The "real" pictures should be back any minute now, but before we get the professional shots I thought I'd post a few pics that my mom took during our photo session last weekend at the Penn State arboretum & botanical garden. We have been getting pics taken every six months or so and were planning to do pics in April, but after talking with Emily (who also took their six month photos) we decided the weather would be better and the backgrounds prettier if we waited until May. And since my parents were coming in May I thought we'd wait until they were here so we could get some nice shots with the kiddos and their grandparents too. Unfortunately, the timing of their visit wasn't great in that it coincided with PSU graduation weekend and Mother's day which meant the arboretum which is usually very low key and fairly empty was jam packed with grads and their families all wanting to take pictures! Just like when we did their one year shoot we were lucky and a little unlucky with the weather because it was a beautiful sunny hot day, but sunny days are not good for the lighting for pictures. And since the garden is only about a year old there aren't many, if any, big trees to provide shade, so we left the garden for a bit and hung out in a field surrounded by tall pines that we think is part of the grounds of where the president of PSU lives, but we really aren't sure. =)
Here are some shots my mom took. It was hard for me to do, but I left my camera at home. Stay tuned for the professional shots later this week!
getting all gussied up. Ellie was adamant about her shoe choice!
Here's a quick compilation of a few seconds of video of us trying to get a shot of us all walking together...
triplet refueling after all that running around
we also found a field of dandelions behind the arboretum
After a while we headed back into the garden...
beautiful double tulips
this was way too tempting & I think 2 or 3 tulips bit the dust during our time here!
Avery with her "will anyone notice if I rip off just one petal?!" look...
I knew we wanted some pics by the water pump in the children's garden, but we also knew those needed to be at the end because inevitably they would end up soaking wet...
I love that they have these little watering cans for kiddos to use...
they LOVE filling them with water
and watering the flowers...
At this point they were already wet so I figured "what the heck, let's go wade in the water too!"
checking out the little cork boats they have for kids to play with (have I mentioned how much I LOVE this children's garden?!)
more fun with boats
yup, that happened! good thing we waited til the end!
After all that fun in the water we stripped everyone down & changed clothes. We debated about which outfits to have them in for pictures and now that I look at their coloring in the candid shots I'm not sure we made the right choice, but their little black & white outfits are so cute it was hard to decide! Oh well, I'm sure we'll get some great shots anyway...
getting dirty in the sandbox in the cave (Isaiah would probably stay here for hours)
Grandpa & Isaiah headed out to find a spot for lunch round two
I can't remember what was cracking Ellie up, but I just love this series of her laughing and had to put them all in! I also like seeing Avery's expressions throughout the series...
And one last shot of us all packed up and headed home...
My mom & dad arrived last Wednesday night. I told them I needed their help with a big project...potty training triplets, round one. As you know we've been putting these three on the potty since they were six or seven months old and a good friend of ours swears there is a potty training window at 18 months. Well, we are now 18mo adjusted and with extra hands and eyes on board I figured we might as well give it a go. We did a version of the 3 day potty training method that another triplet family we know used which basically has the kiddos naked from the waist down and you just catch them in the act and swoop them to the potty and then celebrate like crazy if they even get a little in the potty. It is harder than you might think to keep your attention focused on these bodily functions even when you are focused on them one on one and not trying to do anything else! And with three the challenge is certainly magnified! I'll skip the suspense and just tell you that we are far from being done with diapers around here. =) Well, Avery is well on her way and basically diaper free except for naps & nighttime now. Ellie is showing more and more that she isn't too far behind, but I think it'll be a little longer for Isaiah. We cleaned up quite a bit of pee (and a couple poops), but we also spent a lot of time outside which helped minimize the mess. In the end, the kids had a few fabulous days of nakey-time and had a great time playing with Grandma Rae & Grandpa Mark. Here are some pics of day one
too chilly in the morning for all out nakedness so we compromised
water table fun with G&G
one gone rouge...likely on a mission to destroy a tulip...
post nap potty & water...
Grandpa was sharing his ice water...once he got wet though Isaiah was done...
Avery kept going back for more even though she kept getting freezing cold
ice water all down her belly!
They were all pretty fascinated with Grandpa's nipples & the fact
that they were always accessible. Avery decided to see if they worked like
Mommy & Mama's...she was disappointed when she just got a taste of sunscreen! =)
nakey in the swing
fly!!
Ellie getting a little snuggle time with her baby, who unlike her,
is wearing a diaper! (Thanks Grandma Stephen!)
How's
that for alliteration?! Last weekend we had a gogreous sunny and suprisingly sunny
Saturday so we took the triplets to the beach. (There I go with the S's again!)
About 25 minutes from our house there is a little lake with a small beach that
we have heard people talk about, but never actually been to. It was so sunny
and nice that Michelle decided to play hookey from PhD Land and just spend the
day with us. We wanted to do something fun and outside so we decided to check
out Whipple Dam. We left a little after nine and hoped that the kiddos might
take a little car nap on the way. Naturally they fell asleep about ten minutes
before we got there! We folllowed a handful of other cars into the park and
thought that was odd, but we were blown away by how packed it was. We got out
of he car and at first glance it looked like the entire lake was surrounded by
fishermen standing practically shoulder to shoulder and we were ready to bail.
But we were meeting a friend there so we decided to stay and after a little
investigation we found out that it was opening day of trout fishing season!
Thankfully, there was no fishing from the beach so it worked out just fine.
While we were
playing in the sand I stumbled on a fun and super easy balance activity for
toddlers and thought I'd share. You know how toddlers just LOVE to knock down
block towers, and basically destroy just about anything?! Well, they also LOVE
to stomp on and destroy sandcastles! Their initial instinct was to just squat
down and smash them with their hands, but with a bit of prompting and just a
little support at first they got the hang of stomping on them and then that was
all they wanted to do. I just used one of their little stacking cups that we
brought to the beach and kept scooping up sand and making mini castles and they
would just follow me around stomping on them left and right.
Oops, he missed...
And Avery jumped in & stomped it before he could
Why do I like this
activity? Well, in order to stomp on the castles they have to briefly stand on
one foot. And while most of us don't spend much time each day standing like
flamingos, we do stand on one foot at least a few times most days. If you stand
up to put on your pants or your socks or shoes, you are standing on one foot.
By the age of three most children should be able to stand on one foot for at
least three seconds with a stable trunk and hands on their hips. If you don't
get to the beach as often as you'd like you can also work on single leg balance
by having kids kick balls, knock down block towers with their feet, try to pop
bubbles with their toes, or stand up to put their feet in shoes (even if you
have to help a little.) Just being at the beach is great for working on balance especially for toddlers who have been walking for a few months because just walking on the uneven sand and in shallow water is a great balance challenge!
This morning we decided to tackle an art activity! The other day I tried making paint bags, but we didn't have tempera paint so I followed a recipe online to make my own paint and, well, it was a total flop! The paint was way too thin & just sunk to the bottom of the bags rather than staying wherever they squished it. So today when they wanted to paint I decided to use the paint from the bags so it wasn't a total waste!
Pinterest fail!
Michelle has done a couple of poster presentations this semester and it turns out that those posters make excellent art spaces for triplets! Here are some pics from the event. And yes, it was an event! Though I will say that they actually stayed put on the paper for at least 15 minutes straight and our new Melissa & Doug no-spill paint cups worked great!
top view early on
And a little farther into it...
"whadya think Mommy?!"
Isaiah concentrating on adding red!
Ellie & her green paint...
Avery branching out to a new spot on the paper
showing off their work to Hope!
And once painting the paper got old, they moved on to painting their legs!
Shortly after the body painting commenced they started looking for new canvases around the house so I had to quickly round up all the painting supplies and get everyone's feet & hands wiped off! The paint recipe was kind of sticky so painting led directly to our next activity for the morning...bath time!
I have been thinking about writing this post for months because I don't think I've written anything about nursing since the summer. We are still nursing the babies, but probably 3 months ago or so we cut down to 2-3 times a day. We still nurse them when they wake up in the morning and before bed and if one or both of us are home then we typically nurse them in the middle of the day before their afternoon nap. Then of course there are the times when someone wakes up from a nap incredibly sad or has a serious wipeout and needs some extra help settling down. I don't think we set out to nurse them this long (I know Michelle's original plan was 6 months!), but it's just part of our routine right now and I for one am not really ready to be done. Michelle is definitely more ready to be done, but the babies are to blame for that because they are definitely NOT ready to be done and in fact are currently kind of obsessed with nursing and Michelle has had it with having little hands diving down her shirt requesting milk the second she walks in the door!
It is hilarous to think about how different nursing these three is now compared to a year ago. I know this evolution happens for every mom who nurses into toddlerhood, but there are definitely some things that are different with multiples and some that are unique to having two moms both nursing triplets.
I don't know, but I suspect that other moms nursing toddlers are familiar with what we like to call "nursing yoga" where their little ones practically do sun salutations or work on their cirque du soleil routines all with your nipple in their mouth. Their favorite yoga pose is standing on one leg with the other kicked up behind, similar to this standing bow pose!
Avery has tried to up the ante a bit by trying to do a plank while nursing by putting both feet up on the crib behind her! Another favorite nursing game over the past few months include the ever popular "nipple peekaboo" where they either take our hand or put their hand on the nipple to play peekaboo a few times before re-latching. Isaiah prefers the more traditional version of covering his one eye and playing peekaboo because then he can keep nursing! (smart boy!) We are also super into body parts and what better time for a review session than while nursing, right? Some current favorites include eyebrow, cheeks, chin, lips, teeth, and of course nipple and breast! Intermittently stopping nursing to blow a few quick raspberries on Mama's belly or breast is another funny one.
They sometimes like to give their loveys a nip of milk too. =)
Only moms of multiples though can truly appreciate the challenge of trying to referee a tandem nursing session. What does that even mean you ask? Well, remember, these guys are toddlers now and they don't stop being toddlers while they're nursing so the urge to test limits and annoy their siblings remains strong! It is fairly routine to have to employ mama handcuffs to prevent hair pulling, eye poking, and other "annoy my nursing buddy" tactics. Now, to offset those particularly obnoxious moments there are also occasional moments of incredible sibling sweetness where one will reach over and give their nursing buddy a back or head rub or try to hold hands.
hard to say whether Avery is getting a back rub and a head rub
at the same time here or if Isaiah is about to pull her hair!
The one thing that I suspect is unique to our situation and is also quite hilarious to watch is the game of musical nipples. Avery started this game a few months ago and it took us a little while to catch on to her plan. She would stop nursing and start saying "shhhhhh" and after a bit we figured out that she was trying to say "switch" because she wanted to switch spots with someone! Now they all do it and pretty much every night now someone initiates a switch and often there are multiple switches. I think this concept is pretty hilarious and most of the time the others are pretty amenable to the swap though sometimes we have to negotiate a trade. Lately they've also started saying switch when they want to switch sides.
If I'm the only one home before a nap and decide to nurse them we have a lot of these negotiations and do a lot of slowly counting to ten before switching so the third baby can get a little milk too. I am actually amazed at how cooperative they typically are about taking turns most of the time. Though there are times like the photo below where the third just tries to nudge someone out of the way using his or her head!
just in case you were wondering, no, I do not have 3 nipples
maybe I can get milk from Isaiah's head?
(or maybe if I bite his head he'll get outta my way?!)
And then when it was time to switch Isaiah tried to get milk from her cheek =)
I don't know how much longer we will end up nursing, but but it has been quite an adventure thus far and one I'm so thankful to been able to be a part of! Love these crazy little toddlers!
