Life with Triplets!

"If you think my hands are full... you should see my heart!"

I saw this quote the other day, and I thought it pretty much summed up my life. People always ask me how I manage to take care of triplets and a 2 year old by myself. Well it is not easy, but it is not impossible either. 

Some days I feel like all I do is go from one problem to the next, and some days I feel like my only accomplishment was to get dressed and feed my kids. Other days I feel super accomplished about little things like getting the dishes done when in reality all I did was load my breakfast dishes and start the dishwasher that was already loaded, but let me tell you as I push that start button I get great satisfaction.

I have to plan every task out really well because nothing is worse than sitting down to nurse the babes and not having a pacifier or a burp rag nearby, or having Kynlee want apple juice right then. I really regret the days that I neglect separating bottles while the babes were napping, and I have to do it amid a screamfest.

One thing is for sure, I couldn't do it without my amazing husband who is great about helping with everything, and my sweet Kynlee is the nicest girl we could have asked for. Our extended family is also great about helping too. I think I would dread going to church every week if we didn't have Dallen and Shaylee there to help us, and Morgan is great to watch our kids so we can get out every week. 

Even with careful planning and lots of help, some days are still really hard. All the books said to get the babies on a good schedule and stick to it. Ok so I really only read 1 book, but that is what it said. Let me tell you I have tried so hard to get the babes on a good schedule, but it seems the babes try just as hard to not stick to a schedule. Have you ever tried to get 3 tiny humans to sleep when they don't want to? Or convince them that they are not hungry yet? It is not fun, and some days the schedule goes out the window as we switch into pure survival mode. So for everyone who asks how I do it, here are a few confessions about my life.

• Kynlee had cheese and jerky for breakfast today while I nursed the babes. She originally asked for a cookie so it could have been worse.
• I have no idea what we are going to have for dinner today.
• There are lots of tears at our house, and some of them even come from the babes.
• Carson takes care of the babes at night way more than I do.
• I am completely smitten by the cuteness of my sweet babes.
• I rarely do my hair anymore.
• I still make my bed every day.
• I get excited about going to church and the grocery store because those are the only times I get out of the house.
• I still get dressed every day, although sometimes it does not happen until noon.
• There is a load of laundry still in the dryer from last Friday.
• We have cereal, soup, and waffles for dinner more than I care to admit.
• I still make time to read a handful of books to Kynlee before her nap.
• My babes wear pajamas about 80% of the time even though they have a closet FULL of cute clothes.
• I love to snuggle a warm baby close to me.
• I rarely clean our bathroom (It may get a little wipedown between cleanings if we are lucky).
• Some weeks the most exciting thing Kynlee does is ride in the laundry basket while I pull it around the house.
• I get to kiss squishy baby cheeks all day long.
• My kitchen floor almost always needs mopped. It is currently very sticky with what I thought was water when I half-heartedly wiped it up last night but turned out to be apple juice.
• I am training to run in a half marathon next month. 
• I am lucky to get 3 or 4 workouts in a week.
• I love to watch my kids sleep.
• My clothes usually have spit up or spilled milk somewhere on them.
• Sometimes I just fix Kynlee's hairstyle that we neglected to take out the night before and call it good for the day.
• I may or may not do this with my hair from time to time. 
• I managed to find time to sew myself a dress last week (I thought I would never sew again when I found out I was having triplets)
• I think I have the cutest kids in the world. I am not bias or anything.
• Some days my arms get tired from pacing the house holding 2 or more fussy babies.
• I make a fool of myself singing silly songs and dancing to make my babes happy,
• My 2 year old tells me to stop singing.
• We only bathe our kids twice a week whether they need it or not. Who am I kidding? They always need it, in fact they are usually well past due for a bath, but it is quite the endeavor to bathe all 4 of our kids so we only take it on twice a week.
• My babes only like to take about a 30-40 minute afternoon nap. It makes for a very long afternoon.
• I use chocolate to help get me through every afternoon until daddy comes home.
• I feel like part of a circus train whenever we go anywhere in public.
•  We get stares like we are a circus train whenever we go anywhere in public.
• I am letting my 2 year old watch episode after episode of Peppa Pig while I write this post.
• Some days I feel like a complete failure.
• I love my kids more than anything, and I wouldn't have life any other way!

The Babes Nursery!

The last time Megan and I did a pinterest challenge I showed some of the things I had made for the babes nursery, and I promised to post pictures when it was all done. Well it is finally all put together. It has been mostly done for a while, but we finally put the toddler bed in Kynlee's room and got all the cribs in the babes room. Now the babes all sleep in their own cribs. It makes me a little sad because they looked so cute sleeping next to each other every night. I love how the nursery turned out though. I bought the crib bumpers, and then I made all of the crib skirts, the curtains, the pillows, the wall art, and the pom poms. So here it is for everyone to see now that the babes are 6 months old.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from the cutest Emery, Korbin, Braxton, and Kynlee I know.

6 Months!!

That's right, my babes are 6 months old!! I can't believe it either.

Miss Emery is my early riser. She loves to lay on the floor and kick her feet. She gives up giggles easily, and she is a bit of a beast if she gets too tired before I put her down for a nap. We love her so much!

Mister Korbin is my smiley guy but he doesn't give up giggles easily. He is the best sleeper of the bunch, and he is a chatty boy. We love him so much. 

Mister Braxton likes to sleep in late, and he never seems to be on the same sleeping schedule as the other babes. He giggles when tickled, and he is still a nice mellow boy. We love him so much.

Some days are really hard with the babes, but some things have gotten easier too. We are  trying really hard to get them to sleep thru the night, and they are trying really hard to not sleep thru the night. They are growing nicely, and they like to eat baby food and cereal. They also like to play on the floor and they like music. They have started tormenting each other a little so I may have to start putting them farther apart. Sometimes I catch Braxton holding onto Emery's ear, or Emery kicking Korbin in the head, or Korbin sucking on Braxton's head. Other times I catch them holding hands and it makes my heart melt. They are so sweet and I love to snuggle them. Carson and I still find ourselves saying we can't believe we have triplets. We never thought this is how our lives would go, but we can't imagine our family without any of our sweet babes, we love them so much.

Naps!

All my kids are sleeping!!!!

It is a rare occurrence.

So why on earth am I blogging and not napping as well?

I would like to be napping, you wouldn't believe how much I would like to be.

I bet you never would have guessed this, but I don't get much sleep at night. 

But I have learned something about naps...

My days go better if I don't try to sneak them in. 

You see on really hard days when I think if I can just get a nap in I will feel better, it seems the universe conspires against me, mostly in the form of  adorable babes, but sometimes in other ways too. Inevitably there will be one babe on a different schedule than the other 2, and they want cuddles. Or my 2 year old who normally is an awesome sleeper will randomly decide she wants to "nap" in my bed which means I get kicked and picked at while neither of us sleep. Sometimes I am lucky and get a little nap in, but most days I just get really frustrated with being really tired and not being able to get a nap in.

Well the other day my babes slept pretty good, and I was not exhausted like I usually am so I didn't try to take a nap. And you know what? The whole day went much smoother. And I realized that every time I don't try to catch a little nap my days go much better.

Even with this knowledge I still tried to sneak in a little nap today. It was dumb, and I later regretted it, but at the time it seemed like such a good idea. You see all my babes were asleep, I had already picked up the house, dinner was thawing in the fridge, I had already unloaded the dishwasher, and made granola, my laundry was still drying in the dryer, so why not relax a little? 

I put my phone on silent and I already had bottles ready for when the babes woke up so I laid down. 

It took me a little while to fall asleep, that should have been my first clue to abandon the nap idea, but I don't learn easily. 

After a bit I fell asleep....

just 5 minutes later there was a knock at the door. Our renter had locked himself out and needed a key to get back in. Just my luck.

Isn't it funny how getting just a little sleep actually makes you more tired, and GRUMPY.

So here I sit in my silent house blogging rather than sleeping.

But it is ok.  Someday I will get to sleep all night long without having to get up, but that will mean my little babes aren't so little anymore and I will miss these cute little faces. So I will just try to enjoy watching them sleep rather than sleeping myself.

And maybe I will stop trying to sneak in naps.

Maybe.

. 

FOOD!!!

We started our babes on cereal. 

Emery loved it!

Braxton tolerated it!

 And Korbin hated it!

It is funny though because they have now switched all around. Korbin is the best eater, Braxton is pretty good, and Emery likes to keep her tongue out the whole time so it is hard to get food in. They like oatmeal much better than rice.

We love our babes, and we love that they sleep a little better with cereal in their bellies.

Sick of being sick

We have gone through lots of:

• tissues
• soup
• tylenol
• orange juice

Is cold and flu season over yet???

Happy Birthday Carson!!!

This handsome guy had a birthday!!!

I spent a whole 5 minutes making him this Birthday crown the night before, I left it on the table with a note that specifically said he was to wear the hat ALL day. Imagine my surprise when I got up after him to find it still on the table. He must have conveniently forgotten it.

 I made him yummy molten lava cakes!

For his main present, I arranged for my WONDERFUL sister to come watch our kids so we could go night boarding. Well it happened to be snowing that day, and I was afraid we were going to freeze our bums off, but we are poor and the night skiing is cheaper, so we were determined to still go. We had a really good time, and I only froze a little bit. I insisted on taking the camera up for one run so I could get these not so great photos to document the trip.

Happy Birthday Carson!!! You are my best friend and the greatest daddy in the world to our little ones, I love you.

5 Months

These little babes are 5 months old!

Mr. Braxton is such a cutie. He likes it if I sing to him, and he gets especially excited for "Take me out to the Ball Game." I love his laugh, and I love how easy going he is most of the time.  He doesn't seem to need as much sleep as his brother and sister, and he does not like bedtime.

 Mr. Korbin is my smiley guy. Sometimes even when he is fussing if I give him a big smile and say "Hey Korbin," he will stop fussing and give me a grin (only sometimes though, sometimes he is really mad). He also spits up the most.

 Miss Emery is as cute as can be. She loves her tongue, she smiles with her mouth open as wide as she can get it, and she giggles more than the boys. I will work so hard to get a few giggles from her because they melt my heart. Little Em also has the most blow outs, she will go through the same amount of clothes as the boys combined. 

 Carson suggested I do a picture each month with all 3 babes, but it is really hard to get them all to cooperate. This is the best I could get.

The babes are starting to be more interactive, and we love to play with them. We are so happy they are part of our family.

More Christmas FUN!

I thought Kynlee would be really excited about Christmas morning this year, and I couldn't wait to see it. Come Christmas morning Kynlee was nervous to go down and see what Santa had brought.

She planted herself on the stairs and wouldn't budge. We had to do a little persuading to get her to go to the family room. 

 Once she saw this cozy coupe she was sold on Christmas. Kynlee has loved cozy coupes since she rode one at a cousin's house last Easter. She even came home in tears one time when Carson and I took her on a walk around the neighborhood and she saw one in someone's yard. It is hard for a little girl to understand that the car didn't belong to us so we couldn't ride it. I considered getting her one for her birthday, but with having triplets and all right around that time it didn't happen. But Santa/Grandma and Grandpa Dalton made a little girls dreams come true. 

 Santa must have known that Grandpa Dan likes to share his Mt. Dews with Kynlee. And this special little girl must have been really good this year, because she got not 1 cozy coupe...

...but 2. Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Stacy knew Kynlee's love for cozy coupes as well. She sure is spoiled.

 Emery tips over.

 Grandma Matheson and little Braxton.

 Uncle David and Korbin.

 Grandpa Mel sang little tunes to Braxton until he fell asleep.

 Emery in her new hat.

 Kynlee with her Merida doll from Papa and Ree.

 The best part about Christmas at my Dad's is the grab bag he does for the kids. (Ok so the boys would argue that it is the prime rib my Dad cooks, but I don't get all that excited about meat.) There is a boy bag and a girl bag, and all the kids get to take turns reaching into a bag to get a little toy. The catch is that there is a little toy snake in the bag, It is usually a younger kid that finds the snake (the older kids know to feel around and avoid it), and Dad jumps and acts all scared when they pull it out. The kids love it. 

And finally we had our quiet little Christmas at home. After a crazy week of being with family it was nice to have this little Christmas together.

 Carson got me a nice running jacket so I can train for the 1/2 Marathon that is coming up in March. Although after I slipped on some gravel the snow plow pushed up on the sidewalk the other day and fell really hard on my hip, I am kind of doubting my ability to actually run the race.

 Carson got a new coat for snowboarding. Do you like that I didn't even take it out of the package it was shipped in?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!