Don't fail me now, blogger!!

It WOULD be temperamental on my last blog of the month. Of COURSE! It's like it knows I'm simply dying to share the fun snowflake craft that my mother and sister-in-law and I did! We made such beautiful woven paper snowflakes (if I do say so myself) and now blogger is apparently not on speaking terms with iPhoto. Awesome! Another blog with no pictures? GASP!!

So what's a girl to do? I guess this can be my final reflection of a month's worth of blogging. I'm feeling pretty good about this month...I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed knowing how many of you were excited to check out our happenings every day, and frankly, I enjoyed reading all my friends' blogs who also took on the challenge! Nicole, Anabelle, Jen...it was fun to keep up with you all! GREAT JOB! We did it!!

So, here's the thing. Before this blog-a-day gig, I was going blogless for weeks at a time, and you know, I wasn't happy...didn't feel quite right. Kinda felt like I was letting a lot of life slip by that I'd never remember years from now. On the same token, I love when I blog because I feel like someday, 20 years from now, when I pull one of my blog books off the shelf to reminisce, I'll be so glad I took the time to write about our daily events and and made blog books (blog2print.com).

So I'm going to try and keep up daily, even into December. (CRAZY, I know.) I won't actually promise one a day, but darn it, I'm gonna try. STARTING WITH SNOWFLAKES for the first day of December!! :) So anyhoo...thanks for reading, thanks for commenting...stay tuned for more!

Traditions old and new

Well, my camera battery is dead so it's charging, which means I can't get pictures on here tonight. (and I need to do a blog before it gets too late, since there ARE only 2 days of Nablopomo left, (well, one more after today, really) and I'd hate to screw it up now!) So...tomorrow I'll post my crafting adventures and today, I'll reminisce...

Holidays.

Love, love, love them.

If there were sound to these photos, what you would hear is "Whoooa!" "Oh Woooow!" Needless to say, they like the lights.

As soon as Thanksgiving ended, I knew, even as a kid, that Christmas was just around the corner. Now that I have my own kids, I think about traditions we created when I was young, and I think about ones I want to pass on to our family. These are some memories that have stayed with me...

1. Shopping at Santa's Secret Shop at school, buying earring trees for my mom and mugs for my dad.

2. Going to the Christmas Tree Lot and picking out our family's tree.

3. Decorating the tree with all kinds of ornaments. Memorable ones include...my dad's famous snowflake, a felt ice skate I made with a paper clip blade, a clay jelly bean jar we made and painted

4. Hanging tinsel on the tree..(do people even use tinsel anymore?)

5. Making Christmas Tree Breads with my mom

6. Spending Christmas Eve with our good friends the Williams. We always did a gift exchange and spent the evening there, until we were so tired that all that followed was getting home (one house away) and falling into bed to wake up to Christmas!

7. Opening one present on Christmas Eve...

8. Leaving a plate of cookies and milk for Santa.

9. I remember watching holiday movies..particularly that old claymation 'Frosty the Snowman', and 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'...as we got older, this sort of grew into National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which I can honestly say I think I've seen at least 100 times.

10. Wrapping presents. I have always loved wrapping presents and I can remember hiding away in my bedroom with a pair of scissors, tape, wrapping paper and boxes and just wrapping away...

11. Stockings! We'd set them out on Christmas Eve and wake up to our stockings first thing! We always opened stockings first! But we'd all sit and look at all our goodies at the same time. The stockings were somehow my favorite part...

12. Then presents. Usually my dad had a cup of coffee in hand, and either Mary or I would be in charge of divvying out the gifts under the tree. My mom ALWAYS had a camera in hand, which I appreciate even more now, because we have all these memories to look back at now.

There are SO many more things I remember and loved about the holidays. And as an adult, I am amazed at how many are still important and how others have changed.

Now, just the 'feel' of Christmas makes me all giddy. The day Starbucks switches to the Red Christmas Cups, I do a little dance of joy...

When Target puts out their Christmas Stuff I leap for joy!

Decorating my own house....I want to feel all warm and cozy and I want others who come to my home to do the same...I also want it to be Childproofed, so Ceramic Santa will have to stay outa sight this year.

Buying Christmas decor. I love it. I just have to keep in mind what things are enticing to little ones and then NOT buy that.

Decorating the tree...the top 1/3 of the tree anyway and watching the kids stand back and say "Wooow! Oh wow!"

Getting our stockings hung and dropping silly little fillers in as I find them at the stores.

Eggnog. Gotta have my eggnog. This year I watched 2 of my babies share a glass of eggnog each with their own bendy straw. Super cute.

Buying for others. Funny how that changes as you get older. You really do appreciate the gift of giving so much more. Particularly fun shopping for 3 babies. (er, toddlers).

Christmas movies! Favorites? National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Serendipity, Home Alone 1, 2 or 3, A Christmas Story, Elf, The Family Stone...and now, some Cartoon's thrown in for the wee ones.

Christmas Eve shopping at the mall with my dad. Harder to do now that we have to split time between both families, but still a fun tradition. Yes, I said Christmas Eve. As in, the day before. Crazy? We might be, but it was just a fun tradition to partake in, watching all the people frantically run around trying to find the perfect gift!

Holiday Music. Just hearing it makes me happy. Watching my kids dance to it makes me even happier.

Making my own Christmas Tree Breads...my mom taught us well. (Though it's still fun to bake them with her)

Aaahhh....Christmas. Can't wait.

Just some cuteness

I was going to blog about our visit with Nana, Papa and Auntie Kristen tonight, but decided to wait till tomorrow night because inevitably, more photos will be taken in the morning, so I might as well wait. But stand by...cuz you'll see the great craft I stumbled upon and made all the ladies partake of. Good times...

So tonight, here are some pictures of my toddlers. I have resigned myself to this new 'title', by the way, because surely, as I stand there watching them gazing out the window at their dad, they look nothing like babies and everything like people. Big people. *Sigh.*

This was a particularly exciting moment for them, because they are standing where a bookshelf normally sits. We moved it to make room for the Christmas Tree. So being able to look out the window was big stuff in their world.
Furthermore, they were excited because they can see their dad out there, and every so often, he'd turn around and make faces at or wave to them!
These next 2 photos are completely random, follow no theme, and really have no story to go with them. I just thought she looked so darn cute wearing her brother's black converse shoes, helping dad make breakfast.

And if this is not a sign of the times, well I don't know what is. All three of them were too busy to say "cheese" because they were all yappin' away on their cellphones. For real, look at Ethan. Doesn't he look like he's having a serious conversation?

I think what he's saying is, "I'll meet you at the yacht at 3:00. You bring the toys. I'll bring the snacks. Toodles."

"No Frank. I said I need you to overnight me 10 packages of Huggies Size 4. These are size 3. Who's responsible for this? Get me Tokyo on line 2."

Hunter just isn't in the mood to talk.

If it looks like Colton is trying to put my cellphone (the only real, working phone of the 3 by the way) in his shorts, it's because he is. Again, I couldn't tell you why.

2 more blogs to go....

:)

Thanksgiving 2010

What can I say? This thanksgiving was...nice. Very different from years past, but nice. We spent it alone. Well, alone is a relative term when you have triplets running around, but still, aside from them, we were alone. (not sad alone, different alone!)

My mom was out of town, my sister and brother-in-law were out of town, and Brian’s family was out of town! Only my dad was here! He came by Thanksgiving morning bearing 3 of the best gifts one could bring...cherry pie, pumpkin pie and cool whip. Nice. He hung out for a few hours and watched the early preparations for what would be Brian’s and my first Thanksgiving on our own. We had debated about whether or not to cook a full meal since it would basically be the two of us eating it. Fortunately, we decided to go for it. Ethan began the day by watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade....

We cooked a turkey in an oven bag (thank you, Anabelle), butternut squash, yams, peas, stuffing, layered rolls, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and even homemade gravy! The only problem is that we still cooked for about 10 people AT least!! But it was delicious. I’m not gonna lie...we were quite proud!

In my usual attempts to channel my inner Martha S.tewart, I whipped up some place settings to go with our nice china. Ha! As if I was actually going to let the babies eat off of China. It was only for photos.

So Brian and I timed it just right...we made it so that we were able to eat while the babies napped and then when they woke up, they got the whole table to themselves! But not yet...First, they needed to play...

And then Colton decided to attempt to climb into the highchair, unassisted. I of course, stood close by with the camera. Seriously. I really want to remember these moments...And I"m wondering about the poor baby dolls face down on the floor.

Let me translate.

Ethan:"Let me try now."

Hunter: "Who dropped baby on her face?"

Colton: "It's still my turn. Waaaaaa."

Love the way Ethan turns around to see if he's in trouble.

Thank God Hunter is taking care of that baby...

Trouble....

(But seriously, Hunter is so attentive to those babies.)

Hooray! I did it!

And then it was time for them to eat. I removed their high chair trays and let them sit up against our table. That was....messy. But they loved talking to one another while they ate.

COLTON

ETHAN

HUNTER

After dinner, daddy played hide-and-seek with the bunchkins. I'm not gonna lie. I have no idea why they are both touching their noses. Except maybe to pick them? They all have colds.

And then, clean-up time. Kids are mopping,

(Those are her piggies of power. They make her mop extra well, I think)

No child labor laws were broken here. I swear. :)

And that's about the end of our day!

Hope you all had a wonderful day as well!

'What's wrong with this photo?' photo.

One of my favorite segments on the E.llen De.generes show is the

"What's wrong with this photo?" photo.

So I thought I'd do one of my own...

L

What’s wrong with this photo?

I know what you're thinking. "Nothing is wrong with this photo."

Well, take another look.

Wide angle this time.

Then I'll ask you again.

What’s wrong with this photo?

What can I say? Dude's secure in his pink flip flops.

Z

Yes, this is really how it is.

A fellow mother of multiples posted this on Facebook, and quite frankly, it was too good not to post. Aside from the fact that it's about twins, not triplets, it is hysterically accurate.

Enjoy.

3 bowls + 3 kids = tons o' fun

Being a kindergarten teacher, I am all for "direct instruction" for my kiddos from time to time. For instance, I'll pull out the blocks and model appropriate play (ie. not THROWING them, but rather stacking, building,etc.) or take out puzzles and practice with them. And to be totally honest, they dig it. They like to have grown ups play with them, mostly because they completely thrive on positive reinforcement when they've done something well.

However, there's just something about inventive play that makes me all giddy. Tonight, the subject was tupperware-bowls to be exact. Colton started it. He found that a bowl not only serves to hold food and things but it doubles as an awesome hat. And let me just tell you what fun he was having. All by himself.

But, as with most things in this house, and in the land of triplet-ville, fun, by anyone's SELF is short-lived. The moment another Bunchkin catches on to the great activity, he or she joins right in. And so, the story goes. For the next hour (that is not an exaggeration) all three Bunchkins played with their awesome helmet hats. They were totally oblivious to my mad picture taking!

Colton, the ring leader

Hunter joins the fun

And Ethan found his own hat in the cupboard!

(For the record, yes, his face is really as dirty as it appears. We were playing in the front yard, in the driveway for a little while and their hands were covered with black ick from the tire marks on the driveway. My bad.

And could we all stop and marvel at my great new find?? A 12 foot runner for $19.00. Wahooo! Got it from the Lillian Vernon catalog! It's even rubber backed so it doesn't slide around, much.

Furthermore, until just now, I had no idea their mirror was THAT filthy! Gross! I'll be working on that in a minute...

So there's no bowls in this photo...just happy smiles from me and my girl

Kisses for mommy? LOVE IT!

Who knew a bowl could be so much fun??