Trick or Treat!

We had a great Halloween this year! Here are a few pictures from tonight to tide you over until I add more!





Thanks again to our family for coming up and celebrating with us!

Pumpkin Painting

Earlier this month, the boys all picked out pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. Last week, we painted the pumpkins!


Alex:


Logan:


Nick:


Finished Pumpkins:


We also got a couple of bigger pumpkins to carve. I might even try to trace/carve a Star Wars pumpkin. Kinda curious to see what they think of pumpkin guts!!!

Summer 2010

I know, it's well into fall but I wanted to finally post some pics and such about our summer.

The pool was a fun summer favorite. They were in our inflatable pool almost every day and on the weekends, we typically went down to my aunt’s house to swim in the big pool.
 
Alex is a pro and swims all over the place. He’ll even jump in from the edge. Over the 4th of July weekend, he jumped in and even went all the way under (without us catching him). Didn’t seem to phase him much. Now he'll do it more willingly, but only once or twice before he's back to "you catch me". Logan is also a little fish. He’ll jump in too, but not quite as dramatically as Alex. Nick on the other hand... Well, he has gone from not even getting in - to getting in but clinging to Grandma for dear life – to holding onto Grandma for dear life, but kicking his feet - to finally letting go of Grandma and swimming. We’re making progress. By the end of the summer he was more comfortable swimming on his own. He's even jumped in a few times too, although from a seated position on the edge of the pool - not standing. Of course, he prefers Grandma through all of this because I will just let him float until he swims to me – much more traumatizing for him :-)

Below is part of a post I started back in July but never finished. Wanted to post it now ...

The things these boys say now! You have to watch what you say because they will repeat you. And they pick out the most random things to repeat. They also point phrases you don’t realize you say quite as much as you do. For a while, whenever you’d ask Alex or Nick something (do you want to ...), they’d respond “yeah, ok, sure” or “sure, why not!”. Recently a big thing we hear a lot is “I said No!” and then a response from a brother (or us) “I said Yes!” and it goes one for a while, back and forth. Cute when it’s between them, not so cute when it’s a fight between us and them!

Meal times are still horrible, but I don’t expect that to change for a while. Logan has chicken fingers/nuggets/etc. for the last 3 or 4 nights in a row (at least) and some lunches too. Oh well, at least he’s eating. Alex can have a meal of only chips or french fries. I know, horrible mom, but at least he eats better at other meals that day! Nick is very particular about his food. Do not, under any circumstance, no matter how much you KNOW he is not going to eat something, take it off his plate. He will throw a fit if he doesn’t get it back – and he doesn’t care if you already ate it – cough it back up right now! A trade doesn’t usually work either. He wants the exact thing you just took. But, meals are only 1.5 ish hours a day, right?! Manageable... I guess...

We started potty training a little over the summer. We didn't push it too much The boys did good for a while, but it never really stuck. Logan has done the best so far, going both #1 and #2 on the potty multiple times. Nick did pretty good at sitting and reading a book, but rarely "did" anything. Alex would sit there, but didn't quite care if he went in the potty or his big boy underwear. But they looked so cute sitting on their chairs reading their books! I figure we'll get back to it soon enough...


This summer we also got to hang out with cousin Halas when he came up for his aunt's wedding. In this picture, we're problably introducing him to The Wizard of Oz.

This was a big favorite for a while. It amazes me how quickly their little brains absorb things. After seeing the movie only once, they were telling me so many of the little details! Now we've seen it so many times that they not only know the songs, but mimic the scarecrow and tin-man dances. Nick followed the chalk "yellow brick road" over and over one day for almost 15 minutes! Our patio isn't that big!

Here a few more of my favorite summer pictures. You can see even more pictures of our summer here. I also updated the side bar on the blog with more pictures.

Happy 3rd Birthday Boys!!!

I can't believe my little babies are 3 years old today! It has been a very hectic 3 years, but I wouldn't change it for the world!!!
Then - when we could actually hold all 3 at once...

and now - where they never all look at the camera at the same time!

We love you boys! You make every day a new adventure! Happy Birthday!!!

Huntsville 2010

Back in May, we took a family vacation to Huntsville. And when I say family, I mean all of us in one house ~ the 5 of us plus uncle Brandon, Grandma Carol and Papa B all drove down to stay with Angela and family for almost a week. Mom and Dad drove down during the day again and the 6 of us (including uncle Brandon) drove down over night. The boys did great concidering they slept through most of it (which is what we had hoped for).

The boys loved staying at Sydney and Halas's house! There were so many new toys and new rooms to explore... not to mention the huge bath tub! You can't tell in this picture, but Sydney's in the tub too!

Up in the game room, uncle Brandon set up a cool track for the motorized cars. The kids also liked to jump and play on the inflatable air mattress.

On Monday, we went to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. The boys were excited to see the astronaut suits and big rockets. They even got to see their first big screen movie - 3D even. They were showing Fly Me To The Moon - one of their favorite movies to watch at Grandma's house. They weren't excited about keeping the big glasses on. It would have been nice if they had smaller sizes, but all they had were adult sizes. In general, they did pretty good during the movie. Granted, no one else was in the theater, so some "musical chairs" was fine (I want to sit with grandma. now i want to sit with grandpa...). But probably the most awesome part of the whole visit that day ~ DARTH VADER AND STORM TROOPERS!!! The museum was preparing for a big Star Wars exhibit in June and the day we were there, some publicity photos were being shot. While the camera crews set up, Vader and his Troopers were just waiting around. The boys and Sydney all got to give a trooper and/or Vader high fives! They were talking about that for a long time... well, actually, someone just mentioned it last week (almost 3 months later!).

Back at the house, we pulled out the pool and all the kids enjoyed some water time! It was a big inflatable pool out on the 2nd floor balcony. Nice way to contain them for a while and tucker them out too!


The next day things got a little scary. Logan woke up and was super lathargic. We could barely even get him interested in eating a donut - and that's just not normal! Okay, so seriously, he barely had any energy to move and couldn't keep anything down. We ended up taking him to the "urgent" care to see a doctor. Let's just say they weren't very "urgent" and not very helpful either. We finally got some anti-nausea medicine in him and he was able to keep down a few drinks of water (yep, even water wasn't staying down for a while). Later that night, he was back to normal and you would have never known he was sick!

And then the other two got sick. Not as bad as Logan had been, but for the next few days, at least one boy was sick at all times. Mainly just fevers and tired, but enough that we didn't take any other trips around Huntsville. With a few exceptions ~ we still had girls day out where we got pedicures and lunch. We also had an adult night out to dinner and a movie while the most awesomest grandparents watched all 5 grandkids!

They had tons of fun playing outside. They had snacks in the "club house" on the playset. They also got to "climb" the mountain and play on the rocks in the back yard. They used random sticks in the yard and turned them into walking sticks - just like Papa B's!

I love this one of Logan and Halas walking up the yard!

 

Thanks again to my wonderful sister for putting up with us all week (sick kids and all) and letting us hang out with her fabulous kids! I've added a few pictures throughout this post, but there are more in a slideshow below.

Cutest Guys Ever?!

Aren't these just the cutest guys ever? I know I'm biased, but you have to agree with me on this one!!!

Working on some new posts and finally have pictures from our Huntsville trip (in May) uploaded. More on that coming soon!

Hug Video

Tonight Alex and Nick were giving hugs so I caught it on camera. It started out because someone took something from someone and then later gave it back (after much crying and screaming, etc.). Whatever it was, it was cute!


Here's the link to the video directly on YouTube

Love this pic!

I'm going through our pictures from the trip to Huntsville last week and working on some blog entries... then I came across this one Hannah took one afternoon this week. I had to post it!

And then there's this one:

Also, I updated the slide show on right side of the blog with some random pictures from 2010.

Hakuna Matata

Nick was in a singing mood tonight and we got it on video! We started out singing "Can't Wait to be King" from The Lion King. Then Adam shared his version of "Be Prepared" - the boys like Scar. Then we moved onto "Hakuna Matata". He was singing it with us for a while and then insisted on doing it solo. Sorry for the shaky camera, but his brothers wanted to help me take the video.



You can also go here to see the video on YouTube.

Play Date - Girls!!!

This past Saturday we had two of our friends over to play - Skyler and Abby. We all had a lot of fun playing together.

Abby was great at sharing with us. I liked to give her baby doll (that she takes everywhere) lots of lovin's. She kept a close eye on me though and I always gave it back to her when she asked.

Abby wasn't so sure about sharing her mom's lap with me.

Skyler and I had a trade going on - she got to play with Nemo and I got to carry around her plastic cucumber.

And one of the extra cool parts - Ollie!!! We like dogs and he was fun to give hugs to.

It was kinda fun having a table full of only kids for a change!

Abby's dad has a really cool camera and took lots more pictures. Her mom even uploaded them to share with us here.

Thanks girls for coming over to play! We'd love to do it again!

Random Update

Two-and-a-half is a lot of fun. The boys are able to communicate soooo much better now (both a blessing and a curse). They are playing together so well. They love to read books (which makes daddy really happy) and have found our collection of Dr. Seuss books recently. They want you to read them the same books over and over. Most of the books we tend to recite in our sleep, and they do too (literally)! As they are going to sleep, instead of counting sheep, they repeat the books to themselves. And, they’ve heard the stories so many times, they can practically read the pages to us. The best thing is when we catch them reading to each other! Two of them will be looking over the same book and talking to each other about it.

And the conversations they have with each other! They talk a lot to each other at the dinner table. Usually it’s scolding a brother, but sometimes they’ll talk about something they were doing earlier in the day or planning what they’re going to do that night. It’s so awesome to watch!  You know they are planning something in this shot:

We’re eating at the table now for all meals; highchairs have turned into boosters.

I still hate feeding them – I never know what they’ll actually eat – but I don’t see that changing in the near (or distant) future. Alex loves pizza; Logan loves sausage; and Nick loves cheese!

They have been enjoying the spring weather and playing outside. They are outside most of the day, either in the back yard or over at the neighborhood park. They still enjoy going for walks in their choo-choo wagon, although pulling all 55-60 lbs of boy (plus the wagon) is definitely a good workout! All the extra running around and fresh air does help tucker them out and sleep a little better. They are now in toddler beds and doing much better than when we started. Just tonight, Alex was telling his dragon (that he brought to bed with him) - “Dragon, bed or timeout. Dragon, bed or timeout”. Seems he hears that a lot – they can make a choice, get in bed and stay there, or sit in the corner in “Time Out”.

Time outs seem to work pretty well for at least getting them to stop a behavior (temporarily). I’m not sure they really learn the lesson though. No matter how many time outs they get for throwing toys or hitting a brother, there’s always more for the same offenses. At least they know where they’re supposed to sit for time outs. It’s hilarious though when one of them gives a brother a time out! They are also great at taking turns... Well... They are great at volunteering a brother (or both brothers) for whatever it is they don’t want to do. When it’s time to get out of the bath, for example, everyone will volunteer someone else to go first.

N: Logan’s turn!
A: Nick’s turn!
L: Alex’s turn!
Odd that it’s never “My turn”... Unless it’s a fight over a toy, etc.

Random picture:

Shopping carts at Sam's Club

Happy Birthday Grandma Carol!

Tonight we went down to celebrate Grandma Carol's birthday. The boys brought grandma flowers. They are so cute when they try to smell them! They either smoosh the flowers way up their noses or they hold them a foot away and skrunch up their faces to "smell" them. Usually, they're exhaling more than inhaling the smell!

After dinner (and the cake that Grandpa B. made), we went over to the mall to play in the awesome play area they have. The boys had a blast and it was perfect to get some of their energy out before the drive home. We occasionally tried to get pictures with everyone in one spot. That really didn't work too well, but here is one where we were trying. At least everyone's in the same frame!

It was 3 years ago today that we surprised mom with the news that we were expecting triplets. Now I want to dig out that video and share it again... where did I "safely" store it?! I'll see if I can find it and post it again.
Happy Birthday Grandma (Mom)! We love you!

Dragons

The boys got their Easter presents a little early last week. Adam found for them some stuffed dragons from the new movie "How to Train Your Dragon." The boys were super excited to have them. They watched some TV with them...

They even wanted to take the dragons to bed with them...

AlexLoganNick

They love their dragons... and their dad for such a cool gift!