The Walk is Tomorrow!!

March of Dimes walk is tomorrow.  Supposed to be 60 degrees outside :)
Last chance to donate $$ to our team. 
You can donate all year long (just not to our Walk-a-thon team)

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE DONATED!!  Your money is going to such a great cause!
And thanks to everyone at CUMC who donated during our Dessert Bar this week!  Hope you all enjoyed the treats!!

"Moa" "Ah da"

Jibberish?  Or a few new words?

Besides hi, this/that, night-night, bath, ball, banana, oof-oof, & vroom/broom... most of our words are heard on a rare basis.  Most of life is just noisy blabber. 

But we have a few new ones that I am loving. 

Hayden on occasion says "Moa"  for more.  Usually he is only calm enough to ask while sitting in his high chair after eaing 90% of his meal.  What I am dying for them to learn to say is Milk or Juice.  Seriously... stand by the kitchen, jumping up & down throwing a fit.... or learn to ask.  Talking would be so much easier!  (And I know... the sign language thing... I just really don't know it + I'm not sure if I have patience nor the brain cells to remember to do it to teach it.  Our life is chaotic!)

Olivia says "Ah da" for all done.  She actually sings it... over & over & over.  "Ah da ah da ah da..."  Closes a door & sings it.  Takes off a shoe & sings it.  Closes the 2 ear pieces of her sunglasses & sings it.  Everything is "ah da."  Now if only she would say it vs throwing all her food off her tray when she was all done we would really be getting somewhere.

Logan, nothing new.  Mostly he "ba" & "broom"s all day.

Life is Fragile

2011 continues to plague me.  Or those around me.  My heart is feeling battered & worn.  I'm praying my friends.  For all of you.  Often.  I keep adding people to my prayer list.  Its so long I could pray all day.


This week, my co-worker Lena's sister was removed from life support after suffereing some sort of cardiac arrest event while driving down I29.  My friends continue to battle.  Divorce, disease, loss.  Heart conditions, troubled children, illness.  Unanswered questions.  My family has experienced miscarriage, infertility, diagnosis of Parkinson's & Muscular Dystrophy. 

And my job continues to remind me that life is fragile.  Too fragile.  Embrace today.  Share your tears. 

Today my heart mourns. 

May my prayers & tears bring you all comfort & peace.  Please send up some prayers for those struggling this week.  For my prayers alone I feel are not enough.

Easter Morn

Easter with Grandma Candy & Grandpa Tom last weekend.  Easter baskets sent home from Grandma GG this week.  Easter with Great Grandparents on Easter Sunday.  LOTS of Easter! 

But we did manage to find a few brief moments for Easter baskets at home.  Literally BRIEF moments for them to dig through & toss everything aside looking to see if the next thing will be better than the last!

Easter Baskets

 Eggs, chalk, bubbles, sunglasses & backpack leashes! 

(Yes I am going to be that mom.  How old are your triplets?  Then don't judge!)

 Hayden apparently was still 1/2 asleep!

 Way cool dude!!!

 Logan checking out Livi's basket!

 Check out the rug-burn bump on his forehead.... stairs!  Good thing we are tough!

 Livi.  Enough hair for BED HEAD!  Is it wrong that this excites me??

 Next...

 Beautiful!!

 This is just so her.

 The sunglasses fit over her glasses.  She wore them around all morning.  And the buckets only sat nice on Hayden's big head!



Happy Easter!!

This weekend we celebrated Easter with my grandparents & extended family.  It was quite the crazy celebration!

If you take my grandparents, their 6 kids, throw in spouses, grandkids, their spouses & now great grandkids.... (if my math is right) if everyone showed up, there would be 56 people!!  And this year they had an awesome turn out.  Despite peoples' work schedules, kids, travel, etc. we had 44 of the 56 there!  Pretty amazing!  This included all 20 great grandchildren.  15 of which are 5 & under, by the way.  Needless to say, it was not a quiet household!!  But rather, a huge celebration of life.

We ate & played, then headed out to the pasture at the farm for the annual egg hunt. 

Waiting for instructions.  Sporting their new Dino Hats!  According to the pictures from last year, there were only 9 Easter egg hunters.  This year there were 20!!  So we needed stricter "rules" about how many eggs to find. 

Hayden

Logan & Ty (I used to babysit for him when he was little!)

Livi & Daddy... ready to go!

And she is off.....

The little kids hunting at the bottom of the hill.

Hayden found one!!

 And another!

 He did really good, even put them in his bag!

Logan hunting

 Great Aunt Terri helping

 They found one :)

Livi & daddy hunting

 It's hard work!

 Found a PINK one!

 Everybody off to show daddy their loot!

Then they had fun playing in the back of Grandpa's pickup while we waited for everybody to be done.  It was a fun place to "stomp, stomp."  And Logan enjoyed running smack into the window, hard.  Then turning around & running full speed towards the tail gate.  My kids are so weird (& dangerous) sometimes!!

 My Grandparents & their Great Grandkids!

Jake, Ty, Avery, Will, Austin, Lauren, Ashley, Samantha, Ella, Ava, Chloe, Addison, Carter, Amara, Haylee, Ayden, (minus sleeping Braylon), Hayden, Olivia & Logan. 

We hope you were able to celebrate this holiday season with your loved ones as well!

Happy Easter!

Teething & Tantrums

Everybody for sure now has a new tooth through.

Hayden has his 1st eye tooth, his bottom right. 
Olivia has molar #2, bottom right.
Logan has his 4th top tooth, last one on the right.

That puts us at 13, 10 & 8.  I think Livi's other bottom molar is coming too as she has lived almost exclusively on a milk diet the past few days, and the boys are still drool-city, so who knows if more is in store for them?  But I'm starting to feel like soaking wet shirts are going to exist for eternity. 

And in an unfortunate turn of events, Livi has joined Hayden in the tantrum area.  Though not nearly as bad & tantrums of a whole other sort.  Hayden is quite dramatic.  Flops loose to the floor, screams, drama, drama, drama.  (Though knock on wood they have been occuring less frequently as of late)  Olivia acts more like a bratty 16 year old.  Stomps her feet.  On occasion stomps off around a corner & the only thing missing is the "I hate you" followed by a dramatic door slam!!  Its all I can do to keep from laughing!!  But its a tantrum none the less.  And I have NO idea where she could have inherited such attitude from (*wink)  Such is the life of being forced to wait turns & share.

Happy Easter!!

Well it is nearly impossible to take a picture of the 3 of them together, plus 1 set of Easter Bunny ears got broken.  So individual pictures this year will have to do! 

Have a Great Easter!! 

What a difference 1 year makes...

For last years Easter Bunny Ear Pics, click HERE!

Basement & Stairs!

Basement carpet went in on Friday.  Finally the installers who were supposed to be there between 7-9am showed up at 4:10pm!  Finally.  But its in.   Basement need a few touchups yet & baseboards.  But its functional!  I'll get you some real before & after pics eventually!

Weekend trip out of town.  Then on Monday... bye bye gate!!  Ok so its still up, just the door part of the gate is open & they are free to come up & down as they wish.  I put some foam letters at the bottom of the stair cases for a little padding incase of a tumble, but so far so good.  Livi & Logan have each stepped off the very last step once & taken a tumble.  But just one step.  Otherwise perfect!! 

They literally played on the stairs Monday ALL DAY!  Way more fun than any toy in their 'new basement.'

March Of Dimes

Being a NICU nurse & a mom to 3 amazing preemies, the March of Dimes organization is one that is near & dear to my heart.  The annual March of Dimes walk is coming up soon & I am trying to raise money to support this great organization.  I’m walking for stronger, healthier babies!  And weather permitting, my 3 strong & healthy babies, will be "walking" too!  Join me in the March for Babies and help prevent serious problems like premature birth and birth defects.  I have attached a link at the top of my blog if anyone has interest in donating.  Or as I am planning on attending the walk I would gladly take in donations for you if you aren't able to give online.  March of Dimes accepts donations year round & I encourage you to donate this year.  Its a great organization!  (Besides it's tax deductable!) 

Why we walk: 

When you walk in March for Babies, you give hope to the more than half a million babies born too soon each year.  1 in 8 babies is born too soon.  The money you raise supports programs in your community that help moms have healthy, full-term pregnancies. And it funds research to find answers to the problems that threaten our babies. We’ve been walking since 1970 and have raised an incredible $2 billion to benefit all babies.

To sign up a team to walk, or join a team visit here. 

If this isn't reason enough to give, I don't know what is.

Hayden Thomas

1 day old

 Olivia Paige

 Livi's tiny toes

Our team name this year is Tiny Toes Go!!  Fitting?

 Logan Daniel

 Their first time back together!



Thank you March of Dimes for what your research did for MY CHILDREN & for ME!!