A Great Birthday

Last year I turned 30 and Micah surprised me with a trip home to Michigan to visit my family. I was very happy to be with my family on my birthday as my mom always works hard to make my birthday feel special (she probably puts in a little extra effort since it is only three days before Christmas and she doesn't want me to feel overlooked), but since I was 8 1/2 weeks pregnant with triplets I wasn't feeling so great and I definitely wasn't able to celebrate with my favorite adult beverage. This year my parents were visiting us during my birthday so I decided to plan my birthday celebration myself.

My birthday fell on a Sunday and since my parents were going to be in town from Michigan and Micah's parents were able to drive down from Colorado for the weekend, we asked our pastor if we could have the babies baptized that day. All three did great during the baptism and the entire church service, which was a relief! We definitely don't make it to church every Sunday right now as it's hard to coordinate their three hour feeding and nap schedule with church, but it helped to have six adults (the two of us and the four grandparents) so there were lots of extra arms. We love our church family (Crossroads Fellowship Presbyterian in ABQ) and we are excited to raise our babies in such a great community of believers. It will also be very easy to remember the anniversary of their baptism since it fell on my birthday (which is also the anniversary of our engagement nine years ago).

Grammy Howard with Faith (left) and Grandma Snyder with Alexis (right) after their bottles at church before the service began

L to R: My parents, me with Faith, Micah with Jack, Micah's mom with Alexis, and Micah's dad

After a lunch at home with both of our parents, and a short nap which is definitely a luxury, Micah and I went to the climbing gym together. We both climb at the gym during the week, but we find it hard to go together since it means we need to find a babysitter. It was fun to climb together again!

On our way from the climbing gym to our hotel we stopped at Total Wine, which is relatively new in ABQ and Micah and I had only been there together once on a quick outing. We decided on a bottle of Pinotage from South Africa, which reminded us of our trip to South Africa in August 2012. Great memories and great wine!

We then checked into our hotel, Homewood Suites by Hilton in ABQ Uptown, took quick showers and headed out to happy hour. By this time it was actually quite late for happy hour but the restaurant that serves my favorite drink (raspberry lemondrop martini) has happy hour all day on Sundays so we were in luck! After a drink and an appetizer, we headed over to an Italian restaurant for dinner.

Overall it was a great day and the babies even got me flowers! But the best part was that my parents volunteered to babysit overnight so I got my first uninterrupted night of sleep since before the babies were born (even when they were in the hospital I had to wake up to pump every few hours). I think it's going to take some work to train my body to actually sleep through the night again as I definitely woke up a few times, but at least it was on my body's own timing and not in response to a crying baby!

Thanks to everyone who helped make my 31st birthday a great day!

The night before my birthday with the babies (since we were gone the night of my actual birthday). Left to right: Jack, Alexis, Faith.

6 Months Old

I follow a few other triplet blogs and I noticed that they answer the same questions every month about their triplets, which is helpful in remembering what to write about each month, so I'm going to copy their idea!


How old? 6 months

Our weights: 
Alexis: 11 lbs 14 oz
Jack: 12 lbs 6 oz
Faith: 11 lbs 6.5 oz

  Size clothes: aAthough they still fit in some of their 3 month clothes (especially the girls), they now fit in a lot of 6 months clothes as well.  PJ's seem to be sized differently as they wear 6 month or bigger (or maybe it's just that we have long, skinny babies as they outgrow everything in length).

 Our sleeping patterns?  There have actually been some major changes in the last couple of nights as they all slept through the night (or at least only woke up for a paci and not a bottle), so we're hoping that's not a fluke! We also are working on changing their schedule right now so they only get 5 bottles a day instead of 6 (or 7 for Lexi as she would wake up screaming in the middle of the night and the only way to calm her was to feed her). But for the last month they have been taking a nap after every bottle and the length of the nap varied between 45 minutes and 2 hours (unfortunately they never all take a 2 hour nap at the same time but I'm hoping that will change). For nap times we often separate them by putting one in our room and another in the guest room, so that they don't wake each other up. The last couple of nights Lexi has been sleeping in the guest room, so maybe that has somehow helped her sleep through the night.

Nighttime: "Bedtime" has been between 7:00 and 8:00 depending on when they drink their bottle, but up until a couple of days ago we had been waking them for a 10:00/11:00 p.m. bottle, which they mostly slept through. Jack has continued to sleep through the night (he has been doing so for awhile now), Faith has been sleeping through the night for a couple of weeks (except for needing her paci some nights), and Alexis had been needing a middle of the night bottle.

Our eating schedule: Generally 7:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m., plus or minus 30 minutes throughout the day. Alexis ate again between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m. (Micah had been waking up to feed her which really helped me!).  We offer the girls 5 ounces and Jack 6 ounces, but they rarely drink the whole thing. The last couple of days we have changed this so they only get five bottles and the last one is around 8:00 at night, but we'll see if this sticks as they have to continue to gain weight!

Favorite foods: Qe have not started feeding solids yet. My understanding is that this usually starts around 6 months, but as our trio's adjusted age is 4 months I am going to ask the pediatrician at our appointment on Friday what she recommends. 

Our likes? Mom's singing, the bouncy chair, the play yard, sitting in their Bumbo chairs, seeing new things (although we don't get out much!), sucking  / chewing on hands, putting things in their mouths, the exersaucer (although this is really new as we just started using it this week!).  The girls both love their pacifiers and Jack is sucking his left thumb. Jack still loves to stand with assistance, but we are trying to deter him from doing so very often as we're realizing that he is very stiff and standing supported may not be the best thing for him right now.

Our dislikes? Being laid down when they don't want to sleep, even if we gave in and got them out of their cribs and brought them back to the living room. Being left in their Rock n Play Sleepers for too long, which is funny since they used to spend most of their time in those but now they want to get out and sit (assisted or in Bumbos) and play!

Our favorite games/toys? play yard, crinkly toys made by Grammy Howard, Bumbos, bouncy chair, fish toy rattle, Angel Dear animal blankets, and listening to books and looking at the pictures.
 
Our milestones? Lots of babbling and cooing, Alexis is figuring out how to put her pacifier in her own mouth, Faith is super strong with her tummy time, and Jack is now big enough to be carried in the Ergo baby carrier without the infant insert (12 lb minimum).

Things we do to make Mom and Dad smile? babble & coo, laugh, smile a lot, watch each other play, smile when we kiss them, play "airplane" when we hold them high in the air.

Our Pictures:

JACK

ALEXIS

FAITH

ALL TOGETHER (L to R: Alexis, Jack, Faith)

Family Visits

Two weekends ago Micah's parents came down from CO for a weekend visit. Although they only live about 4 hours away, they hadn't been here since Labor Day weekend as they had a busy fall and whenever it worked in their schedule it didn't work in ours. We visited them a few weeks ago, but it was great to see them again at our house.  The babies really enjoyed their time with their paternal grandparents too!

Alexis (left) and Faith (right) with Grammy

Alexis, Jack, and Faith with Grammy

We love books!

Faith (left) and Alexis (right) with Grandpa Howard

My older brother, Kyle, his wife, Jodi, and their two kids, Brayden and Adelle, arrived on Thanksgiving day for their first trip to ABQ. We are so excited to have them here to spend time with them and the triplets, and also to show off a little of ABQ. So far we have mostly just enjoyed hanging out at the house and taking care of the babies, which is surprisingly fun for 8-year-old Brayden and 7-year-old Adelle, and yesterday we made it to the zoo. This was the triplets third time to the zoo and this time they actually spent a portion of the trip in the baby carriers, instead of just sleeping in their strollers, and they really did seem to enjoy looking at some of the animals! My brother's family leaves Wednesday morning so we still have a couple of more days together, which is great!

Cousins! Left to right, front to back: Jack, Alexis, Faith, Brayden, Adelle

Kyle with Alexis, Faith, and Jack

Christmas PJ's from Grandma and Grandpa! L to R, F to B: Faith, Jack, Alexis, Brayden, Adelle

L to R: Jack, Brayden, Alexis, Adelle, Faith

Jodi with Alexis, Jack, and Faith

Boys!

Brayden and the girls

Girls!

Adelle with Jack

Adelle and Jack

Jodi and Jack

Alexis with her uncle and cousins

Adelle with Alexis

Brayden with Alexis

Adelle and Jack

Adelle and Faith

Adelle feeding Jack. Makes me wish I had a 7 or 8-year-old around all of the time as they can actually do a lot for the babies!

Brayden and Jack

Adelle with Alexis and Brayden with Jack

Jodi reading to Faith and Jack

Singing to the babies

At the zoo in carriers! I have Faith, Micah has Alexis, and Kyle has Jack.

And here are some other random pics from the last couple of weeks....

Working on ice climbing gear with Jack

Thanks for the booties Great Aunt Judy! L to R: Faith, Jack, Alexis

Faith doing tummy time

Faith with her daddy

Jack being his smiley self

Alexis and Faith wearing their Christmas outfits

Jack is definitely a thumb sucker! We have completely stopped offering him the pacifier as he prefers his thumb and always finds it at nap time and at night to fall asleep.