Blink and You Miss It

This is how an attempt to get a nice shot of all three girls goes these days...

Happy Easter

We had another wonderful Easter with both sets of Grandparents, a ton of delicious food prepared by all and three crazy little girls having a blast! We had a small egg hunt in the backyard which was a huge success. The girls really enjoyed grabbing the eggs and putting them in their baskets. At one point Brooke and Taylor were racing for one last egg, and as Brooke bent down to grab it, Taylor simply helped herself to Brooke's basket and grabbed an egg for herself. It was really cute to see them running around and thankfully the weather was perfect so we all had a chance to enjoy a little fresh air! The girls were exhausted at the end of the day and there was not a peep from 6pm until 7:15 this morning.
Opening Easter Cards


In these pictures, the Easter outfits were courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa and the hats and sunglasses courtesy of Busia and Papa. A huge thank you to everyone for all the adorable Easter presents!

Taylor

Sydney
BrookeEnjoying presents from Busia and Papa

Enjoying presents from Grandma and Grandpa a few days earlier. This Rockin' Bunny has gotten so much use, the girls can not get enough. They dance to it multiple times daily!


Easter Egg Hunt 2011


Unfortunately, we did not do a very good job of getting posed pictures with the Grandparents. We need to do a better job of catching those shots.

Spring is here...or Not

We had a total blast for the three days last week that were in the 80's and 60's. It was so great to see the girls run around outside and to play in the yard. All the fresh air really pooped them out by dinner time. I can not wait for it to be nice everyday, or at least on the majority of days. It is amazing how quickly the days go with a little outdoor play. Today, one week later, it snowed.

Check out the fun:

Grandma hangin' in the cottage with her girls
It looks like Brooke is about to bust out some moves
Taylor loving roaming free
Sydney and Taylor playing house
Looks like Syd would like to place an order at the window...Brooke is too busy

Cantalaupe

Just a few cute pictures of the girls eating their cantaloupe

Taylor



Sydney



Brooke

Scream Fest 2011

You may want to turn down your volume for this one! It really is just a whole lot of screaming, the happy kind!

Reading Together

Love this pic of Taylor

I think it is amusing how Brooke and Taylor suddenly decide to take a seat together and read!!!

Hello Birdies

All the girls are totally in love with birds. We look out the window for them as soon as we get up in the morning and thanks to Grandma we now have a bird feeder just out the window of the playroom so there is a lot of bird activity. The girls absolutely love to watch the birds, I never thought "bird watching" could be so much fun. I get a huge kick out of it. They all three say bird or birdie and when they fly away the all usually say bye bye. Syd's favorite new phrase is bye bye d (birdie). It is so sweet! Now that we have had a few nice days of playing outside the girls are always looking around for birdies. Today Brooke was pointing and saying what I thought was birdie, but I didn't see any. After some hard looking I realized there were two birds on the top of the neighbor's roof. Wow, she is locked into the birds!!!

Here is a shot of the girls watching and waiting for bird activity:

Vaseline Party

Sunday was going very smoothly and we all were enjoying our first beautiful day of the year, Chris was putting together a dresser for the girls in the loft. I was hanging out with the girls in the playroom when I decided to go upstairs and see the progress Chris was making...I was up there for about 3 minutes, the girls were silent (first clue, missed), Sydney suddenly began to cry (second clue, action) I headed back downstairs to check it out. What I found was a vaseline party in session. Sydney was not enjoying the feeling of vaseline, thank goodness, because it could have been soooooooooo much worse. Taylor and Brooke were covered in it, gobs on their faces, they were only wearing onesies which were covered along were their hands/arms, legs and hair. The carpet, well you can only imagine. I called for Chris to come down, and bring the camera. Pictures became less important as I realized we needed to contain the situation first and foremost. It was not easy grabbing the girls they were soooo slippery. We decided to put them in their table to disable them from spreading the disgusting water repelling substance any further. Chris went to work on the carpet with the steam cleaner, I worked on getting the kiddos down to diapers and wiped down the best I could. We proceeded with dinner and hit the tub where I attempted to remove the vaseline from their hair with a mixture of shampoo and baking soda. It actually worked better than I thought. Thankfully the girls were really cooperative with the bath and specifically hair washing which is typically not a favorite. Whew, by the time they were in bed I was exhausted, the preceding two hours were non stop and quite crazy so I was wiped out!!! The funniest thing was that with all the craziness we didn't even make mention to the girls that this was not an acceptable occurrence. I did the obvious thing and moved everything up to the top shelf completely out of their reach. Thank God it was not the butt paste they got their hands on.

You may be wondering who started this little "activity"... I have no proof of anything. However, if I had to make an educated guess this is how I would say it went: Taylor got her hands on the jar and opened it with ease. She started in on it and Brooke was curious and got sucked into the fun. Sydney was likely skeptical but a little interested, so she dabbled a little but didn't like the texture and therefore started to cry. Thank God for that!!!

Like I mentioned we didn't get much for pictures, but Chris managed to snap two and here they are:

Sydney's New Trick

Sydney has become quite the climber lately, as you can see she is very proud of herself!

18 Months Old

Wow, it is so hard to believe our girls have been on this earth for a year and a half already! What a trip it has been. The great thing is that it only continues to get more and more fun! It is a lot of fun to see their personalities continuing to shine through. The girls are really starting to learn words. Their recognition of pictures is great, and their understanding of what we say to them is unbelievable. They are really starting to knowingly test us too. It is evident in their eyes and the way they approach the things that they know are off limits. I didn't think they had a ton of words for their age, but after a routine visit to Dr. Patti, she was amazed at what she heard. She has two children with speech delays so she said she is really tuned in to words kids at this age are saying. I guess I am not as tuned in, because most of what I hear doesn't sound much like words. I was thrilled to hear her say this and she also said she heard combos of words which is really great for them. I am going to try harder to understand them and to make them feel like their communication is working.

The absolute best thing Dr. Patti said was that based on each girl's 18 month developmental survey they are right on track, FOR THEIR ACTUAL AGE!!!!! This is so exciting and reassuring to hear since all we have heard over and over is to expect them to be delayed and to always adjust for their 11 weeks of prematurity. To be honest I really was never too worried about it and I always tried to keep things in perspective because I knew they would eventually catch up and be like any other kiddo their age. I just didn't expect to see them achieve this as quickly as they have. I could not be a more proud Mama!

Taylor:
Weight: 23lbs 8 oz (40%)
Height 32in (55%)

She is such a little helper and loves to tidy up. She finds little pieces of string, or something that is out of the ordinary and brings it over to me right away. It is so darn sweet. A few weeks ago she came up to me trying to get my attention like crazy and she is holding one piece of Carmen's hair. I cracked up because she was so serious about it and I am thinking there are probably 100 million of those around this house. She has such an innocent sweetness. She plays really well by herself, shares with her sisters the most and really is such a pleaser. She brings her sisters their blankies, water, books, etc. She has also been really into dancing these days. She sways her hips like I have never seen a little one do, especially when she is standing in front of her vanity mirror. I must find a way to get it on video. Taylor also is doing phenomenal with her identification of pictures and she loves to read out loud. Taylor also has her moments as a total stinker. She is the one that spends the most time in blanket time mostly because she gets a little rowdy at the dinner table. She starts to mush her food all over the table and throws her sippy cup. She seems to go through phases where she is really well behaved at the table and then a streak where it is bad for a few nights. It really tests me at the end of the day when I am tired.

Brooke:
Weight 22lbs 8oz (25%)
Height 31in (45%)

This little peanut is having a rough time these past few weeks. This whole one nap a day thing is not suiting her real well. She was such a good morning sleeper and I think she is a kiddo that needs more sleep. After reading a little I thought we would work her through it and she would eventually adjust, however after the Dr. appointment it was clear we need to put her down at least for a short nap in the AM. We went without for about three weeks, but now have decided to go back to two naps at least a few days each week. It hasn't helped that she is fighting a virus that has made her gums extremely inflamed and she has had a terrible flare up of her eczema on her face. The poor thing looks pretty miserable these days, all I want to do is hug and snuggle her up. She spends a good amount of the morning cuddled up with her blankie on my lap. On the brighter side, she still has her moments of being crazy silly little Brooke. She is a doll and still cracks me up daily. I think this is a tough phase for her right now, but I know we will get things figured out and she will be back to her energetic little self soon.

Sydney:
Weight 22lbs 15oz (30%)
Height 32in (55%)

This little darling is really coming out of her shell now that she is walking. She still is a little shy with new people, which I don't think will change much, that is who she is. She loves giving kisses to us and to the doggies. She loves to bark like a dog and to say Wrigley. Syd has had no problem with the adjustment to one nap. She is the reason we decided to make the change and she is happy as can be. The only change I see in her is that she does get really sleepy before the afternoon nap and since lunch is immediately before the nap she tends to eat very little at noon. She is also the most timid when it comes to getting in trouble. She definitely knows when she is about to do something she isn't supposed to because she looks at me with a look like should I? Sometimes she does it and most times she knows better. She does like to test and make sure I am watching. She is very gracious and whenever someone is leaving the room or I say goodbye to someone she says in a sweet little high pitched voice bye bye. I love it. We also continue to brush Sydney twice each day. Although she has come a long way with her sensitivity to things, there are still things that seem to bother her. The most recent is the feeling of grass. We have been outside to play a few times and the new texture seems to bother her quite a bit, but I know she will get used to it in good time!