9 Months (in the midst of getting settled in our new house)!

Since moving out to Colorado in January 2003 I have moved eight times, but this move has definitely been the most challenging. Considering the fact that I am trying to take care of three babies while moving and getting settled I guess that statement is obvious, but it is more than just baby care that has made it more difficult. While Micah has always been in charge of taking apart and setting up furniture, taking shelves and stuff off the walls and patching holes, moving the heavy things, setting up the computers, and doing anything that requires a power tool, I have always been the one to organize the kitchen, the bathrooms, our bedroom, and the living room. This time, though, I also set up the family room/ play area, two bedrooms for the babies, and the loft area which we're currently using a bottle feeding / diaper changing area. Believe me when I say I'm not complaining about having more house, but in the past things went from the old living room to the new living room and so on, but this time I have decide where everything should go as there are so many more options! Although almost all of the boxes have been unpacked, we still have a bit of work to do before we will feel "settled," so I will post some pics of our new house in the next week or two as we get a few things checked off our list.

Usually I kind of put life on hold while I move and get settled as I can't stand living in chaos, but I guess the babes missed the memo as they have continued to reach milestones and somehow they are already 9 months old!! It's good that they have been thriving through the move, and it's a reminder to me to stop, take a break from unpacking and organizing, and enjoy the time I have with the babies every day. Here is their 9 month update.

How old? 9 months

Our weights: 
Alexis: 14 lbs 5.5 oz (+ 1 lb 3.5 oz from last month! She has caught up since her sickness!) Jack: 15 lbs 1 oz (+ 13 oz from last month) Faith: 14 lbs 5.5 oz (+ 13.5 oz from last month and exactly the same weight as Alexis!)

Size clothes: The girls have outgrown most of their 6 month clothes and are moving onto 9 month.  Jack is wearing 6 month pants and 9 month tops. Everyone is in 9 month pajamas.

Eating schedule: Up until two days ago, everyone was still getting 5 bottles a day and we were still feeding every 3 hours (same schedule as last month), but I decided it was time to add another solids feeding and drop a bottle so now we are on day #2 of four bottles (around 7:00, 11:00, 3:00, and 7:00) and solids about halfway between each bottle (9:00, 12:30, 5:00). For some reason I always seem to change their schedule around their monthly birthdays, but I guess that's when I realize they are growing up and need a change. Although I'm still doing seven feedings a day between bottles and solids, I am very excited that everyone has now taken an interest in eating solids as this is extremely important for their development. Plus, dropping a bottle is huge as it means we don't need as much formula (saves money, time making formula, less bottles to wash, and so on!).

Naps: I am so thankful that the babies are finally in a great nap routine! The morning nap is about an hour long and the afternoon nap is between 2-2.5 hours long (we'll see how this goes with our new schedule but I'm hopeful it will stick). This is amazing for me as they are consistently napping for the same time period, which means I can get a lot more done and even get a little "break" in during the day! These naps have been a lifesaver during the move. In the past I felt like I needed to do so much around the house while trying to interact with one or more babies, so now that they are sleeping at the same time I feel like I can be present with all of them while they are awake and focused on stuff around the house while they are asleep. So much better for everyone! Faith sleeps in the guest room during naps so that everyone has their own room as sometimes they don't fall asleep right away and would keep each other up if in the same room.

Bedtime: Most nights bedtime goes very smoothly. They go to bed right after their last bottle and although sometimes we need to give the girls their pacifiers, it doesn't take them long to fall asleep. We have never rocked the babies to sleep since we didn't have enough arms to rock everyone at once, so they are great at falling asleep on their own. So thankful for this as well! Since we moved on Saturday the girls have been sharing a room and they are not waking each other up at night. Jack has his own room now and I'm not sure if he's noticed this change or not, but it feels a bit strange putting him in his own room every night after putting three babies in one small room for the first 7 months they were home.

Night Sleep:  I don't know if nights have really gotten better or if we are just really used to waking up, but since our move things seem to have improved. Maybe it's because every little noise doesn't wake us up since our bedroom is further from their rooms? Regardless, the girls have only ended up in our bed a couple of times in the last week and they seem to be getting better at self-soothing (they can both put their own pacifiers in their mouths which is really helpful). Jack still sleeps through the night most of the time.

Favorite foods:  I have not been very consistent with feeding them solids due to our move, but they also haven't given any negative reactions to any of the purees I've fed them. They all really enjoy the Little Yums teething wafers as they can feed themselves and I think they enjoy munching instead of just swallowing the purees. I was hoping to do Baby Led Weaning (feed them more table food than purees), but I've realized it makes me super nervous and I find it hard to watch three babies eating at the same time to make sure they're not choking. I received some great advice from a friend on adding variety to their diets, instead of just the store bought purees, so we will be trying a lot in the upcoming month! One thing they all seem to enjoy that isn't necessarily "baby food" is yogurt. I just buy the plain stuff and mix in a little baby food to give it flavor. I have made yogurt in the past too, so I'll probably be doing that again soon.

Our likes? Pretty much the same as last month, but they have also taken a real interest in our cat. Every time she walks in the room all three focus on her and watch her every move. It's quite funny to watch, but I am a little nervous for when all are truly mobile as I'm sure they will be grabbing at her and she's not very tolerant of stuff like that. They all really like to grab at and touch each other (feet, hands, ears, heads...).

Our dislikes? On the flip side, all three get really upset when another baby is touching them! Once in awhile they'll tolerate, but not for long. Faith gets really mad when we wash her face after she eats. Luckily she's the cleanest eater so she doesn't require as much clean up. Lately we've been having a pacifier stealing problem. Both girls love their pacis and they have no problem grabbing a pacifier out of one another's mouth and putting it in their own (kind of hard for me to watch as a germ-a-phobe!). This really upsets the girl that had the paci originally, so I've got to figure out someway to deal with this as they now can scoot and roll to each other to steal the pacis...

Our favorite games/toys? All three have taken much more of an interest in toys now. They love the rock n stack (rings on the stick that they can take off), anything that plays music or lights up, or anything that they can chew on (which is any toy or anything else they find).
 
Our milestones? Everyone can now sit for an extended period of time, although no one has figured out how to catch themselves when truly falling so I usually have a Boppy around them if I'm not right there. All three pivot when on their bellies and Lexi loves to roll all over the place. Faith is scooting wherever she wants to go. It's still not fast (or necessarily efficient) but she can move when she sees something she wants! Jack cut his first tooth! Still no teeth for the girls but they are constantly drooling and sucking / chewing on things so I'm guessing by next month they'll have at least one tooth as well.

Things we do to make Mom and Dad smile? Their babbling is adorable. We can't get enough of their giggles. We love to watch Faith scoot around. It's also fun to feed them solids now that they are all actually eating it. This has just been a fun age.


Our Pictures:


ALEXIS

JACK 

He was distracted by Faith playing

 





FAITH 

She was distracted by Jack playing

ALL TOGETHER (left to right: A, J, F)

At least it was a graceful landing!

It's a little harder to get a cute pic on their backs these days as all they want to do is roll over and move around! Or touch each other. For those that think our babies are always smiling, here's evidence that they're not ;).

The Nursery (that we are leaving behind...tear)

I am so excited to be moving into our new house in less than two weeks (if all goes as planned), but at the same time I am feeling a bit sentimental. Usually I start packing as soon as we start talking about moving as I actually enjoy getting rid of things, packing, and organizing, but so much has happened in our lives while we lived in this 1240 square foot rental house that I am hesitant to pack things up, especially in the nursery. When Micah and I moved into this house 2 years and 10 months ago, we thought we would stay for a year and hopefully move into a house of our own. But as time went on we realized that this house was a good fit for us and we didn't feel ready to take on the responsibility of home ownership again (we bought our first house in February 2007 and sold it in August 2010 when we moved to NM).

A year ago we decided we would renew our lease one more time as it would be extremely difficult to move while I was pregnant with triplets, so we got permission from our landlord to paint the room that we used as an office which would become our nursery. We decided which color to paint the room before we even knew the genders of the babies as the color we wanted was gender neutral anyway. Micah and his parents painted the room when his parents came for a weekend visit, which was great since I wasn't supposed to do anything physically demanding even early on in the pregnancy.

On one of my mom's visits from MI we stopped in a thrift store and happened to find a dresser with bars for a changing table on top, which my friend Katie helped me paint when she came to visit (and Micah put the final coat on).

The dresser with the changing table on top at the thrift store! It was in perfect condition and it was a steal for only $70!

Katie sanding the dresser

I even helped with some of the painting, but I wore a mask to protect the babies.

My friends Amy and Sarah putting the shelf paper in the dresser

Micah's mom sews and she offered to make the crib skirts and valance from the fabric I picked out. 

The valance which has strips of fabric from which the crib skirts were made.

Jack's crib skirt

Alexis and Faith's crib skirts

The reason the crib skirts were so important is that I bought these plastic storage bags for larger size clothes which have been stored under the mattresses. As the babies have grown I have swapped out the clothes in their closet and dresser for the bigger sizes and put the small stuff under the beds. The crib skirts hid the storage areas under the cribs perfectly!

I have never been very creative, but I had a lot of time on my hands while I was pregnant , so I got on Pinterest and found some easy, low cost decorating ideas. I didn't really have a theme when I started the room, but the final product could be described as "whimsical." 

Putting the mobiles together

Getting ready to put the mobiles up in the nursery (about 6 weeks before the babies were born)

I made these pinwheels while sitting on the couch :). I directed my mom while she pinned them on the wall above the changing table. I was so thankful for her help in getting the nursery completed!

Alexis showcasing all of the decorations above her crib. I made the mobiles, I bought the owls from Hobby Lobby, I made the frames with the first letters of the babies names, I made the flower and tree (Jack's side) frames, and the NICU nurses took the babies footprints a couple of weeks after they were born and wrote out all of their birth information and I put them in the frames after the babies got home.

 

 

The frames above Jack's bed. Ignore the wire - that is our baby monitor.

Jack wanted to show his side off too!

Faith showing off her frames

A closer look at Faith's frames.

Here are some other pictures of the room:

Alexis and Faith's side of the room

Jack's side

We had one of our maternity pics printed on a canvas. We really liked this pic as it has the whole family in it :).

The wall with the window and the closet. Faith's crib is in this pic and Jack's crib is on the opposite wall.

Their linens are kept in the polka dot drawers, but in our new house we'll have more closet space so we can actually put them in the linen closet.

The girls headbands and lots of books (luckily Jack doesn't care that the headbands are on "his side" of the room).

The completed changing table / dresser

This is a pretty small closet, but I bought a rod that hangs on the top rack that is about half the length. This has really helped as we were able to put Jack's clothes on the bottom and the girls clothes on the top and we still store things on the floor of the closet on either side of Jack's clothes. I also bought the pocket storage that hangs on the inside of the closet door. This has been great for storing hats, newborn mittens, and other miscellaneous things.

Although most of the stuff in the closet is current sizes, I do like to have some bigger things in there too so I can try them on the babies as they grow. To make the closet more organized I added tags to separate the sizes (thanks Melissa for the great idea!)

 

Faith hanging out while I took pictures of their room today

Alexis hanging out

Jack hanging out

Jack in his crib today

Jack when we brought him home at the end of July. He's grown so much!

 Now that it's time to pack up the nursery, I feel sad that I haven't thought much about how I'm going to decorate the new rooms. First of all, we're not 100% sure who will be sleeping in the same room as although we originally thought it would be the girls, in reality Jack is our best sleeper so it may be better if the girls were separate so they didn't wake each other up. We've also been focused on the other parts of the house so I'm not sure how much decorating we will do in their rooms. Of course we will put up the same decorations, but the rooms might look kind of empty for awhile. Oh well. Honestly, we hardly spend any time in our nursery right now and I don't think that will change with the hew house as we are most excited about the fact that we will have a family room which will contain all of the babies toys and it will be completely baby proof!