The Trio Loves Rose!

Rose came over on Sunday morning to play for a while. She was given lots of options for where she could hang out for a while when Vivian was running, and she selected the "triplets' house." Vivian says it's because she feels like she's in charge of them and just bosses them around. She can't do that with the other cousins.


Well, I was helping Abby in the bathroom that morning, and when I came out, I found Marie and Will just staring at Rose. She was oblivious to their stares. She just watched TV like it was perfectly normal to be observed by two toddlers in shirts and underwear.

I also wanted to post an individual shot of each child today. I'm trying not to call them "babies" anymore. They are toddlers now!

Little Marie still loves to suck that thumb!

Here's Will in his Beatles shirt playing with his instruments. It's more like banging the crap out of them, but I'll be generous and say he's making music.

Finally, our little clown, Abby. This child is constantly oozing personality, but it's one extreme or the other. She's either over the top happy and silly, or she's ridiculously upset. You don't want to see her upset.

Three by Three

It's nearly impossible to get a decent picture of all three kids. They NEVER look in the same direction, smile, are dressed appropriately, etc. We just have to take what we can get.

On a Saturday morning, chilling with dad in the recliner. They are all watching TV. Dad's looking at the camera.

This looks like a police lineup. Two out of three are looking. That's pretty good, but the best part of this whole picture is that they are all dressed in gender-appropriate clothing. That hardly ever happens!

Now, they all like to get in the "big bed" in Marie's room/the guest room at night. Marie has graduated to sleeping in this queen poster bed during naps and at night. She wants nothing to do with her crib anymore. That child is growing up entirely too fast. I can't even believe it.

Here's daddy holding all 3. This is amazing that he could get all three of them in his arms, plus they are all looking. However, Will is in girl pajamas and Marie is in boy jammies. Oh well. You can't have it all!

We had an AT&T guy at the house yesterday morning while the kids were at school. He was checking my internet connection and saw this picture on the screen, and asked, "So you have 3 girls?" I then had to explain that our son is a cross-dresser.

DIY Potty Training

Marie recently decided she would like to be potty trained, and the others are following her lead. I have done NOTHING to deserve this. Yes, they occasionally go pee-pee on their little potties, and I cheer for them, but I haven't really pushed any more than that. We've had no rewards for going potty, no punishment for accidents, no real potty-training. They were still in diapers...until the rebellion happened.

Last Thursday morning, Marie would not let Michele put a diaper on her in the morning. Billy had bought a pack of pull-ups a couple of weeks ago, as we started thinking we may potty train at some point. Michele tried sitting her on the potty, and she peed. Then, she put one of the pull-ups on her, and Marie was thrilled. She proceeded to pee in the potty all morning long--like 6 times, and have dry pull-up until lunchtime. Crazy! Will and Abby also wanted these big girl/boy pants, and they also peed in the potty all morning. They had a couple of accidents, but hey, I can't complain.

We have kept it up most of the weekend, but it was a little difficult because the kids "traveled." Will spent Saturday night at my dad's. Marie was off to Rose's house, and it was "Abby's turn, Mimi's house," as they like to say. They took their potty seats and pull ups, and tried to keep it up, but with all the distractions at different houses, it was hard for them to concentrate.

Marie and Rose in matching princess dresses. Rose much prefers to have the girls visit and spend the night because they can partake in girly activities. However, Will is also game for all things girly, much to his dad's chagrin.

Abby got her turn at the mall playground this weekend. Mimi took her shopping at the Disney store and to play. She also got this fancy new outfit. So spoiled!

I don't have one of Will to share. Sorry!

The reason for all the baby shuffling was that Billy and I had a date night. We got to enjoy a dinner out and a comedy show at the Tabernacle--not to mention a full night of uninterrupted sleep. Ahhh! Date nights are not overrated.

I think we'll do another week of pull-ups and then transition to underwear. I have no idea how this all works since I hadn't really researched it, and I'm basically just following their lead. How is it possible that three two-year-olds can potty train themselves?

I e-mailed my family and told them about this latest development, and this was Liane's response:

"Hmm, I'm curious if this keeps up or is just a fad for today! If it works though then I'm totally jealous and think it's not at all fair you didn't have to deal with the whole disaster. You suck!"

I wrote her back and informed her that it's not my fault she gave me all the genius eggs she had.

Popsicle Faces

Since summer is wrapping up, we won't get many more of these photo opps. I figured I should post their popsicle faces while they are still eating them! They like to show off their tongues when they eat them because they think it's funny that their whole mouths turn the color of the popsicle.
Marie bites her popsicles and finishes them quickly. Hers don't even have time to melt.

Will takes his time with his popsicle, and by the time he starts biting it, half of it has melted all over him. After two or three bites, he gives up on it and tries to offer it back to me. Usually, Marie will volunteer to take the leftovers and eat them up!

Abby licks her popsicles until they are pointy at the top. Is she trying to make a shiv? By this time, they have melted all over her. Again, she tries to give away her popsicle at this point, and Marie is a willing taker.

Sweep Marie under the rug

Marie is definitely our most independent child. She likes to do everything herself, and she's very set in her ways/into routines. Billy says she's her mother's child. I've been known to be a bit inflexible. Okay, stubborn.

Well, part of Marie's independent nature involves being able to keep herself entertained. Many times, she'll play quietly by herself with toys or books.

This past weekend, we had dinner with friends at their house. While their son and Abby played riding around the first floor in race cars at full speed, Marie was quietly hanging out in the play area. I was worried that she was too quiet so I went to check on her.



Apparently, she decided to make herself a little bed out of the no-skid pad under the rug. There were toys all over the room, and this is what she decides to play with. Crazy child!

-Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

School Mornings

School mornings are total insanity around our house! Everyone has to get up, fed, dressed, and out the door by 10 til 9 a.m. Okay, so that's the ideal time we should leave, but we never do.

Of course, Abby, our early riser, always decides that school mornings are the best to sleep in. This morning, I had to wake her up around 8:10, which threw everything out of whack! They need to be sitting at the breakfast table at 8 a.m. for the whole operation to run smoothly.

Here's how it goes on a regular morning:
Prep begins the night before. I make all lunches, get their school bags packed, pick out clothes for the next day, etc. This speeds things along the next day.
7:45 a.m.-Make breakfast
8:00 a.m.-Kids sit down to eat (Michele or Pop-Pop (whoever is there to help) has to coerce them to eat and do it quickly. The kids usually don't eat well. We talk about what a great day at school it's going to be.)
8:30 a.m.-Begin getting them dressed. Will runs away without his pants or diaper on, laughing hysterically. Marie insists on a different outfit than the one I selected, and she must put it on herself...usually backwards. Abby typically obliges, but she also likes to dress herself some days. Abby and Marie both like to put on their own shoes, and they have to put them on the wrong feet like 5 times before doing it correctly.
8:50 a.m.-I am freaking out that we aren't in the car. Carpool line starts at 8:55. AHHH!!!
8:55 a.m.-They run to the door, pick up their bags, and Billy helps me load them in the car...still talking up school. Brief arguments erupt over who will sit where. We negotiate. Brief arguments erupt over who will push the garage button. We negotiate.
9:00 a.m.-I pull out of the driveway.
9:05 a.m.-I arrive at school, unbuckle everyone, teachers come and take them away. DONE!


They love their little school bags.
Rushing out the door, grabbing the bags.
Fighting over who will sit where.
Will has to check out the tire before leaving. Hurry up, kid!!!

My Little Cross-Dressers

It's perfectly normal that they all wear gender inappropriate clothes, right? 9 out of 10 nights, when given the option, Will chooses to wear Dora, Tinkerbell, or Minnie Mouse pajamas. The girls, on the other hand, like his choo-choo, bug, and truck pajamas. Here is Abby modeling his Thomas jammies.

Marie wanted to wear Will's football jersey and workout pants. Billy said that Will, under no circumstances, should be allowed to wear the girls' cheerleading uniforms.

Will is showing off his feminine side in Minnie Mouse pajamas.

The kitchen counter

They all think they are big kids now and like to sit at the kitchen counter to eat their meals. They are especially fond of cereal and milk in the mornings at the counter. I can see this becoming a weekend tradition. Mommy will make pancakes and eggs on Saturday morning, while all 3 kids sit at the counter.
Daddy likes to sit at the counter with the girls. As you can see, Marie is all about saying "cheese," but Abby is way more into her cereal!

Abby working away at her cereal. By the way, she is currently obsessed with orange. A "naranja" is an orange in Spanish, and the color orange is "anaranjado." Abby will say, "narana" whenever we get out bowls, spoons, cups, etc. She must have orange!!! Billy is upset that this may carry into her clothing choices, which will be terrible during football season. We can't have anyone wearing narana around here on a Saturday in the fall. No way!!

Here is Will at the counter. We only had 2 stools there, but Billy just bought a third this weekend. We quickly realized that the sharing wasn't working out well.
After stool time, they like to relax on the kitchen floor with our 4th child, Winnie.

Exhausting Long Labor Day Weekend

What ever happened to relaxing long weekends? Sleeping in. Hanging out with friends. Drinking beer. Ah, the good ole days. You know what happened to those days? KIDS! Now we spend our weekends running them around and keeping them entertained. This weekend was exceptionally insane.

On Thursday evening, Titi arrived and we played outside way past bedtime. When we got inside, they were jacked up, and it took a while to get them all to sleep. Once they finally zonked out, we had dinner with Titi and Pop-pop Bill. Will now calls him Pop-pop BEEEL, and my dad is Papa Lando (dad's name is Rolando--doesn't exactly roll off the tongue).

On Friday, I had to work. It was pretty slow, and most folks were going to be out of the office so I worked from home. That gave me the opportunity to sleep an extra few minutes in the morning. Glorious! At lunch, we ran the kids over to the park for a little while, and Titi met us there.

We got up bright and early on Saturday morning to go to Centennial Olympic Park for ESPN’s Game Day. The whole family got all dressed up and headed out to watch Kirk Herbstreit (and those other guys) do their reporting from the scene. Billy will make me add that Erin Andrews was also there. We got a tour of their big bus, and I took a picture of Kirk’s monogrammed shirt. I’m such a dork! Teri also liked Kirk and thought about holding up a sign with her phone number, but I told her I thought he was married. Oh well.

The kids just ran around and acted all cute the whole time. They were more entertaining than the Game Day stuff.

Here we are on the Game Day tour bus! Abby looks really excited to be there, right? The guy taking our picture kept asking if we wanted another because everyone wasn't looking. Seriously dude, we'd be here all day if we were waiting for that! We'll take what we can get.

Here's Kirk's shirt. He's so dreamy! This picture is borderline stalker. He might file a restraining order against me. Then, he would know that I existed. Success!!
Here we are on the stand watching the Game Day set.

Running in circles...their favorite activity.
Abby is doing her push-ups to warm up for all the cheering.

From there, we had lunch at Chick-fil-A, and then headed home for naps. After naps, we went over to Marmie’s for a Zeigler family dinner. The kids ran all around and had lots of fun there. Marie was very concerned when we all went home because she thought it was “Marie’s turn. Mimi’s house.” They talk about who’s turn it is going to be all week. It was her turn this weekend, but not until the following evening.

The family that cheers for the Dawgs together, stays together!!!

Taking turns riding and pushing the bicycle (bikey, as Will calls it).

When it's not Will's turn on the bikey, he isn't exactly thrilled.

When we put them to sleep, Billy went to visit some friends at Lake Lanier and returned very late! The kids were up and running around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday so Billy was not a happy camper. So sorry, Mr. Party Animal.

Sunday, we went to a birthday party at Gymboree from 11-12:30, and then, we went to Alice’s for lunch. From there, we came home for naps. Oh wait, Abby fell asleep after the party and slept at Alice’s house. So, Will and Marie napped at home, but Abby was up. Therefore, she came with me to the grocery store. That was good quality mommy and me time. After naps, Mimi came to get Marie for her “turn.” She was so excited! Then, Mimi held Will, and Marie thought she was going to be skipped and pitched a fit. Poor little girl! Mimi took Marie away with Will crying at the window. Poor little guy! There's always so much drama!

Will didn’t cry for long because we whisked him and Abby away to the lake to visit friends. They were so excited to the “agua” and “barcos” (boats) and “otro barco” (other boat), and “otro barco”….this went on and on every time a boat went by. The house where we were sits up on a hill, and to get to the water, there is a steep decline, and to get back up, it’s a rough climb…lots of stairs. Well, Abby and Will decided they were going to walk all the way back up. With every step she took, Abby would say, “OH, GAAA.” It was hilarious.

They fell asleep on the way back, and we transferred them into their cribs. Will woke up crying around 6, and I put him in our bed. He fell right back to sleep. Abby got up around 7, and since Marie wasn’t home, I took her in Marie’s room, also the guest room, and we got back in bed. She went right back to sleep also. Will ended up sleeping until 8:15 or 8:30 with Billy, and Miss Abby and I did not emerge from our room until 8:45. It was wonderful!!! I haven't slept that late in ages.

So, Monday morning, we headed out to the zoo. It was hot, but they had a good time. We saw two other sets of triplets there and twins galore! Marie missed all of our animal adventures, but she got to have her own fun with Marmie. She doesn't look too sad in these pictures at the mall playground does she?

Now, it’s back to our regular life. Oh, gaaaaa.