6.12.10: Birthday party

(left to right: fiona, daphne, stella)

Today was the girls' first birthday party. It was wonderful. We had new friends, old friends and family all here to celebrate this big milestone for our girls. Brant was departing for Holland in the afternoon, so we had the party early and were able squeeze everything into the morning. Besides the party food, we also made the girls some carrot cupcakes. Fiona and Stella were pretty into their cupcakes, but Daphne got a little overwhelmed by the whole situation.

Here is a cute video of the girls eating their first birthday 'cake' and pretty much their first treat/baked good. Note: it is about five minutes long, but will make you feel like you were there.

6.11.10: ONE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRLS!!!

Today was a day your daddy and I were looking forward to for years. We love you all so very much. Each day we awake exhilarated to watch you learn and grow. We were blessed with a wonderful year and look forward to a gazillion more.

- love maaaaaa and dadadadadad


(left to right: fiona, daphne, stella)


fiona at 7:35am (exactly one year old - adjusted to PST)


daphne at 7:36am (exactly one year old - adjusted to PST)


stella at 7:39am (exactly one year old - adjusted to PST)


Can you believe one year ago, all of these kids were in my belly? (Thankfully they were quite a bit smaller back then)

We did it. The girls are one. I can't believe it. The year went by so quickly. We really tried to enjoy each and every milestone. We are so fortunate that the girls have been healthy and thriving. We do our best to take nothing for granted and make the most of each day.

While being sure to sing Happy Birthday as much as humanly possible in one day (instead of the normal wake up/going to bed songs) we had to save some of our celebration for the party tomorrow. We went to the botanic gardens with Nana and squeezed in a family photo while there. We were able to skype with many family members who shared in our celebration from afar. Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes.


(left to right: stella, fiona, daphne)

Girls, you are so well loved, always remember that.

6.10.10: Crawlers no more

It is official now, everyone is walking. Daphne finally decided to walk and started by taking nine steps at one time. She still prefers to crawl most of the day, but occasionally shows us her new skill. I give her two weeks to build up her confidence and start walking a majority of the time like her sisters. Do you think she had a goal of walking before her first birthday? Meanwhile Stella and Fiona will no longer tolerate crawling. They even bend down, pick up toys, and turn (without falling over) then continue on their journey across the living room.


Stella (in the background are Nana and Fiona)

Since Nana was here, we adventured to the children's museum. The girls had a great time tackling the stairs, slide and everything else cushy. They definitely kept us busy making a point to all go in different directions. Thankfully, they can't escape the room on their own :)

6.5.10: How did you do that?

So I can't possibly give the situation justice, but I will try. It is 5pm on a Friday. I am worn down and the girls start getting a bit fussy (typical for this time of day) which means it is time to go for a walk. Now, I am only one person so I must load the girls into the stroller separately. We have a 'staging area' near an ottoman where the girls wait patiently (usually) when they know it is time to go somewhere. Fiona and Stella were waiting, while Daphne was wondering the room apparently not quite ready to get into the stroller. I loaded up Fiona and then Stella - no issues...until, I heard Daphne clapping. While I do love this clapping and find it absolutely endearing, it often means she is proud of herself for doing something. What could she be excited about? Ok, I should probably look and cheer her on. Scan of the floor, nothing....still clapping. Where is she? Then I saw it. Daphne had climbed onto the couch! I was in total shock, how on earth did my 28" daughter climb onto the couch? Honestly, I still don't know for sure after investigating the scene. But wow, she was very proud of herself, while I was in total disbelief. I am still puzzled but know it must have involved a couple of toys near an ottoman near the couch. I know it didn't involve stepping on her sisters because they were strapped in...hmm the mystery continues.

Today, the girls were eating avocados. A treat less frequent than most. I decided to give them larger chunks today. We need to work on taking bites of food and the fruit was pretty ripe. All is fine while eating (Brant might say otherwise as there was a whole lot of green tint on everybody at the end of the meal). We bring them upstairs to get ready for bed, then there it is. A mysterious greenish brownish mound near Stella's diaper. Oh dear, did she blowout a diaper (rare in our home)? We both prepare ourselves for a hefty mess (and it wasn't supposed to be bath night). Upon removal of the onesie we realize that it is a huge amount of avocado! Somehow, Stella got several pieces of avocado into the back of her shirt, how, I have no idea.

These children are amazing.

6.4.10: Triple triplets

We went to a playdate today organized by the mother of multiples group. As expected, there were several sets of twins but unexpectedly there were THREE sets of triplets including us. I think there are only four sets in the whole several hundred member group. We were the youngest, then 1.5 and 2.5. It was a great (albeit intense) experience to see what life will be like in the near future. I must say though, it was absolutely wonderful to be around other people who understand the challenge of having more babies than you have arms. No way to take pictures though, I was chasing after kids the whole time.

6.1.10: Shade

(back to front: fiona, stella, daphne)
note: the sunglasses are purely for the picture as they are seen as something else to chew on and not wear

During a recent trip to babiesrus I discovered some independent sunshades that attach to any stroller. They really mean ANY stroller - even our beast of a triplet stroller. No longer do the girls and I battle over sunhats. Previously these hats would last ten minutes, tops. Often getting tossed onto the ground as I was crossing the street leaving me to chase a hat, push a stroller and dodge traffic all at the same time. Okay, so it wasn't THAT exciting, but often the hats did find their way to the street where I typically ran over them with the stroller and then promptly picked them up, shook them off and pretended the whole thing never happened. After several judging passerbys (thinking, why isn't that baby wearing a sunhat?) the girls and I had an agreement. I wouldn't force them to the wear the hat as long as they kept it in their laps - keeping those judging us silent. Regardless, these issues are gone thanks to these new sunshades. Phew! One battle down, a gazillion more to go.

5.29.10: Swimming

Today was our first attempt at swimming. Our complex has swimming pool, so we clearly needed to take advantage of this luxury. Especially given that our landlord came around and decided that we are wonderful tenants and we no longer need to move - of course this is after we found another place. I insisted upon a pre-swimming picture just in case hysterics broke out. Fiona(pink), Daphne(green) and Stella(yellow) are modelling their new swimsuits with no idea what is to come. Mighty adorable if I do say so myself.

Brant took the girls into the pool one at a time. I stayed on the pool deck with the twin stroller and the two other girls. It went better than expected, especially considering it even took Brant several minutes to warm up to the chilly water temperature. The girls whined a bit, mainly due to the water temperature, but we ended the experience with hope. If we can go out when the water is warmer, I think the girls will enjoy swimming and we will finally take advantage of the pool right next door!






After a twin birthday party and swimming for the first time I was exhausted, but the day wasn't over just yet. Brant went to a colleague's birthday dinner tonight, meaning that I had to put the girls down for bed by myself (something we avoid, but happened three times in the past week due to an onslaught of visiting colleagues). While I was preparing dinner, I looked over to see Daphne standing on top of her car (how she got on top of it without it rolling I don't know) and Stella eating the netflix movie that was on top of the speaker. This means that Daphne grabbed it while on the car and handed it to her. It seems that they are learning about teamwork already...oy!

5.28.10: A little bit country

(left to right: Stella, Fiona, Daphne)

I know you are thinking, Kari why are all the group pictures when the girls are eating or drinking these days? Well, I respond, because that is the only time I can get all three girls to stay still for any amount of time - otherwise they all go in different directions.

Today was actually rather cold for this area, in the 60's. Seemed like the perfect time to test out the new overalls that Grandy customized for the girls. The overalls have dual functionality as clothing (of course) and as a toy because we seem to love playing with buttons and the colorful decorations on our sisters' clothes.


Fiona loves to push her car around the living room, usually backwards.


Stella loves to play with (and of course chew on) the swing. Notice the added washcloth/padding to the back of the swing to prevent nibbling - held on with duct tape of course (because I AM Kari).


Daphne loves to crawl over the arm holding up the swing. She does this several times a day and giggles and claps for herself upon completion of this obstacle course. (Yes, I need to sell the swing soon, it isn't even plugged in anymore)

5.24.10: Sea legs

It has been a great week. The girls continue to thrive. Stella is now confidently walking halfway across the room. When putting her down she prefers to land on her feet and immediately starts walking. Fiona is doing a great job walking too but seems to be a little less confident than Stella. Both look like drunken sailors when stumbling across the room, it is pretty cute. Fiona has learned to clap, but doesn't seem to recognize what she is doing when it happens. Daphne claps all the time, it is so adorable. When I come in after their nap, she sits up and starts clapping. I think we should always enter rooms to clapping, it is so endearing.

We got our new convertible car seats. These seats should last us until the girls reach 80lbs (aka forever!). The girls are getting close to the height maximum for our current infant carriers (nowhere near the weight max). Thanks to some great bargain hunters, we ended up saving a ton on these new seats. Of course, we didn't get our preferred color choice (gray/black) but instead ended up with some garden green seats with a flower print. I am too nervous to open the box and see what the patten looks like in person. I think I will wait until we are having a really good day. Perhaps it will look like a big garden across our backseat, I can only hope. And yes, rumor has it they will fit across the back of our honda civic. So for now, they sit in our living room stacked in boxes probably for another month or so.

We got news yesterday from our landlord that he intends to raise our rent AND shorten our next lease to eleven months. Brant's job gets renewed on 9/1, so a lease ending 6/30 would render us homeless for two months whenever we move. Needless to say, that doesn't work for us. We are now in pursuit of a new place. Just when things seem to be calm and stable, something gets thrown into the mix. Oh well, it keeps life interesting and provides us with an opportunity to purge all the junk we brought from Chicago (since we ended up just throwing everything into boxes and focusing on our new babies).

5.18.10: Push and clap

Today we finally caught this video of Daphne clapping (which she just started last week). She loves to clap whenever she is happy/proud of herself. Grandy got a book for the girls with a button that chirps when pushed. Daphne has been enjoying pushing the button in the book (thereby making the chirping noise) and then clapping (thereby showing she is proud of herself and knows that she did a good job). It cracks me up every time.

Grandy had to go back to Seattle to clean out her house today - the move to Phoenix has become official. The girls had a good time restling Grandy before she departed.


I think the caption for this picture should read: Fiona says, "Grandy I think I need to be changed, what do you think?" Stella says "Yee haw, wait, why isn't this horse moving?"


This is a good example of life these days. Grandy was trying to wear her curlers around the girls, who instead recognized them as new things to pull at. (Stella/blue, Daphne/brown, Fiona/pink). Notice how they approach from all sides.