12.25.11: Santa brought us...

TRICYCLES...and thankfully we have no furniture so there was plenty of room to ride in the house (daphne/snowflakes, fiona/hearts, stella/deer)

Then it was time for riding outside with our family (fiona/green, daphne/purple, stella/pink).  Aunt Kelly, Uncle Rob, Nene, Kelly boy and of course Brant and I all helped push the girls around the cul-de-sac.  The girls learned to steer and pedal a bit, but definitely prefer to be pushed at super speed around the neighborhood.  This is exactly why we bought a house in a cul-de-sac and we look forward to years of bike riding.

After riding bikes for over an hour, we moved inside but the girls still wanted to wear their helmets.  Inside they enjoyed reading (fiona/pink, daphne/green, stella/purple), looking at camera pictures of themselves and playing their new matching game.  Daphne took a special liking to feeding cookie monster her 'alphabet soup' (aka magnetic letters).  

It was a wonderful holiday and the girls were absolutely spoiled by all of our friends and family.  We are thankful to everyone for their generosity.

12.24.11: Jumping on christmas eve

After a late arrival from family on Friday, the girls woke up very excited on Christmas eve to discover everyone was still here.  Then they went into their playroom (where the Kochmans were sleeping) and found a new toy (aka the blowup bed).  Oh boy did they LOVE jumping on the blowup bed, I think you can tell from these pictures (top to bottom, daphne, fiona, stella).

The girls were very excited to show everyone their bear crawl train.

In keeping with our maternal family traditions, the girls opened some presents on Christmas eve.  We all tried to open presents with the girls, but it was a bit chaotic with thirty little fingers trying to open every package in sight.

The crew:  Kelly boy, Nene, Uncle Rob, Auntie Kelly, Kari/Daphne, Brant/Stella, Fiona

12.20.11: Cheese face

After breakfast this morning, Fiona and Stella decided to play on the couch (while Daphne was still eating).  Sure enough there was a lot of giggling - too much giggling.  We discovered Fiona was sitting on top of Stella and they both thought it was hilarious.  This squishing was followed by a long conversation they had with each other - about half of which we understood.

Behold the 'cheese face' aka the two year old exaggerated smile.  It has become very common in our household pictures.  Each girl has one.  Daphne's cheese face is the least frequently seen, so how could I resist taking a picture when Daphne wanted to show me hers.

12.17.11: Lights

(left to right: fiona, daphne, stella)

Tonight we adventured out with the Marrones to see the Winterhaven lights.  It turns out there is a neighborhood tradition to go bonkers decorating your house in lights for the holidays.  So much so the neighborhood closes down the streets, policeman direct traffic and spotlights are added to ease street parking.  People from all over the city come to see the houses and some of the them were amazing. One house even mimicked the Bellagio water fountains in their front yard. The girls had a great time pointing out the colored lights, snowman, reindeer, snowflakes and their favorite - santa.  The lights were pretty amazing and I look forward to taking the girls next year.

12.13.11: Gingerbread house

Today the girls (left to right: stella, fiona, daphne) decorated their first gingerbread house.  Oddly enough, it was decorated with 'decorations' and 'glue' and not candy and frosting - thus not confusing anyone into munching during assembly.  Definitely something we'll do again next year.

Have you ever bought a house over a weekend?  Well we did and sure enough we didn't realize that we had thriving fruit trees in our yard.  We were thrilled to discover the grapefruit and orange trees were actually producing fruit (not to be said for the sad lime tree).   We also discovered that our pool water heater was not broken (contrary to the prior owner's disclosure) and after some simple cleanup, we were able to enjoy our hot tub - a wonderful treat given the cold weather.  Two pretty fantastic discoveries during one weekend.

12.11.11: Two and a half years old

(left to right: daphne, stella, fiona)

Today the girls turned two and a half. There is a common theory that doubling the child's height at two and a half years old is a good indicator of how tall that child will be in adulthood. If this is in fact the case (reinforced by their current shoe size), we are going to have some very tall girls.

Fiona: 28lbs 6oz, 35.75", shoe size 9
Daphne: 32lbs 2oz, 36.75", shoe size 10
Stella: 28lbs, 35.5", shoe size 9


(left to right: fiona, stella, daphne)

Given the girls' weights above we have finally reached a break even point with my total pregnancy weight gain. That's right given their current weights, together we (fiona, daphne, stella, and I) weigh the same that I weighed during the final days of my pregnancy. Hard to imagine that something so cute can come from this. Too bad I can't carry them all at the same time anymore (perhaps if I duct taped them to my body....nah, probably not even then).

12.9.11: Arizona snow

(left to right: fiona, brant, stella, daphne)

In an effort to attempt all things Arizona, we adventured to the outdoor mall which provides weekend 'snowfall' in the courtyard. We thought the girls would be excited to have snow (albeit human made) falling from the sky (albeit second story) into a courtyard (albeit containing patches of AstroTurf)....oh, it is very different here. Turns out Fiona was a little scared of the snow while Daphne and Stella seemed to embrace it.

Then the band started playing music, picture this:
A decent high school band playing music in a courtyard. A semi-circle of people around said band enjoying the music. Daphne jumping in the corner behind the crowd to the music, Stella joins in jumping to the rhythm. Then I squeeze our way up to the front of the semi-circle so Daphne and Stella can see the musicians and instruments (Fiona was cuddling with Brant). Sure enough, turn on the super charm and Daphne starts jumping to the music in front of the crowd. It was ridiculous and I wished more than anything I had a video, but she insisted that I hold her hand while she jumped. We asked the girls what their favorite part of the whole evening was and got a unanimous answer.....music!

12.5.11: First snow

(left to right: stella, fiona, daphne)

Okay, let's not be overly critical here. We live in Arizona there is 0% chance we will ever have real snow falling at our house. I define real by our previous Boston/Chicago standards (no Seattle and LA - your 'snowfall' doesn't qualify either). Given our locale, this may be the closest thing to snow that we get at our house and therefore I dub it the girls' first snow....at least until we make a trip to the mountains.

12.3.11: Llama Llama

(left to right: fiona, brant, daphne, stella, and peter - trying to run away)

Instead of our normal Saturday story time we opted to go to a story time that promised Llama Llama would make an appearance. After three books and too many songs, he finally did. Daphne and Peter were more than happy to give Llama Llama a hug while Fiona and Stella needed their daddy with them to say hi.

11.23.11: Playing with Kelly and Jen

(left to right: kelly/fiona, jen/stella, kari/daphne) Stella is proudly displaying the welcome sign they made for Kelly and Jen

Thanks to a well planned visit to see family, Kelly and Jen were able to visit us during their brief vacation. The girls immediately began asking Kelly and Jen to read them books and our new visitors obliged very patiently. I think Kelly read the same book four times in under five minutes. In an attempt to save our visitors their sanity, we spent some time in the sunshine coloring the driveway with sidewalk chalk. Jen taught the girls all about shoes. Previously everything (animate or inanimate) had to have a hat and now, thanks to Jen, everything must also have shoes. After our fill of coloring, we moved inside for a tea party.


Above Jen and Kelly are toasting their wonderful teacup cupcakes, that's right the cupcakes go inside the teacups. We like to think outside of the box here.

11.19.11: Singing books

(left to right: fiona, nana, stella, daphne)

I think the morning went something like this: Hi Nana (hug, hug, hug)....now read us a book, please.

Nana was a very good sport during her recent visit and even 'sang' books to the girls as requested/demanded so they could jump to the rhythm of the song. They sure love jumping, reading and their Nana - combine all three and we had some very happy girls.

11.18.11: Just like daddy

(left to right: fiona, stella, daphne)

The girls really enjoyed playing drums at our multiples playgroup this week. They even continued drumming long after the music stopped. I wonder when they'll discover Brant's drum set setup in our guest room? Hopefully not for a very long time....or at least until we meet all of our neighbors.


(left to right: daphne, fiona, stella)

The girls have magnadoodles that we keep in the car for those special times when I need some help entertaining during longer car rides. Somehow these magnadoodles made it into the house one day and the girls got really excited. They all rushed over to the chair to 'email daddy'. I'm not even kidding. I drew on a < send > button so they could make sure their emails made it to daddy at work.

11.11.11: Game on!

(left to right: stella, daphne, fiona)

That's right - we started potty training. We think they are ready, they think they are ready, and we have been talking about it for weeks. Bracing ourselves to be home bound for the three day weekend. Game on!

11.9.11: Lions, groceries, and toes...oh my

Stella found this lion costume at a new playarea and asked me to help her put it on. She even played in it for a few minutes and then decided she was done. I was amazed she tolerated it at all. Perhaps her new nickname should be StellaLion...


Fiona filled up her grocery cart as full as she could and drove it all around the room. Good thing she isn't in charge of our food budget or we'd be broke.


Daphne....ahh Daphne...somethings never change.

11.5.11: Books

The girls love books. They love books more than any toy, food, or activity. I actually found myself taking away books as a consequence once. (Who am I? What kind of mother takes away books???)

The girls still have quiet time in the morning and one day when going into their room I saw the following:
- Stella and her dog were reading to Fiona from across the room
- Fiona told me 'Alligator likes to look at pictures. I am reading to alligator."
- Daphne set up all of her animals to read to them as a group.
The girls have most of their board books memorized, so I even hear the correct words on some of the pages. (I suppose they could just be super geniuses and actually reading, but given the amount of times we have read the same books to them - I am assuming it is memorization.)




So when our library held their yearly event downtown, how could we resist. The librarians from various branches acted out popular books, played music, and there were more books than a little one could dream. There was an opportunity to play dress up - which was tolerated just for the picture (stella/postal worker, daphne/cop, fiona/astronaut). Please also notice that we finally had to break out the long sleeves...I suppose it is November. The girls had a great time and even got to take home two books each. Another benefit to having triplets...coming home with six new books! Don't worry, they'll have them memorized within a week.

10.31.11: Halloween

My little cupcakes (fiona/purple, daphne/blue, stella/pink). That's right the girls were cupcakes this year for Halloween. Thanks to Auntie Melissa for finding the pattern and Auntie Kelly for collaborating on the construction the girls wore adorable homemade cupcake costumes.

The girls each picked their own colors, so it was really no surprise that Stella was pink. Stella LOVES pink. Daphne and Fiona needed to be reminded over the past couple of weeks about the colors they chose, but all the hype definitely paid off. The girls did a practice Halloween run at the zoo this weekend with Peter and Nicole and then successful trick-or-treated tonight around our neighborhood even saying 'trick or treat', 'happy halloween', and of course thank you appropriately. We also painted pumpkins and made cheesecloth ghosts hung outside in our trees. Their favorite part is sorting, stacking and shaking their new toys (aka candy). All in all, a very successful Halloween.




Now for my personal bragging on thriftiness. Given that we have triplet two year olds and just one two year old can be unpredictable with regard to wearing costumes, I wasn't sure about investing in 'real' costumes. After consulting with friends and family, we decided on the cupcake pattern. Then comes the thriftiness. Kelly brought down a left over tree costume which had plenty of brown felt used for the dress bases and some crate and barrel ribbon used for the straps of the dresses = both free. Using Joann's coupons + sales we were able to get the pink, purple and blue fleece for $2 each, $.25 for each sprinkle felt color, and $3 for the cupcake wrapper felt, + some glue sticks and that is it. All three costumes for $10! The hardest part was making up a pattern, but construction was pretty simple. Thanks again Melissa and Kelly!

10.28.11: Future firemen?

The girls awoke this morning to some malfunctioning fire alarms at Nene's house (thankfully Nene and I were already awake making breakfast). After valiant attempts to silence them, the fire department showed up. During the firemen's first visit, the girls were able to tour/play on the fire truck. During the second visit the girls got stickers and pencils. Who knows what a third visit could have gotten them??? All in all not many toddlers get to play in a real working fire truck, so they were pretty excited regardless of the blaring alarms going off in the house. Nene was a little less excited to have all the surprise company.


(left to right: stella, daphne, fiona)


(left to right: daphne, fiona)


(left to right: fiona, stella, daphne)


(left to right: daphne, fiona, stella)

10.27.11: Adventures at Nene's

With Brant thoroughly stressed out writing grant proposals, the girls and I attempted the 2.5 hour drive to Nene's on our own. The drive was a challenge and not something I plan to relive anytime soon. Of course, if I figure out a way to detach my arm thereby allowing me to hand over dropped toys, sunglasses, or shoes while driving - then perhaps another attempt will be in order. In the meantime, we stayed very busy with exploring a new house, eating at a big(ish) table, swimming, going to the zoo/aquarium and of course reading every book endlessly.



(fiona/pink, daphne/green, stella/flowers)


(left to right: daphne, stella, fiona)

10.22.11: Decorating daddy

While skyping with Nana, the girls (left to right: daphne, fiona, stella) began to 'decorate daddy' with their alphabet puzzle pieces. I was impressed with their teamwork and perseverance to get all the letters to stay. We still have no idea why they started to do this, but every time Brant laughed the girls just replaced the letters that fell off with new ones.


Daphne likes to jump in her bed. Let me clarify, Daphne REALLY likes to jump in her bed. Most mornings we wake up to this smiling face with proof of said jumping in her crib tent.

10.21.11: Meat Sciences

(left to right: daphne, stella, peter, fiona)

Tonight we went to an event at the Meat Sciences department, mainly because we were promised farm animals - obviously not for the food. While we didn't get a chance to see the piglets, the girls were able to see horses and (jumping) goats. In this picture, Peter and the girls were trying to coax the horses to come and talk to them. Perhaps the horses knew better than to approach four toddlers.

10.16.11: Pumpkin patch

We had a successful trip to a pumpkin patch this weekend. We drove down south to a farm with lots of fall activities. Unfortunately, we drove a bit past the exit and had to turn around, where we ran into border patrol (even though we were still in the US). We hesitated with no identification for the girls on hand, we knew we were still in the US, but told the girls to smile and be super cute - we didn't need any problems. Brant rolled down the window and the agent says "Are those triplets?" Brant say yes and the agent responds with a chuckle and "Cool". From there, we were on our way. Perhaps the easiest border patrol pass through ever!

The girls (daphne/purple, fiona/blue, stella/pink) had a great time climbing haystacks, going through a hay maze (although I'm not sure they understood why we kept turning around) and of course picking out pumpkins. We also pet a goat and sheep before Brant and I deemed the petting area unsafe as a goat near toppled Stella over.