Random dance parties happen in our house all the time now. They all enjoy dancing and as you could see from the Super Bowl Halftime show video, they are expanding their repertoire for dance moves. Hope taught them a double finger wagging move, now named the "Hope dance" that, along with spinning, is a popular move. Speaking of Hope, the triplets all say some version of Hope's name, most often "Opa," They are also just starting to say each other's names, which is soooo cute, but we have yet to catch it on video. Since my birthday, the most popular song to have us sing in the car is happy birthday and they like to tell us who to sing to. Ellie almost always says we should sing to her, while Avery seems to alternate between her siblings. Singing happy birthday is a pretty good way to stop a whining/fussing/crabbby moment in it's tracks. Another go to is "who wants to get a hat?!" because they've been pretty hilariously interested in wearing silly hats and the other dress up things from Auntie Jess. On the eating front we continue to be obessed with all things berry, particularly "booberries," and we go through multiiple bags of mandarins/clementines in a week. They can each easily eat a whole one as a snack if we let them. The not-so-fun new challenges include a noticeable increase in "testing behaviors" where they do something they think/know they shouldn't and watch for our reaction. The current favorites are standing up in their seats at the table (Ellie especially), trying to (and sometimes succeeding) in getting behind the gate covering the fireplace, and being completely obsessed with the potty, which has on more than one occasion involved dumping a potty full of pee on the floor and daily includes sticking their hands in the pee and then looking to us for the wipe. Oy! Toddlers!
getting all three to look good in one pic is impossible these days!
silly babies
they are so into dressing up right now!
BIG kids walking into the library!
Avery
snuggling
close up at bathtime
diving right in
silly baby!
Avery has learned a couple of new motor skills this month including how to stand on her tiptoes, which she will do to reach things on the table, but also just randomly to play around with the feeling. She also learned how to make fish lips and is very proud of this new skill. It is really fun to watch her try to get it and she thinks it is funny when we do it back and forth with her. This month Avery really fell in love with the pool and has gotten very brave when we go swimming. I can have her swim about a foot or so towards me under water and then she grabs my suit and pulls herself out of the water. Here's a quick clip:
Avery's also been the most daring in the snow and thinks it is funny when she's walking in the snow to just plop down on her bum. (More on snow activities coming soon in a Motor Monday post.) Avery continues to be obsessed with dogs and is starting to make Grandma Stephen & Auntie Jess feel like chopped liver because every time we video chat with them she asks to see Addie & Beckett (the dogs). Avery's favorite animals to talk about are dogs, seals, and monkeys/gorillas. The littlest peanut has been an eating champ lately, but at their 15mo check up was still the smallest by just over a pound, weighing in just under 20lbs. She continues to struggle with sleep and the sleep plan we used with Isaiah this month really did not work for her so we are back to square one and she is still up at least once, and sometimes as many as three times, each night.
Isaiah
what a stud =)
camera shy?! yeah right!
cheeseball!
what a hunk?!
At the beginning of the month we tried a new sleep plan with Isaiah to work on night weaning in a very gentle, non cry-it-out way, with a few tweaks since the plan was for a family bed and our end goal is him sleeping through the night in his crib. It was a challenging couple of weeks, but he made some big improvements and no longer (or at least very rarely) wakes up and stands up and screams at night. Not to say he is sleeping great, but it is much better (with the exception of the past few nights!) Isaiah continues to be our little showman. He is the most into the dress up hats lately and loves to parade around in them and act silly. He is a crack up a lot of nights (and some mornings) after he's nursed and will walk back and forth across the room putting on a show. Sometimes he dances, sometimes he walks and then dramatically falls down and looks for our reaction. It's pretty darn adorable! This isn't the best example, but you get the idea.
He's also started to really express strong opinions sometimes about what he wears. He LOVES the monster jammies and will always choose them when that's one of his options. He has also been pretty adament about choosing to wear one of the dresses we offer the girls sometimes. He has a very cute little version of "hello" that he says anytime he picks up a phone, which includes our cell phones, any play phone, or a remote. Sadly, since our little pool break in December thanks to sickness and the holidays, Isaiah has been a lot more timid at the pool. He used to be quite the daredevil and lately has been very clingy and whiney, especially at first. But he still loves the bath and is all over the place and drives Ellie nuts when he crawls over her and lays on his tummy to "swim" and encroaches on her space.
Ellie
Ellie sitting on bear's lap
yeehaw!
love that big smile!
getting brave outside
Ellie hasn't been too into sharing space lately and has been the most likely to try to bite one of her siblings. She also doesn't want to share her mama with another baby, or me for that matter. She is in a mama mama mama phase where all she wants when she's the least bit sad/tired/upset is for Michelle to hold her. And she wants to be held in a very specific way, right in front with both arms under her bum. This may be directly correlated with the fact that she has two molars just cracking through the surface of her gums, but who knows. Ellie is also the one who gets scratched the most by Bailey because she is the most persistent and doesn't do a great job of listening to Bailey's warnings to back off. She has been really into helping feed Bailey and Humphrey lately. Ellie has the best sign vocabulary of all the babies and randomly whips out signs we forgot she ever learned. She LOVES (aka is thoroughly obsessed with) the few baby signing books that we have and every time she sees one wants to read it ad nauseum. It's gotten to the point wheere we've had to hide them because we can't stand to read them one more time. But the other day they were playing in the bin of blankets in their room and as we're talking about the blankets she rubs her hand under her chin to sign blanket. Here's a quick clip of Ellie signing & saying baby and then going to get that baby! (not sure why the thumbnail isn't working!)
Ellie has learned a lot of new body parts this month including eyebrow. She's been really into eyes for a while now but recently discovered eyebrows and now she & Avery like to touch our eyebrows and say "eye-bough." While Isaiah might be the biggest showman, Ellie is our little model. She has really started to cheese it up when she sees me taking pictures. Of all the babies I would say Ellie is the least enthusiastic about the snowy winter we are having. Until the past week or so she would pretty much just freeze and not move when we took her out in the snow, but the past few times we've been out she's been more willing to try moving and seems pretty pleased with herself that she can walk in her boots on the plowed driveway. We've even managed to get a few kinda happy pics of her out in the snow recently!
Over the past month or so it has been fun to watch the babies play start to expand. They are really starting to play with the baby dolls they got for their birthday and it is really cute. The babies like to give the babies hugs and kisses and Avery likes to rock her babies. It cracks me up to see them lifting their babies up and putting them on their head or holding them upside down. I joked with Michelle that if someone was evaluating their play with dolls they might not get credit for the pretend play skills like feeding and caring for babies (though they do like the hugs & kisses), but they actually do a great job imitating what we do with them! I'm always tossing them up in the air, putting them on my head, and flipping them upside down. =) Now, I don't typically carry them by one leg upside down like they often do with their babies (okay, maybe it's happened once or twice!), but it is funny to think about the models they have for how to interact with babies. =) We play "blast off" with our kiddos where we hold them by the hips and count down before blasting off and lifting them up. And they will now do that with their dolls. We can say "do you want to play blast off with your baby?" and they will all lift their babies up in the air. It's so cute. We have started modeling feeding the babies over the past couple weeks and now they like to pretend to feed the babies with little forks or spoons. Although as soon as I gave them little bottles to feed the babies with they spent the majority of the time with the bottles in their own mouths!
Isaiah hugging his baby
Avery's baby getting a BIG kiss!
Ellie giving the baby a bottle
Here's a video of them pretending in the bathtub the other day. They all wanted to get in the tub at 3:30 the other day and that isn't bath time so we just put them in with all their clothes on. They thought it was hilarious. We had to give them the ideas for pretending, but it was still fun to watch them try to do things sans water!
They've also started to show interest in "dress up" and wearing silly hats. When we pulled out the Christmas decorations we put the Santa hat and reindeer antlers in their play area. They all wanted to wear them and tried hard to figure out how to put them on themselves. It was hilarious to watch them try to figure this out.
Avery wears the hat the longest
Ellie trying to get it on herself...so close =)
"I know Mom put these on my head somehow..."
tricky antlers!
He was so happy to wear this hat even though I didn't catch it on camera!
Ellie has been particularly into wearing things and loves to try to wear whatever she can find. She loved getting into the swim bag and trying to put on our swimsuits. The other day she was parading around the living room wearing a ring sling baby carrier like a princess sash. And the girls have been loving crawling and walking around the bedroom wearing their hooded towels after bath time. The orange bucket in the playroom often ends up on someone's head too. Not sure what it is about buckets that draws kids to put them on their heads, but their big cousin Abigail loved wearing a bucket on her head too!
Ellie sporting Mommy's swim top
Sooooo happy
parading giraffe
Ellie put her towel on by herself...
checking herself out in the mirror
PJs half on & a towel...good look bud!
happy little dude in silly glasses from Auntie Jess
little Miss Buckethead
They've also been initiating a lot more social play with each other and us. They like to play peek-a-boo with us and eachother and have been really cute looking at each other in and out of the little tunnel. They have also started initiating rough and tumble play and tickling by "getting" us or each other. When they are "getting us" they will just come up and dive onto us. This doesn't always go over very well when they do it to each other, but there have been times when the recipient (usually the baby laying on the floor for a diaper change or when getting jammies on) actually enjoys being gotten and will crack up. We are still working on the idea of appropriate places to get and tickle each other (i.e. not on the face!), but it is pretty cute to watch them initiating this with each other!
