery is so much better then it was a few days ago, but now I have developed a wonderful new cold, and this cold is wanting to make my head explode! So here I am writing this while I am still at my sisters. I did go home Tuesday night for a little while after the kids had finished supper to test the waters. I got to tuck them in and give them kisses goodnight, which is something I think every parent loves to do. It was so good to see everyone finally. But I was hoping that my test night would lead to me coming home Wednesday and here I sit. When I woke up Wednesday my cough that I have had since surgery, had turned into a full blown sinus, head throbbing, stuffy nose, want to sleep, can't sleep, sneezing, sore throat, cold. Are you kidding me?! Ughhhh, I don't know, maybe this is God's way of telling me that I wasn't quite ready yet to get back into the swing of things. Some of you might be thinking, "Why are getting yourself all worked up, you have help, the kids are still alive, enjoy the rest." But it's hard to enjoy rest when you have been going nonstop for the last two years. People ask, "How are you so thin after having triplets?" Come to my house for 24 hours and you will find out people. Things never slow down with a 3 1/2 year old and 3 almost 2 year olds. To keep my house running smoothly, I have to be running smoothly from about 8am to 8pm. With that being said, its hard for me to lay low for so long. When I was expressing this to my sister today, she said, "Ya know, there is a reason you had to get your appendix out, that's not something that happens to everyone." I think she is probably right, but sometimes when God has different plans for you then you do it is hard to except it right away. I suppose one could compare it to trying for one more and ending up with three! Now, my new prayer is to get home Friday or Saturday at the latest!

Appendectomy = Vacation

Close your eyes and think vacation. What do you see and feel? When I do this I see blue sky's, clear water, and sandy beaches. I can feel the warm sun light on my face and I can feel the warm breeze blow through my hair. It's peaceful and quiet. Ahh...now that is what I call a vacation. Now let me tell you about the unexpected vacation that I am on now. There is no sand, no beach, and the only breeze I am getting is when Rocky, my sister's dog, walks by me after one of his nasty farts! SICK!

It all started after I tried to go to bed late Tuesday night. I went down at about 12:30 and started to have some severe abdominal pains. After a couple of hours I woke Adam up and told him that I was in a lot of pain and that I thought I should go to the hospital. He thought I just needed to poop so he told me to take two tums and wait it out. To me this wasn't a poop pain, so I decided to go to the ER. Adam stayed home with the kids and somehow I drove to St. Lukes. Once I got there they did a pelvic exam and took some blood. Then they gave me some morphine for the pain, and things started to look a little better. A couple of hours later they took me up for a CT Scan and that is how they found out that I had and appendicitis. Once this was confirmed and there was a surgeon available I was off to surgery. Adam was able to get there right before I went in, which I was grateful for. My appendix hadn't ruptured either so that was a blessing as well. The surgery went well, and I was actually released that night. However, I am suppose to take it easy, and I'm not to lift anything over 10 to 15 pounds for the next 2 weeks. NOT lift anything for 2 WEEKS! These people must not know where I live. So my sister Theresa said that I could come stay out at her house for as long as I needed to. She only has two kids, Rachel,14, and Matt, who is 3. And let me tell you, even with having a three year old here it is soooooo quiet! I can't get over it! It's like not having any kids at all! I was only planning on staying here for a day or two, but when I called into the doctor's office he said that I should stay away for 5 to 7 days! So instead of a week in the Caymans I'm staying a week at Hotel Blong. It's not all bad though, well, except for the farting dog. That I could do without!