kids playing---home improvement

I've been trying to capture the kids teeth and this is the best I could get from Tobin. He has two bottom ones and two upper ones. Skyler has two on the bottom and two are trying to come out on the top. Hudson still have two bottom and I think his uppers are coming, but he won't let me stick my fingers in his mouth so I'm not sure. Although he's hasn't had much of a milk appetite during the day, maybe teething or he's weaning himself off of the milk.

Tobing resting.
This is one of Skyler's favorite thing to do is climb on the rocking chair and rock...she looks like she's surfing. Tobin and Hudson playing on the music table. Hudson likes to push all the big toys around including that table. We tested the waters yesterday evening and let them on the floors in the living room and he was pushing the high chair around. They all were excited to be on the floor and not in their play area. Skyler kept looking back at me every time she was touching something new and wanted to see if I would say anything. It was almost like she wasn't sure if she should be touching the couch and recliner.

I love this pic...I think she was stuck, but eventually made her way back down.

I caught her climbing this dinosaur toy and she started to back down once she saw me get the camera...I guess she didn't want evidence! :-)

In preparation for the kids being mobile and just growing bigger, we're doing a lot of home improvements since we bought a fixer upper house. Within the past couple of months, we've trimmed the trees so the new sod could grow in the backyard. We've tore down the rotting shed and had a new one built. We've pretty much made the backyard kid friendly. Now we're remodeling our master bathroom. We decided to tackle this one first since the hall bath works, it's just not the prettiest. We've been taking them in the car during their naps and I would go in the store while Dan or someone who's with me would drive around the parking lot. Last Friday, I went to Floor & Decor with Alejandra and got all the tiles we needed. Then on Saturday for both naps, Dan and I made our way around town looking for bath accessories. It was pretty funny if you ask me. Dan dropping me off and I would call him when I was ready to be picked up. On their second nap, they did wake up early so we took them in the store...YES that's right it was our first outing to a store with the trio. We took them into The Great Indoors since I needed to buy some light fixtures. Dan was pushing them around and afterwards he told me the comments he got: "God bless you", "Oh My!" "You got your hands full!"...one woman whispered to her family and I think they kinda followed him around the store. I could hear Hudson crying while I was ordering the lights...HA! Pretty funny! Then Tuesday, Julie came with me to the Home Depot so I could buy a tub. Looks like we have everything we needed to finish this, hopefully by next week. Also if it's going to be a noisy construction day, then they nap in the car as well. The past two days, they've been doing sheet rock so it has not been that noisy. The first two days of demo, car rides for sure! I can't wait to enjoy my new jacuzzi tub!!! Calgon take me away!!! :-)

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to a wonderful dad, my hubby Dan!!! He's been AWESOME with the kids. I couldn't ask for a better person to spend my life with. I'm extremely lucky! While he was in Denver I had help from his family with the pictures of the kids wearing the onsies I made. I had the picture put on a mug for him.

Here's Daddy with his kids on Father's Day morning with all three admiring the mug. Tobin's in blue, Skyler's in red, and Hudson in green.

Daddy kissing Hudson.
Daddy going to kiss Skyler.
Daddy kissing Tobin.

Hudson, Skyler, and Tobin. Hudson pulling on Skyler and Tobin could care less about what's going on, he was more interested in the grass in his hand.

Tobin, Skyler, and Hudson.

boys are sleeping through the night WHOO HOO!!! YIPPEE!!

I can't believe this, the boys are actually sleeping through the night. It's really been our fault that they haven't. The pedi gave us the OK at their 6 months checkup to let them CIO (cry it out) and not feed them a bottle at night, but we just didn't listen! As a mom of multiples, once you have a system down it's hard to change it and that's what happened to us. We were comfortable with waking up at night and feeding them even though we were exhausted during the day...doesn't make much sense I know! But the fear of the unknown and the thought of hearing our kids cry for so long made both of us uneasy...that's why it's taken this long to try CIO at night. If you remember I did CIO for their naps back in January/February and that's still going well...of course there are days when I do still have to rock them a little, mostly the boys. Skyler is just happy with her paci and elephant lovey.

Well, we finally try CIO at night, started Monday and they've been sleeping through the night since Wednesday night. On Monday it was rough to hear them cry, the boys each on and off cry/stayed awake for 1- 1/2 hour. On Tuesday night, they woke up about 4:30/5 and we settled them down, but they ended up crying for about an hour on and off and then slept til 7:40! I couldn't believe I got to sleep til then. On Wedneday, Tobin slept til 5:30 and Hudson til 6. I rocked both of them in my arms back to sleep til almost 8. This morning Tobin was up at 6 and of course Hudson right after at 6:15. They are really in tune with one another especially during sleep. I was rocking Tobin and I should have put him down, but I enjoyed it so much that I ended up having to rock both boys in my arm again. But that's OK since Dan and I got to sleep for that long. When we first heard Tobin make some grunting noises at 5:30, he asked if I woke up to settle anyone and I said "no". He said the same. It was some AWESOME sleep we got last night. If Dan goes out of town for a bizness, we won't have to hire Alejandra anymore. Yea- we're saving some money!!!

I have not fallen asleep during the day this whole week. Before I would get so tired that I would set the alarm on my cell phone for 10 minutes and snoozed while the kids are playing in the play area. Of course I put the boppy pillows and other pillows we have around danger spots that someone could fall and hurt themselves. I don't know why we waited so long to do this, but I'm glad we did! Feels great to sleep!!! :-)

some pictures of the kids playing

Thanks to Julie for these pics. They were taken at the end of May.

These next 3 pictures are reverse (I can't seem to get posting these blog pics right).

Tobin trying to steal the maraca from Hudson... no cigar. Look at their faces---priceless!!!

Tobin in the Rainforest jumperoo.

Tobin smiling. I love his thighs!!! Yummy!!!

Hudson in the other jumperoo.

Hudson loves his maraca.

Skyler and Tobin playing.

Skyler sitting pretty.

Here she is in the exersaucer. You can kinda see her two teeth.

Super Daddy with his kids: Hudson and Skyler, Tobin's on the floor.

Andrew's 5th birthday and ASC visit

Our trip to ASC on a Saturday: I'm holding Hudson and Aboud holding Skyler.

Debbie holding Skyler. Debbie's Dan on again /off again assistant, she keeps him on top of things!

Kids on the conference table where they interview candidates. Marty, one of Dan's tech rep from Arabia, making sure Skyler's safe. They all loved playing with the coasters and sticky notes.
Aboud playing with Skyler.

Aboud holding Skyler, she was really interested in his name badge and cigar.

The kids went swimming again on Saturday, 6/13 to celebrate their cousin Andrew's 5th birthday. They really love the whole swimming thing! Everyone had a great time...a scary thing happen though with Tobin. He had some kind of an allergic reaction. He was fine all day until the very end. They were passing out water balloons and all the kids were holding them. I was actually holding Tobin in the water, he didn't want to be in his float anymore. He was playing with the water balloon. When we got out the water and I was feeding him I noticed his right side of the face was red and had red spotches on it around his eye, forehead and nose. It was wierd, it only affected his right side of the face. I asked Matthew to go get Marie to see if it's an allergic reaction and she confirmed it. She wet his face with water and about an hour later it went away. She said to give him Benadry, but I didn't b/c I recall my pedi saying to not give them anything but Tylenol. I don't know if it was maybe the latex on the balloon or maybe water got into his eyes, but it was really scary! I called the pedi and had to wait for the nurse to call me back. Since it was a Saturday, by the time she called me, his symptoms went away. I asked her if the next time something like this happen, can I give him Benadryl and she said "no- nothing over the counter until 2 years old". Thank goodness I didn't give him anything.

Before we headed to Marie's house, I went to ASC to pick Dan up. After his travel to Denver, he had to work Friday and Saturday...there were more interviews to be done. So I packed the kids up after their lunch and headed over there. I'd plan on leaving at 2, but of course I left 40 minutes later. Had to make sure the furries did their business, wash the kids bottles and cleaned up the feeding table a bit, and then just as I was about ready to load them in the stroller, I had to change a couple of diapers...go figure!

their breaths and thighs

What I really love to do is smell their breaths. I don't know if other mommies do this, but whenever they yawn or make noises I like to stick my nose up to their mouths. Some of you are probably thinking this is wierd, but I can't get enough of their breaths! I also love squeezing their thighs and the fat pockets they have!

Hudson holding his own cup---Tobin has an upper tooth

Hudson can hold a cup on his own. He may not be the first to crawl or teeth, but this is where he is the first in! And of course the first to say "mama".

All of them are teething their upper teeth and I thought for sure Skyler would be the first to show it, but it turns out to be Tobin. He looks so different with teeth. I've been trying to get pics of their teeth, but haven't been successful. I will keep trying and hope to post it soon.

Dan was in Denver ARG!!!

Sorry I have not posted in a while and I don't have much pics either...Dan was in Denver for about 6 days (6/5-6/10). Julie and Rebecca (Dan's sis) came to help a lot. Rebecca came during the day and played with them. She even sang them "twinkle twinkle", their favorite song that totally soothes them, especially the boys. Julie came and helped me do the evening routine to get them for bed. She even stayed at night time twice when I didn't have Alejandra for the night. I hired Alejandra to do (3) of the night shifts so I could get some sleep. Just so you know when I have Alejandra at nights, it doesn't mean I get complete sleep, I can still hear them cry and do wake up when the boys are up at the same time. They are so intuned to each other! She worked Fri-Sun. nights and Julie did Mon & Tues. nights.

If you know Dan and I, we like to stay busy "all the time", it's just by habit, we don't mean to, but we always have more than one thing going on. And I guess having triplets didn't stop us either. This being said, the week he was leaving, we had the backyard sodded and a little of the front yard. Our backyard was nothing but rocks and a big hole where the previous homeowner had a fountain (not very kids friendly). We wanted to get ready for them when they started walking, they could play back there. Anyways, we didn't realize that we had to water it soooo much. I mean, we did but didn't really figured out how to do all this before he left...well we have a really big backyard and the sprinkler only goes so far...so guess what I had to do also besides taking care of the kids...I had to move the sprinkler every 30 minutes. YUP, the sod guy said it was critical to water it atleast 2 hours a day for the first 3 days. I had the sprinkler on when I first woke up to bedtime (7-10ish). And I had to also water the front lawn. I was not happy at all, everytime Dan called to check in...let's just say I haven't thrown "f" bombs in a long time. Luckily when his sis were here, they would help out with the lawn maintenance too. Dan's parents also came by to try to set the hoses up in the front lawn. It was definitely a Cote effort to get the lawns watered!

Tobin is officially crawling---Skyler cutting her upper tooth

Tobin is officially crawling, yup his belly is finally off the floor. It's so cool to see him moving along Skyler. He's climbing on the big toys too and the couch in the play area.

Skyler is cutting her upper tooth (maybe teeth). I can feel one coming out and the other side is just totally swollen. Different thing is this time, she was not fussy or refusing food. She's been her good natured self.

All three are still sick...runny noses and sneezes. It has not escalated into anything else...thank goodness.

Hudson said "mama"---everyone is sick---we got to go out twice

Yes, that's right, yesterday when I was putting Hudson down for both his naps, he said "Mama". I'm not sure if he knew what he was saying, but I'll take that as his first words. Actually the boys have been saying "ba ba ba" a lot.

We've had to lower everyone's cribs to the last setting now...Tobin and Skyler are standing up in their cribs. It was lowered to the middle setting when Dan came back from Calgary and now had to lower it again.

Dan and I got to run errands together on Friday for 6 WHOLE hours. I'm talking no babies duties for 6 WHOLE hours---no diaper changes, feeding, rocking, singing lullablies, nothing! We haven't been able to do that since I was on bedrest. That really rejunenated us for the rest of the day. We had all this energy, we actually stayed up til midnight talking which is rare! Then on Saturday, we went to a party honoring the professors at UH Interior Design program. After 40 + years, this fully accredited program ended this semester as it's being merged within the Architecture department. I only saw 3 of my former classmates there. Aftewards we went out for my favorite cuisine---Vietnamese. We had Alejandra and Julie to thank for our venture out!

Lastly, everyone is sick with runny noses and sneezes since Friday. Let's hope it's just a cold they caught and nothing more!