Fun with the Stephen family

Still catching up on posting pics from the holidays!  Here are some highlight pics from our time with Michelle's family in Naperville!

Uncle Matt reading a spot book to Isaiah

Apparently Isaiah was good at getting people to read to him! =)

being silly with Auntie Tracy

checking out a new book with Auntie Jess

Auntie Jess modeling the mask she just got the babies for xmas

Jess & Ellie selfie

one of my favorite shots!!

bounce bounce bounce

Auntie Tracy putting on a puppet show at the library

Grandma trying to help Ellie carry all three doggies
(she was very determined!)

going on a walk when we got a little stir crazy
in the house with three sick babies

we took about a zillion pics and didn't manage a single one with
everyone having their eyes open & looking at the camera
(note Isaiah is taking Ellie out in this shot!)

I should be doing a million other things

I should be doing ten million other, more productive things right now while the babies are down for their afternoon nap.  There's undoubtedly laundry to do, dinner to prep, work stuff to catch up on, and my house is littered with toys.  But, you know what, today is my birthday so I'm just not going to.  Instead I'm going to take a bit of this precious quiet, well relatively quiet (I still hear a bit of jibber-jabbering  back in their room), to sit down and post some adorable pictures of my babies...errrr toddlers.  You know we've spent over a year now saying "the babies this" and "the babies that..."  I find that 1) I'm not quite ready to not call them my babies and 2) I really don't know what to transition to...aying "the toddlers" or "the triplets" just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?  So for the time being please forgive me for still calling them "the babies."  Michelle put toegether a very sweet little slideshow for me for my birthday using flipagram.  I'll have see if I can post it here somehow.

Here are some particularly cute pics from a couple of weeks ago:

cutest little drool monster

playing with their doggie from Auntie Jess

Ellie has mastered the cheesy smile recently

just playing...

they love to get up on the window sill to wave goodbye
and I must say it's pretty cute to roll down your window to wave
and see these three cuties waving or blowing kisses

smoothies in an open cup experiment...

"Oh hey there Mr. Froggie!"

Upside down Avery!
They love it when one of us lays on the floor &
they'll all come "get us" and crash onto us

and they love to be gotten too of course...

silly little monkeys

sitting on Mr. Bear's lap

another cheeseball smile for the camera

silly Avery in the bath        

Ellie enjoying an orange slice
they are all OBSESSED with oranges, especially the little mandarins/clementines

Playing with Grandma & Grandpa

I'm catching up on some holiday posts still!

The babies warmed up to my mom and dad fairly quickly, but by the time our week was up they were really loving playing and snuggling with Grandma Rae & Grandpa Mark. Avery actually started saying a version of "grandpa" over the last couple days. It was so fun to watch them all interact and we all wish that we lived closer so they could get more of these special times with each other.

Here are some highlight pictures & a couple videos:

silly Grandpa Mark riding the toddler ride-on toy with Isaiah

grandfather-grandson story time

the girls wanted in...briefly anyway

a sled ride from Grandma Rae

Mom showing Ellie the xmas tree through prism glasses

Grandpa Mark introducing Isaiah to the Chickering's famous egg nog!

excited to greet Grandpa at the door

and lots of through the window kisses for Grandma

A quick snuggle with Avery

 

Fifteen months old & fabulous

I am WAY late posting this update! I think we are just now getting back on our feet after all the traveling we did over the holidays.  Plus the kiddos have been sick and I've been sick as well and I just haven't been able to find the time to sit down and blog.

Our trio turned 15 months on January 2nd and almost overnight it seems turned into true toddlers!  I'll write another post about their new toddler antics since most of that has been over the past couple of weeks!  

who me?!
(yes, you! & your siblings!)

Their 15th month on this planet was pretty crazy between the holidays and the sicknesses.  But thankfully, in between all the crying and screaming (mostly in the car) and whining and clinginess (mostly from being sick), they have actually been pretty fun and hilarious.  Their individual personalities continue to shine and they are learning new things every day!  We have had a true explosion of language skills in December.  They are all trying to imitate more words and doing more gesturing to help us understand what they are talking about when we don't get it.  All three are pointing, signing, and shaking their heads yes and no.  They all like to play ring around the rosie and are pretty good at it.  It's funny to watch them turn in circles and they will often say "fall down" as they're doing it.  Other favorite action songs are Row Row and Bumpin' up & down in my little red wagon.  They are all learning body parts and inconsistently will imitate animal sounds.  Although they are very consistent about "woo woo" for dog.  In fact, after being at Michelle's parents' house for a couple days, where there are often three dogs, when we got up to Wisconsin all of them were spontaneously saying "woo woo" probably wondering why we didn't have any dogs at that house!  They got really excited to see the little neighbor dogs out ithe window one day and then got really sad when it went inside.  So the next time we saw the dog out we bundled them up and took them out to watch the dogs play fetch in the road.  Another new thing in December was that they really started to imitate each other.  Sometimes this is funny because one will start banging the table and the other two will join in, other times it's a royal pain, like when one kiddo flips his or her plate and the other two follow suit!  They all love phones and will make anything into a phone holding them up to their ears saying "hi."  We've also seen a lot more "uh oh's" this month, complete with two hands on their faces like the pic of Avery in the bath later in the post.

not quite the xmas light photo I dreamed of, but we only got
a couple shots before Avery was on the go

opening gifts xmas eve

they started giving hugs this month!
(good thing Ellie's holding on...these hugs can knock ya over!)

Ellie

yay! bubbles!

run run run

her hair is getting so long!

Ellie has learned a cheesy grin and likes to do things to show off.  At the house we rented in Wisconsin she was "running" back and forth across the room and she would put her hands on the pack & play and look back at her audience with a cheesy little smile as if to say "did you see that?!"  And when my cousin Nicole wasn't paying attention she walked over to the door as if to say "hey, hey, pay attention to me!"  It also seemed like she was trying to wink and she would do a heavy blink of both eyes right at Nicole.  I didn't know it until we were on Facetime with them this week, but I guess my dad was showing Ellie how to wink so that makes sense.  She was trying to wink at Grandpa Mark on Facetime this week too!  Ellie really likes to "run run," i.e. walk fast and it's so fun to watch her because she has a distinctive "belly first" gait.  And she has quite the belly to stick out.  Michelle is so funny because she asks me all the time "are you sure this is normal?! Her belly is sooo big!"  Ellie has always been a good eater, but this month in particular she has been a lot pickier and is very serious about her refusals, though sometimes if we just let it go and leave whatever she is refusing on her plate she will come back to it later.  But she has a very serious "NO" and when she looks at you and says it you know she means business. =) She didn't like Grandma Stephen's bathtub (we think it was too slippery & made her nervous) and Michelle asked her if she wanted to take a bath and she said "NO!" and meant it!  She did eventually get in, but only after Michelle put on a suit and got in too!  Ellie still loves her accessories and will put just about any piece of clothing, hers or ours, around her neck and just walk around with it like that.  And this is a random little fact, but Ellie loves rocking chairs!

Avery

What a cheeseball!

Avery LOVED chasing the ducks at the park

"uh oh!"

Avery is obsessed with all dips right now.  If she isn't really eating something at a meal we can almost guarantee she will start eating it if we give her something to dip it in. She is pretty good at dipping things herself too, like dipping pancakes in syrup though recently she's happiest to just dip her finger in it and spread it around on her hands. Avery was the first one obsessed with dips, but the other two have caught on and are big fans now too.  She is funny lately too because she will often point to her plate to tell us she wants something on her plate for her to eat herself rather than us feeding it to her. This is particularly tricky and very messy when she wants things like yogurt or oatmeal on her plate!   Avery learned to walk backwards this month and will say "back back" & start walking backwards. Everyone has learned body parts, but Avery is the best!  She probably knows about 15 body parts already and seems to really like learning them. I can't remember if I mentioned Avery's "wow wow wow" from this month or not.  She was fun at xmas because everything was "wow wow wow!"  Like Ellie, Avery really likes to "run run" and can also step up and down from a step that is 2-3 inches high now.  Avery wins the award for the worst traveler.  She just HATES being strapped in her car seat!  She was by far the biggest screamer on all our drives.  I think the car makes her sleepy and she has always hated that feeling of falling asleep and of course our little mover and shaker hates being stuck in one place for any length of time too!  A random fun fact for Avery is that she likes basketball.  She likes to play it on the little hoop we have at home and she pointed to the basketball posters in Uncle Matt's room and tried to say and sign "basketball."

Isaiah

not the best pic, but shows Isaiah's new "O" face

love this one!

getting ready to do the slide

Isaiah is a real walker now!! This made me happy because I know kiddos develop on their own timeline and that technically kiddos have until 18 months to be independent walkers and still fall within the average range, but I always kind of want kiddos to be walking by 15 months and he surpassed that. He also figured out how to push himself up to stand in the middle of the room this month. Isaiah has started to really remind me of my little brother Matt lately because he has become quite a showman!  He was so funny in Michelle's parents' basement walking back and forth, looking back with a cheesy grin to make sure Grandma was watching and then he would fall down. By the time we started videotaping him he was barely getting up before falling and looking to laugh with Grandma!  Isaiah is our best eater and will eat almost anything we put in front of him (though he really isn't a fan of peas!).  He likes to try to use silverware and is working hard on scooping yogurt and hummus with a spoon.   Isaiah's language skills have really improved a lot this past month too and he now signs more, all done, dog, help, eat, orange, milk, banana, and light and tries to imitate even more.  Toward the end of the month he also started nodding his head yes and it is soooo cute and deliberate.  He opens his eyes wide and his mouth and does one or two slow big nods.  It's too funny.