Happy 2nd birthday, Bella!

My dear sweet Bella-Bella,

I can't believe it's been two whole years! Time goes by so fast and I swear it was just yesterday that we were heading to the hospital hoping it was the day you would be making your arrival! You have grown and changed so much this year......you've gotten so tall that people often look at you and your sisters and ask if we have triplets. And the talking......wow, the talking! I always tell people it's no surprise that you talk so well (and have so much to say) because there is certainly no shortage of talking in our house, but I can still say that most days you have something else to say that just amazes us! You're so sweet and loving.......when I sneeze, I hear "Bess you, Mommy"....when there's something you want, you end your request with "Pease?".....when you're playing and you fall down, we hear "I'm otay!" You keep us laughing!

You also have an independent side you're not afraid to show, and you know how to hold your own with your sisters. A few of your other favorite phrases include "I do it!" and....probably my most favorite "Mine. Not. Yours." You're quite adamant with that one. I was changing you one day and you were holding something that was getting in my way. When I asked you to let me hold it for a minute, you looked at me and (very clearly) said "Mine. Not. Yours."  I know I shouldn't encourage it, but it was so cute I couldn't help but laugh.

Your Daddy and I have been talking about when we should take you for your first hair cut......your sisters went for the first time when they turned two.......but you still have a "baby look" and I'm afraid cutting your hair will make you look more like a little girl.......and I'm not ready for that.....but you sure are growing more and more each day. 

You bring so much joy to our lives and we can't wait to see what this next year brings!

Happy birthday, our sweet baby girl!

Love, Mommy

New, new, new!

New city......new school......new friends! The girls started preschool last Monday and we were a little nervous....we've been talking about their new school and their new teacher for a while and it's always been met with tears and "I don't wanna new school. We have our old school."  Oh my. What do you say to that?  But. The day was here and our girls were ready......and we managed to get some sweet pictures before they really figured out what was going on - ha!

Sofia, Bella, Olivia

Sofia

Olivia

Olivia (l) Sofia (r)

Olivia (l) Sofia (r)

These have to be some of my most favorite pictures, I must say. Especially the girls hugging eachother. And Bella's expression was priceless. "You mean I get all the toys to myself?!?!!"  Ha! 

The girls are going 4 days a week and we left them in the same classroom together although we could have separated them. When we first registered the girls, the program director asked us if we wanted to put the girls in separate rooms since there are 2 four-year classes. It definitely gave me pause because it's not something we had discussed -- we've certainly talked about it for kindergarten....next year. So after thinking about it, we decided to leave them together this year given the new school and new friends. We did ask the teacher to put them at different tables, though. I thought that was a good compromise. 

I'm so conflicted about how we'll handle the decision next year. Of course.....it may be that the school district makes the decision for us -- I've heard certain counties require twins to be separated. It would be quite the easy way out for the decision to be made for us........but I want to do the right thing for our girls. The thing is....when D and I talk about it, we honestly don't think one of the girls is more dominant over the other. They both take turns being the follower....and they both take turns being the leader. They play well independently and they play well together. We do notice they tend to stick really close together in new situations, but they both ultimately get comfortable and branch out. There's another set of twin girls in their school and the mom split them up -- she said there was clearly a leader and clearly a follower. We shall see......that's a whole year away. One that I know will be here before I'm even ready!

So it's been a week now and so far so good. There are a few tears in the morning but they do pretty well. I'm excited about this year for them. The school uses a program called "Handwriting without Tears" to teach writing and it's the same program the school system uses so they will continue with it in kindergarten. Once a week there's a retired English teacher who comes in and works on word recognition and reading. Once a week they have math....and of course there's story time and play time (including bike day once a week). And just a few minutes ago, D gave me a pamphlet for a program where, once a month, someone comes in with cool hands-on science projects for the kids -- complete with their own apron and goggles. How exciting is that?! True to form, the girls rarely tell D much about their day but when I get home and ask them about it, I get lots of stories (usually!).

Because of Bella's late birthday, we're keeping her home one more year and we'll start her in a 2-day program next year and ramp up each year like we've done the girls. She didn't make the age cut-off for the preschool where the girls are anyway. I don't think she minds, though..she gets some one-on-one time with Daddy and, let's not forget, all the toys!

Here's to a good year for the big girls!

Olivia, Mommy, Sofia

Practicing the diva-ness

It's hard work living with me and D sometimes.....but I think Miss Sofia is doing pretty well. She's currently our resident Diva-in-Training. See.......

I mean....and this is just for lunch. You can't see it in the picture, but Sofia is also wearing her princess dress. Because, I mean, really. Who doesn't eat lunch in their princess dress?!


Of course....when it's time to head out side for a little ride around the neighborhood, we do leave the princess dress behind. But the shades, tiara, and feathery purse (filled with goodness knows what!) absolutely must come along.....

This kid is hilarious, no??!!!


We had a great weekend visiting back home. It was Carter's 6th birthday and we headed there for the weekend. The girls were excited to buy Carter a birthday present -- even if we did have to break up an argument over what color, exactly, the present would be. Sofia was adamant that Carter would love a yellow present and Olivia just knew that Carter would love a rainbow present. (Um. And I learned how little I do know about toys for boys.....and none of them are yellow or rainbow!)


We went swimming for the birthday party and we decided to try a new floatation device. We were going to put the girls in swimming lessons that are offered at our neighborhood pool, but when Sofia came down with pneumonia, we delayed. So for now, the big girls are still timid in the water. But Saturday -- while swimming at Carter's party -- we were sneaky and finally got the girls to float in the pool by themselves! This is a big deal, people! And the girls were so proud of themselves. All day Sunday we talked about how the girls were swimming "all by my own!"


And Miss Bella-Bella was thrilled to be in the pool. They didn't allow the kind of float where Bella could sit in so we just held her in the water -- and she loved it. She splashed, kicked, giggled and splashed some more. A great birthday party for Carter!


And before I forget....and because it's so stinkin cute. I love how the girls still have their own way of saying certain things.....and it's way too cute to correct. Case in point (in addition to "all by my own"). When we were picking out a birthday card for Carter, Sofia got upset because Olivia picked out the card.......and she needed her own card with a red "engaloo". Say what? You know -- you have the birthday card and you put it in an engaloo.  Love!

Tafe

Last night we were putting a new bed together for Olivia.....and the girls were entertaining themselves. Olivia told me they were drawing pictures to hang up for Grandma. Little did I know they were already working on that! This morning, D sent me a picture of the girls. They were on the roof. Well. Not on the roof outside......we have a third floor (I know....it sounds so.....I mean really.) with a bedroom we use as an office, a bathroom and a bonus room. The girls call it the roof. So they were on the roof and apparently they had been making artwork and hanging it up. With tafe.

D was funny.....he keeps picking up markers (because we're not ready to paint walls to cover over artwork - ha!) yet the girls keep finding new markers. When he went upstairs to check on the girls, this is what he found...........

The girls colored on paper and the hung their work up on the wall. If you'll notice...some of the pages are blank. That's because D yet again put markers away.....and when he asked Sofia why there were blank pieces of paper on the wall, she goes "Because Daddy....you took all the markers away so we put up the paper with no pictures."  Hilarious! And I love that they still call tape "tafe".  


So the roof is all decorated for the next time Grandma comes to visit.......aaaand we need to buy more tafe.

Back just in time......

Back just in time to share this funny story with you, that is. 

So I'm working out of town.......and last night I checked in to my hotel. It's a decent hotel.......a little warm in the hallway and the #2 button in the elevator didn't work (glad I'm on 7!)......but it's all good. So I'm putting my things down and I notice this on the headboard of my bed........

.....and upon closer inspection, I see this.......

Ummmmmmmm........should I be scared that they needed to leave me a note?????!!!!!

Hello......is anyone there??

{tap tap tap}.......is this thing on? Ahem.  

Well hello there! Remember us? I know....I know. It's been a long time, right? And I must say it's been an insanely busy past couple of months.....and unfortunately my itty bitty piece of the internet has been neglected. What better way to get re-started than with some bullets about our crazy life.

• We've moved! That should be enough said to cover the craziness, right?! We (um. well someone else) packed up our house and headed just a little north to a bigger city.....

•  We spent a whole weekend unpacking boxes.....

• We're pretty much unpacked now....just a few stragglers here and there. And now I have a huge urge to paint. Since our house was a new construction, the walls are so.....sterile! Eggshell, eggshell everywhere. We initially planned on using the first weekend to have someone come in and paint all the common areas (family room, kitchen, foyer, hallways) -- I'm so glad we didn't. At some point in time during the construction process, a nail went through a bundle of wires within the wall and we didn't have cable or telephone to places on one wall of the house. I came home from work one afternoon to find holes cut all in the walls and ceiling on all floors of the house. It's all fixed now.....but it would have been a harder fix had they been cutting in to my nice new painted walls!

•  The weekend after we moved in, the big girls turned 4. FOUR. I can't believe it. We drove back home and celebrated with family and Cinderella! I'll have to do a separate post on that once I've loaded the pictures from our "big" camera. Pictures these days seems to be primarily on the iPhone / iPad. 

• We're loving where we live. Love the house. Love the neighborhood. Love the area. We've been making an effort to get out and try new things.....

• I still find myself looking around our house not believing that we actually moved and are in a different state. It feels like home and I certainly see all of our things - but sometimes I look around and it still feels so new. It has only a month and a half that we've been here! 

• Funny story. The first night we spent in our new house, Bella woke up crying in the middle of the night. She rarely does that so when it happens (and D would argue when I actually hear it), I usually jump out of bed quickly - usually because I've been startled out of sleep. So in our old house, our bed was against the wall and on the wall across and to the right was the doorway to the hallway. So that first night when Bella started crying, I jumped out of bed, ran around the foot of the bed and straight out the door on the wall across and to the right. I stopped suddenly.....because I was now in my closet - haha!

• We're also loving our sidewalks! We didn't have sidewalks in our old neighborhood so it's been nice to have a safer place to walk and ride!

• Of course now that it's a million degrees outside, there's not much by way of outdoor activity - but the sidewalks will still be there when it cools off! (Can concrete melt?)

• Our neighborhood pool is awesome. A.W.E.S.O.M.E. It's like a mini-water park. There are 2 pools -- one for swimming laps and other free swim, and another that has a side with zero-depth entry, a big mushroom that pours water over it, another contraption that has flowing water filling up buckets -- and when the buckets get full, they tip over and pour the water out into the pool. The other side of this pool has 2 waterslides. Seriously. Waterslides in a neighborhood pool. It's crazy! There's also full time lifeguards and a snack bar. We love it and I can see many afternoons spent here!

• The girls are doing great......growing like weeds. They're full of smiles and tears and giggles and drama and laughter and sass. We're also getting more and more questions about our triplets.........

•  D keeps talking about Bella's first haircut. So far I've managed to put him off. I know once we cut off those sweet baby waves, she'll be looking more like a toddler. And I'm not ready for that!

• Miss Sofia is currently battling a round of pneumonia. You may remember when she was sick before and we spent a few days in the hospital with them trying to figure out if it was pneumonia or not. They've determined it is pneumonia this time and thankfully she's been responding to medicine from the pediatrician's office and we've not had to deal with the hospital. I wonder if she's just always going to be susceptible to being that sick. I sure hope not. She's quite pitiful. We went to our new pediatrician for their 4-year wellness visit and walk out with one unhappy kid from 4-yr vaccinations....and another kid with a pneumonia diagnosis. We've been back 2 more times and Sofia's received 4 shots. We're hoping she's starting to turn a bit of a corner and get her appetite back. For now there's been a lot of laying around on the couch for her while Olivia and Bella have been taking over the house.

• For their 4-year appointment, Olivia weighed 32.6lbs and was 39 1/2" tall. Sofia weighed 28.8lbs and was 39" tall. Sofia isn't usually that far behind but she's not been eating well for most of a week so she's lost some weight. I was so tempted to ask them to weigh and measure Bella just to see how close she is!

• Speaking of Miss Bella-Bella. She's getting so big! And has an equally big personality.  She has that baby giggle that I love and she breaks it out often. But she can also be quite moody! And oh my goodness is she talking up a storm!! I know it's because she has 4 people to learn from (and trust me. There is no shortage of talking in this house!!) but we're constantly amazed at what comes out of her mouth. She follows Olivia and Sofia everywhere and repeats everything they say. She's using quite a few complete sentences. Funny story......we were at the pool and an older gentleman came down the waterslide. Bella was watching him as he walked across the pool and she was going "Hi Papa!" and waving. Over and over. I finally said "Bella - that's not Papa" and she goes "Yes it is!!" so loud and clear --- it was hilarious. She's as cute as can be -- don't you think?????

• I won't say to consider yourself caught up because I've got several posts in my head about the past couple of months....and I'll get to them......but it's a good start, no?! We're in a new place......getting all settled. Oh. And we've found comfort food!

Happy Easter!

We've had a great day........tiring, but great. The kiddos have been in bed since around 6pm....minus  a trip or two downstairs for Sofia (who, before we put her to bed, was sound asleep on the couch!).

We started off the day with a visit from the Easter Bunny.............

 and then we got ready to go to church with Nana. The girls sat in church with us and they did pretty well. We made it 3/4 of the way through and then I had to step out with Bella. She was happy.......she was just talking a little to loud....."Hi Papa!"  and "Bubbles!" - haha. Oh....and there was a little game of peek-a-boo with the person sitting behind us, too. So I took her out of the sanctuary and we walked back and forth and back and forth in the foyer. D and Olivia stepped out for a few minutes but went back inside once Olivia decided she wanted to sit with Grandma. Sofia stayed all the way through.....and apparently she was really in to the singing. Mom said Sofia was improvising on the versus, but when the song came to the "Hallelujahs", Sofia was belting them out. 


After church, everyone came to our house for a great Easter dinner and more egg hunting. We have enough candy to last us until Halloween! 


A great day for sure!

Upside down

A few weeks ago, I came home from work after everyone else had already eaten dinner. I was sitting at the table eating when Bella toddled over. Being the smart kid she is, she pushed a chair over and proceeded to climb on to the table......all by herself. And tried to help herself to my dinner - haha! 

A bit later, Grandma and Papa stopped by and we were playing with Bella while she was still on the table when she started doing this..........

She was hilarious. She looked at me and said "Hi!" and then would get down....turn to where her back was towards the next person.....and would stand up again to where she could see them through her legs and would say "Hi!"

This kid......she's hilarious!

April Fool

That would be me. The April Fool. Shocking, right? I love a story from when I was born.....apparently my dad had been giving my grandmother (mom's mom) a hard time about my arrival so when I finally did arrive.....on April Fool's day.....my dad called her and told her I was here. And she hung up on him just after telling him to call back when I really was there. 

It was a great day --- we had a birthday celebration at our house with family and it was really nice. Beautiful weather meant the kiddos could play outside in the back yard -- a nice relaxing day. Exactly how I wanted to spend my 29th my thirty-ahem-th birthday!

It was funny -- we had lunch and of course Olivia and Sofia didn't finish everything on their plates before they got up declaring "I'm done" and "I'm full". I was with Olivia and she goes "Mommy -- I don't have room for corn or green beans or mashed potatoes.......I have to leave room for CAKE." Smart kid, no?

Funny --- D and I were talking before everyone arrived and I was saying I had a great April Fool's joke........I was going to take one of the ultrasound pictures from when I was pregnant with Bella and wrap it up and let my mom open it. We laughed hysterically at the reaction we would get from our families. We decided there would probably be some people who hit the floor before we could tell them it was a joke so we ultimately decided against it. But it was a great thought, right!?!!!!  ha.

And now to leave you with a couple of pictures.........

I'm really liking this picture of me and D.......

Me and my girls.........

Best. Birthday. Yet.

A big first around here........

That's right.....we've entered the world of toenail polish! Of course it's pink toenail polish, too. I've been trying to get the girls to let me paint their toenails and before now they never would. Then one day last week, Grandma was over and her toenails were painted and that's all it took - haha. So last night we went "to the shopping" and we found some pink polish with glitter. What a perfect color for the first time! I'm thinking I'll let the Easter bunny know where I got this one. Much to my surprise, D wasn't excited about painting the girls' toenails.....not sure what that was about.........but clearly we compromised he gave in I won.

Bring on the heat!

We took another step to get ready for summertime.........

Haircuts! My compromise with D was cutting their hair to their shoulders........but no bangs. We've had this never-ending discussion about whether or not to cut bangs in their hair. Well. I wouldn't call it much of a discussion.....D talks....and I don't listen - ha! So today on our way home from having dinner out, we decided to try a new (read less expensive) place. After all. How hard can it be to take a few inches off, right? Well. Hard enough that I'm not willing to try it on my own. Except to cut those few straggling pieces tonight after their bath when I parted their hair in the middle. "Mommy.....what you doing with those scissors?" - ha!

So we didn't tell the girls we were stopping because the last time I said something about getting a haircut......Sofia would say "No, Mommy....because that will hurt me." We walk in the place and it's not busy so they get to sit down right away so we don't have time for them to get nervous. And they did so great! Olivia was actually happy...........

Sofia.......not so much......

After they were done, Olivia goes "But Mommy......she didn't give me anything."

Yeah. Reward system much???

Easter egg hunting

It was the annual Easter egg hunt at Papa's work. We missed last year because it was raining so this year was Bella's first year and the big girls' second. And I think it was the best one yet!

We should use another word besides "hunting" since hunting was not required. There were thousands of eggs everywhere! It was more like Easter egg gathering. They divide the areas by age groups and this year all the girls got to be together in the 0-3 area. We thought about letting them all go with Carter to the bigger group, but I'm glad we decided against it -- I'm pretty sure all 3 girls would have been plowed over by the 4-7 year-olds. Especially Sofia who, at first, was intent on only picking up the pink ones. Then she started trying to open them as she picked them up. And finally she would pick them up.....shake them......and if it didn't sound like anything was in there, she would drop it and move on to the next one. I finally convinced her to just pick them up and I promised there were surprises in there - haha.

They did well! Here's Sofia (see the eggs on the ground.....I told you......gathering!!)

....and Olivia.....
Miss Bella-Bella was also quite in to it, too!! She was adamant about holding her own basket.
And afterwards..........

Lots of fun and fantastic weather! There was a petting zoo with all kinds of animals to pet and feed. Bounce houses for jumping. A sand table where they could fill up small plastic bottles with all kinds of colored sand. Hot dogs and corn dogs, cotton candy, popcorn, balloons and face painting. No wonder we all took a nap when we got home!!


I couldn't believe Olivia actually sat down to get her face painted..... A great day for sure! And here are a couple of my other most favorite pictures from the day......