Wee 3 She's

Here Comes Santa Claus...

2011-12-17T12:16:00.000-08:00

We went to our Ward Christmas Party last night. The girls were so excited when Santa came in to visit! Maddy was perma grin the entire time screaming "Santa, Santa!" But I didn't know what would happen when he became reality (sitting on his lap). I guess the pictures speak for themselves...

Triplet Catch up...

2011-12-13T16:32:00.000-08:00

Wow, I feel like time just keeps on moving faster and faster! The girls are also growing up so quick. I was looking at our family pictures lately and I noticed one the other night that I looked at and thought it was taken two years ago. So I looked it up and discovered it was taken in January 2011! It's amazing looking back and seeing how rapidly the girls change at this age. Carly actually has some hair now!

They are starting to really get into the talking. There was a lot of crying and whining before and now they're screaming words! Not sure which is better? They are truly in the throes of a two year old. I hear a lot of "no want it!" these days that I am now dreaming about that phrase. These days they don't like the clothes I pick out for them, they want to choose their own combinations, and such lovely combinations they choose. On the flip side of that, they are starting to undress themselves, and dress (parts of their clothing-shoes, socks, pants) themselves which is really nice! I feel like I am ready to go cry in a corner and yell "UNCLE!" at one moment and the next I think they are pretty great and more enjoyable to be around than they were as babies. So I not only have my good and bad days with them, it seems to change more on an hourly basis. I almost feel like my emotions can sometimes cycle on the same plane as a two year old. Must be what happens when you are with them all day long... Although I know Kyle can agree with me on that. But when they are sweet, they are so sweet. So it makes up for it.

Mckenna has such a great memory, she always remembers where she put something or where her sister's put something--or who's turn it is to have momma time next. She has been the one kid that has always preferred me. She's very much a momma's girl. She also thinks I'm hilarious which is really good for my ego. But she doesn't forget things which I believe will end up being tricky for me in a lot of ways.

Madison is still always always on the move. I think the only time she actually stops to take a breather, she usually falls asleep, whether that is in bed or not. And when she is asleep, she is out! The whole herd of elephants thing... She is also still the most sensitive to what her sister's need, a hug, a kiss, their stuffed animal (or toy). She is so extremely observant of everything around her.

Carly is still the most obedient child and loves to please momma and dada. She is always so quick to clean up toys and mess. She has finally discovered a way to get back at Maddy for all the bullying Maddy as done to her for this last year. She knows she is stronger than Maddy and if she can steal away one of her toys, then she can fend off Maddy from getting it. It's quite a frustrating discovery for Maddy and now Carly has become the new bully in town. I guess everyone has to take their turns.

They are excited for Christmas this year. I still don't think they really understand it all that well but they definitely know who Santa is, a snowman, Rudolph, presents, stockings and others Christmas things. I'm just not sure they understand the purpose of all of them yet. And they LOVE music, Christmas or otherwise. The girls have been so blessed this year with continual developmental growth that we are so thankful for. We know we are still not out of the woods (on their developmental catch up) and there is still a lot of things we worry and pray for for the girls especially with possibilities of big surgeries coming up this next year, (oh wait, I guess worrying about your kids happens to everyone at every age!) but we continue to try and remember that we are far outweighed with blessings than trials. Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and you are able to spend it with the ones you love! We look forward to the new year and starting new adventures! And as Maddy would say, "We Loffff You!"

More furniture makeovers

2011-12-13T15:52:00.000-08:00

So since I have missed posting for a month and a half I am going to post 3 posts in one day! Then you are all caught up with me. My mil stayed with us for all of October and November and so I was able to get a few paint projects done. I wanted to get them done now because we are going to be redoing the girls room in Februaryish and I didn't want to be painting in that month. It was cold enough in November as it was. And when it's that cold, technically the cans say you aren't supposed to paint, but I still do, it just takes 2-3 times as long to dry. Okay, first up: I bought this coffee table (I think it was $30 at Goodwill) and I repainted the legs and put in chalk paint on the top so the girls can use it as their table and write with chalk all over it! They love it, but they have eaten the chalk a few too many times. Yuck, that can't taste that great.

Before

After!

Next: This cedar chest was given to me by my parents when I was like 12 or 13? Somewhere in there. And as great as it is for a little girl, we already have a toy box that our friend made for us. Soooo... I repainted it red and put a cute number on it, and now it resides in our bedroom! Number five is our family size, the month the girls were born, the month and year we were married. Lots of fives in our lives so that's why I chose it.

Before

After!

After from above

This is just a random pic, but this corner you see below is where the girls are put (on their time out chair) when they misbehave and are naughty. The other day I came around the corner and look who was in time out! Shame on you Elmo! They also change Elmo's diaper and numerous other things that happen in their daily lives. It's funny how they like to act out the same things momma does.

Lastly: Now I don't have a picture of the after yet. It is done but it's sitting in that same position in the garage and I would really like it all set up in the room before I take a good pic of it.

Before

But here is what my inspiration was for after, it it looks very similar to this.

Cassie of Hi Sugarplum!

The main differences I made are that I painted my pulls (very similar to theirs) black instead of brass and put in two knobs that have clocks on them, super cute. I also distressed and glazed mine. I find that just plain pain is too boring for me. I need some texture and depth. Oh, and you can't see it very well, but their is a cute two step stool that also came with it that I fixed up as well.

So it will be awhile but can't wait to get the room finished in a few months and show you the final result!

Holiday Christmas Party 2011

2011-12-13T13:19:00.000-08:00

So, once again it's been awhile. Just wanted to share that Kyle and I got together with friends for our annual Christmas Party. I helped my friend plan the decor and had to document and get some pics of the full set up and great night! Thanks Lisa for letting me run wild (with my creativity) in your home!

Look at the amazing cake made by our friend Ashley! Wowza! I should have taken a pic of the inside because it was beautiful with three or four layers of peppermint white and chocolate cake.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season!

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T17:21:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!!! This year was a lot more fun for the girls. They were definitely more aware of what was going on. The girls were fairies this year-- Flora, Fauna and Merryweather to be exact! (From Sleepy Beauty) I decided to make the girls costumes when I couldn't find any toddler Sleepy Beauty fairies anywhere in stores and online. And they were a lot of work! So, don't be too disappointed when they are the same thing next year! Maybe next year Kyle will be Sleepy Beauty, hahaha!! The girls really got into the "Trick or Treat" and getting their buckets filled with candy. We took them to the Ward Trunk or Treat on Friday night and then around the block last night.

Carly- Merryweather

Mckenna- Flora

Madison- Fauna

And then I couldn't help but make a little witch hat for myself. I told Kyle I was a "chic" witch.

Then like good parents that we are, we dumped the candy out on the table and let the girls go wild! I didn't know that they could ingest that much candy in such a short time! Since they hardly ever have candy I figured we could make an exception on Halloween. That's probably why they went so hog wild, they are worried they'll never get it again!

Mckenna has such a sweet tooth. They others looked like they were more in a sugar coma but Mckenna just kept going and was having way too good of a time!

After their candy binge, we got them ready for bed and they actually just zonked out. We didn't hear a word as soon as we closed the door.

So, until next year, the hats are retired!

Heads Will Roll!!

2011-10-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

So I am in a book club with some friends and I hosted October's get together. I chose Legend of Sleepy Hollow as our book to read (I know 50 pages, very ambitious book there Sunny) and since it was such a quick read, I decided to spookify up the house with some Sleepy Hollow atmosphere! I took some pics to show. I wish that the pictures were better to show how great it looked. I even forgot to take a picture when the table was decked out with food and all the 20 candles a lit up! I really need camera lessons, I'm a waste of my camera's abilities. I created most of my decor from thrift store finds and some craft creations. It was a lot of fun and maybe we will have to make it a tradition each year!

The Spooky Hosts

Fall set up....

to Sleepy Hollow set up with silver platters and headless horseman galore!

Lots of spooky black branches throughout the house...

And I took two old pictures (the befores were scary naked babies) and painted some spooky trees!

I know, Poe and Sleepy Hollow are separate books, but at least I stayed in the literary land

And, of course, I had to have Ichabod's head!

Happy Halloween to all! This week I am finishing up the girls costumes for the big night!

On another note: My parents came into town the beginning of this month and we took the girls to the pumpkin patch for the first time! They LOVED it! I got a couple pics getting on the wagon and such and then....

Oh the joy of discovering straw bales!

....I didn't get a picture after these two! Hello! Where was I? I guess I just got too wrapped up in chasing down three 2 year olds all over the patch. We found three little mini pumpkins all on the same vine (just like triplet pumpkins!) so it was easy to get their pumpkins picked. And then I wandered a little off the road and I found this fantastic pumpkin... and then another, and then another and then another... and next thing I knew I had bought $19 of pumpkins! Whoa, out of control with the pumpkins! I will have to keep myself more at bay next year... So I don't have a pic of the girls picking them but here they all are in their glory. Next year I think we will have to make sure to not miss taking the girls again...

Some projects...

2011-09-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

Remember when I said awhile ago that I also painted some signs and a desk after I got back from Wyoming? Well, here they are! They are nothing exciting to everyone else, but they were work for me and so I am going to show them off! First a couple garden signs to make my yard look a little more fun...

And then my parents gave me one of their desks that had water damage all over it and I painted it this light pale green color, distressed and glazed. It's my sewing craft desk now which no matter how much I organize, never seems to look organized.

Also, changed the knobs to these cute ones that I loooooved.

Just some projects to give me something to look forward to, I have a few Halloween ones in the works right now that I will post when I get them done. Oh, and what are the girls going to be for Halloween this year? I'm still stumped.... any ideas? If anyone even reads this...

End of Summer

2011-09-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

Kyle and my mom both told me today that I need to update the blog. Alright alright!! Stop telling me already! So just thought I would add some pictures of the girls. They are growing up so fast! It's amazes me everyday all the new things they learn. And I used to think they really didn't know what I was saying but I find Carly repeating one or more words from my sentences when I talk (to her or not to her) and so I think they are starting to get the communication! Just wish they could communicate better instead of scream or whine for something. But we are getting there. They are doing so many things but every time I sit down to write a post I can't seem to remember any of them. They love to play dress up right now, love Elmo, Dora, buses (and all transportation, especially Carly) and accessories (I can't blame them there, who doesn't?). I love these girls! Here are some pictures from this summer with bubble fun and pool fun. And they love to sit on all my throw pillows I made for my bed this spring. They think it's their little slumber party area.

Carly

Mckenna

Madison

Carly and Madison

Loving the pool outside, and those cups!

Look at Mckenna reaching for the bubbles!

Painting away...

2011-08-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the pieces that my mom and I refinished in June in her house. We counted that we painted over 20 pieces of furniture and accessories. And if you think I was sick of painting after all that (it took a good 3 1/2 weeks to finish it all) I came back to Boise and painted a desk of mine and some garden signs (more pictures of that in another post). I'm officially addicted. We used this great paint called Annie Sloan Chalk paint. So nice and requires no sanding or priming. It's really lovely stuff to work with and doesn't take as much work to get the pieces looking aged and antiqued. I could only find one before picture of some of the furniture (this is the before dining table and picture on the wall) so you will just have to imagine a lot of dark wood getting painted.

Before:

Corner hutch (she had two and the other one looks just like this in another room) we painted a pretty blue:

Family room tables painted gray to bring out the gray fireplace.
Light cream tables in the front living room.
Here's the family room. We also made new pillows and curtains in this room.
My sil also had an old antique dressing she needed painted to we also painted this for her. It is going in her little girl's room with cute pink knobs.
This is the fabric for the curtains in the front living room we made. Isn't it gorgeous? I could sit and stare at this print all day. Sorry, pictures don't always do it justice ya know...
Front room, new curtains and pillows as well.
The blue corner hutch again, the picture frame was also painted in a little green and the dining room table as well as reupholstered all the eight chairs. The chairs were by far the biggest bear to get done (eight of them-two not shown). Lots of nooks and crannies and too many sides on those things. We also painted my mom's barstools and reupholstered them as well but I don't have a picture of them.
And if furniture wasn't enough, we also painted this pitcher.

Plate and pot base.
Even the owl who the call Octavius.
There were a few other knick knacks we painted (I even painted candles-who knew?) but I didn't bother to take pictures. All and all it was A LOT of work but so rewarding in the end because my parents both LOVE the new look.

Hello middle of Summer...

2011-07-08T08:52:00.001-07:00

Just like every summer, time flies. The girls and I have been in Wyoming for the past month and a half getting a chance to play with Grandma's and Grandpa. It was all new experiences and my parents have a huge yard they can just run forever in so they loved every moment. I helped my mom with some home projects (lots and lots of furniture painting). I will show pictures of our work eventually but I haven't gotten them uploaded yet. So the girls got a chance to go on four wheeler rides....

Mckenna loved the four wheeler the most and was trying to drive it with me most the time. She's little miss take charge!
The girls with dad here, just loved the looks of misery, mainly because the didn't want to share dad and the four wheeler with each other...

Madison has learned how to crawl out of bed (since the week before Memorial Day) and boy is it exhausting. They have all crawled out of their cribs once each in the last 4-5 months but I just considered it all flukes. This time it's consistently every nap and nighttime. Madison gets her sisters all amped up about it too and they cheer her on in her freedom! So they have really been delaying falling asleep lately but I figure if they are tired enough, they will sleep I guess. Just in the last week or so Carly has also learned how to climb out but Carly is much easier to discipline and get back in her bed and she won't try it as often as Maddy. I have to say I am more impressed with Carly hefting herself out of the crib. It's pretty impressive in general how much kids can climb like little monkeys but Carly is 30 lbs of straight lead so it can't be easy to lift herself out whereas Maddy is as light as a feather.

So most of the time, they are pretty quiet and I don't always know when Maddy is out of bed. I will check in before bed and put her back in her bed if she is on the floor but sometimes she decides to curl up in the oddest positions or locations. This is one of the pieces we painted while I was in Wyoming and she loves this cabinet. Always sticking her stuffed animals in it. Well, one day she decided to fall asleep in there. Sleeping like that would have broken my back so it's a good thing kids seem to be made of rubber.
Kenz loved playing with the balls outside on the grass, she couldn't get enough of them, here she is offering her beach ball to me...
Maddy loved Grandma's little metal bunny she has on her front porch and she would sit and pet it and give it kisses. So sweet...
And these are the best pictures I can get of Carly. Every time I pull out the camera she is running in the opposite direction. Carly LOVES outside, and gets very upset when it's time to go back inside. She never stops moving the entire time we are outside. They really aren't the easiest to capture in photos right now with all of the movement.
So we had a great time in Wyoming, I painted a lot (like over 20 pieces of furniture) and I was tired after it all but I really love to paint so that helped me stay focused, plus I love accomplishing big projects. I have started painting a desk here that my parents gave me that they don't need anymore so I will have to get pictures up of that. We'll be heading back over in a few weeks to Wyoming for a family reunion and I am excited for the girls to see all the Aunts, Uncles, cousins, and extended Aunt, Uncle, cousins!

2nd Birthday Party

2011-05-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we had a big celebration/party for the girls. Since we really didn't celebrate their first birthdays with a big party, I thought we better make there second a little bigger deal. I gotta say, it's kind of nice to get your kids' birthday finished in one big party. There are definite advantages to triplets! Here's just a few of the pictures from the party...

My mil getting pummeled by all the kids playing catch with her at the same time...
Birthday present opening...

Grilling...

...and cupcakes!

Singing Happy Birthday to the girls...

I don't feed the girls a lot of sweets on a regular basis so they went CRAZY over the cupcakes! By the end of the weekend, they were verbally requesting for cupcakes at every meal. That didn't take long for them to get addicted! My mom made over four dozen cupcakes for the party and they were pretty much to die for so I understand... We had Red Velvet and Coconut cupcakes and who can resist Red Velvet!

We held the party in our backyard and besides a few fleeting sprinkles and a lot of wind (that kept on blowing everything off the tables) the temperature was perfect and a perfect little party! Happy Birthday girls, we can't believe you are already two!

Happy 2nd Birthday!

2011-05-11T21:34:00.000-07:00

So it's now 10:30 at night and I am finally getting around to posting a Happy Birthday note. Sheesh! Life is too busy... the girls turned two today. It has gone so fast and yet so slow. They are all such happy girls and we love them so much! Hope you had a wonderful birthday girlies! Birthday cake pictures later this week I hope, but I'm not promising anything!

L to R: Carly, Mckenna, Madison

Easter

2011-03-28T08:10:00.001-07:00

I have found that it helps to have a few craft or painting projects to do for me to keep my sanity. Here are a few of the things I've made recently during the girls naps and when they go to bed at night. Kyle thinks I have a disease since I can't leave well enough alone and have to keep on redecorating everything. Maybe I am sick....

I'm a little out of control with yarn wreaths. After my Valentine's ones I just thought they would make fun easter ones as well. And unless I find something else I really love before then, I will probably have a fourth of July yarn wreath as well. Here's a little mini one...

Made some stacking boxes with vintage easter pictures...

Another vintage picture framed with chicken wire...

And yes, my new spring front door yarn wreath!
Oh and a spring topiary (that took forever and I am not making these rosette things again!)

Also decided that my bedroom was a little too black and white boring so I made some pillows to go with my inexpensive green quilt I found for summertime (duvet in the winter)

What do you think?

Catch Up...

2011-03-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

So who is ready for Spring cause I am DYING for warmer weather! The girls are so stir crazy right now (and so am I!) and it would be nice to be able to take them outdoors on dry grass and just let them run for miles! We are finally over all our sicknesses (for now at least) After the big Influenza bout then we went straight into RSV and just when we got through that, they repeated it and had another round of RSV with lovely ear infections through the whole thing. How miserable are sick kids? Don't answer, I think I already know pretty well at this point. Except for Mckenna, she is pretty amazing when she is sick and so sometimes it's hard to tell how sick she really is. It must seem like a walk in the park (a little cold here and there) compared to all the stuff she had to deal with as a baby.

And the girls are growing like crazy. I haven't kept track of height measurements like I am supposed to but I swear they have all grown many multiple inches in the last few months. They are looking more and more like toddlers and less like little chubby babies (or tootsie rolls as I like to call little babies).

They are well into their pre-terrible twos. I used to think they were showing their emotions before but talk about the drama now! Eeesh! I feel like I say to them "Calm down and relax!" all day long! Oh, and "It's okay.." but most days it's more like screaming "It's okay!" They definitely don't bring out the calm in me most of the time. This is definitely a frustrating stage with all these emotions they are displaying and stubborness and inability to say what they mean. But at the same time, it is fun to see them attempting to start communicating. And they string some of the silliest words together. The other day I said to Carly, "Oh Carly, you are so cute!" and she looked at me and said, "That's right." Don't think she had any idea what she was saying but still so funny. Also, the other day she was saying dada over and over (she does most days) and I finally said jokingly, "you know there are other people in this house besides dada" she was quite for a second and then started saying mama over and over. Okay one more. She will also take ribbon or a bow, scrunch it all up (I guess she thinks she tying it like mom does) and then throws her arms out and says, "there!" I guess I've learned that I have say "there" after I have tied shoes, bows, etc...

They still love to climb up on everything. They love the table and think they are really doing something naughty when they all get up there. I need to quash that habit soon but I am picking my battles right now.

Look at Carly and Maddy right here... they think they are hillarious!

After much trepidation and dragging my feet, I finally am trying to work on utensils. It's just such a mess to clean up for three. I think everyday, I wonder if my house will ever be clean again? They are doing quite well, just your typical rub the yogurt all through the hair experience...and then fling it all over the floor. But it has to be done because I am not going to spoon feed them forever.

Carly also has glasses now along with Mckenna. She is also farsighted like Mckenna but her vision is actually worse than Mckenna. Mckenna was put in hers first because her eyes were starting to cross. Carly's haven't even attempted to cross but the doctor said it was time and she will like it better because she will be able to see better. But.... she is the worst at wearing her glasses. Mckenna will keep hers on most of the day, but I'm lucky if Carly will go an hour with hers. So that's a constant battle. I think she can see a lot better but she just can't help from touching them and pulling them off. Perfect example in picture below...

The girls are starting to get into the dress up deal. They love hats... (Mckenna)

(Carly)

(Madison)

Shoes (especially Carly and Maddy)

(Carly)

Headbands (Maddy-nice hairdo huh?)

And just clothes in general... They are growing up so fast! (L to R: Carly, Mckenna, Madison)

We haven't taken them to church all winter because of sickness and I think their first Sunday back will be Easter. It will also be their first nursery experience. I will try and post sometime between now and then! I always think, that's a whole month away, but it just flies by too fast and next thing I know it's three months later.

Oh, and one other thing. Mckenna is still crawling and not walking so we were able to get her in foot braces/orthotics and they have helped so much so far with her stability. She is so skinny so it takes so long for her to build up her muscles and probably still dealing with brain trauma from when she was born. But she is doing amazing! The doctors and therapists call her a miracle baby for all the amazing improvement she has made. They always say, you would never guess this girl went through a grade 3 brain bleed and hydrocephalus. It's actually nice to only have two walking. How stressful when all three are running!

Who Will Help Me Bake the Bread?

2011-03-21T14:58:00.000-07:00

So I was making a batch of bread the other day... I had finished them and had them laying out on the countertop cooling. I don't know what I was distracted with but when I went back to look at them (maybe 10 minutes) this is what I saw!...

And Maddy had a big fistful in her hand so I knew who the culprit was. She had shimmied up onto the counter and helped herself to the tempting stuff. Pretty funny... And if you look, it's not just a small hole, she went all the way in!

Also, I don't know if I have shown this picture yet. Oh, the joys of siblings! Mckenna is a big time biter, I guess it's pretty much her only defense since she is so scrawny. All I could think of when I saw Maddy's arm here is... she was in a vampire scuffle! Obviously read Twilight too much...

More pictures to come later... We have pretty much been sick at our house since Christmas so I am ready for Spring!!

Happy 2011!

2011-02-01T20:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am alive, it's just been a wild January. I am finally getting pictures up of some of our events in the last month. We had a rocky beginning of the New Year: Carly ended up getting Influenza B in Wyoming while we were there for the holiday, was admitted to the hospital in Wyoming and they couldn't stabilize her oxygen there so she was life flighted to Boise. Don't worry, sounds worse than it really was.... except for the gigantic bill and that's always worse than you ever want to imagine. Kyle flew with her home and I drove the other two back with my mom who came and helped me for a week. It was not the way I wanted to end the holidays but what can ya do right? All the girls were treated for ear infections and flu and I think just this week we are FINALLY pretty healthy again. So, the doctor has put the girls in lock down (at home) again for most of the rest of the winter so we aren't taking them anywhere but doctors appointments... I feel like I have done this before.... Anyways, but we had a great Christmas up until that point.

We stayed at my parents house and the girls spent about 98% of the time... up and down the stairs... they loved them! They don't have them at home so it was a new experience and they were pretty good at maneuvering them by the end of the trip. Maddy below...
Looking down from the top of the stairs...

They loved the presents this year...not what was inside, just the shiny boxes, bows and the boxes themselves.

I always forget how much colder home is than Boise... quite frigid, but beautiful with the snow on the branches on Christmas morning... (and that dot is the moon which I thought was cool)

Christmas morning before opening presents....

and after.... there were 17 of us all together so it was a little chaotic...

My parents with all of their granddaughters (no grandsons... and another granddaughter on the way with my brother and sil)... Gma and Gpa gave them matching pajamas for Christmas...

We decided to take a picture as well...

And speaking of pictures... we got both family pictures taken with Kyle's family....

...and then with my family....the girls were really good for all... especially feeling under the weather...

The girls are growing so fast and are looking like toddlers more and more each day and less like little chubby babies....

Mckenna....

Maddy....

and Carly...

Also, I made half of the gifts we gave for Christmas this year... very fun but very stressful... It was kind of fun to know that I had actually made something for others. It made me feel old-fashioned and I loved it! But I did forget to take pictures of them all for some reason but I have been crafting a lot lately (some done while we were in Wyoming and some here in Boise). I find that when my life is most chaotic (right now) I tend to do more crafts than at less stressful times. Not sure why I am psycho like that, maybe it just gives me a release for the stress of life or something.

But somethings I made are...

Camera strap....

While we were in Wyoming all the girls made a craft together... yarn wreaths! They did take quite a long time but we all worked at a team and aren't they cute? We sure thought so, everytime we finished one we would compliment on how amazing we were at creating it (quite silly)... but I guess if no one else will compliment us, we have to compliment ourselves right? Notice that I am holding my mothers wreath and she mine because I was being a brat and thought mine was looking awful. How stupid it sounds now.... we worked a little more on mine and now I love it but thanks to my mom for not being so vain that she had to hold a finished wreath and not her own... good grief....

Here it is on my door.... the flowers are made out of felt and I might have found my new favorite fabric with felt... it's lovely stuff....

It's a Valentine's Wreath but I think it could work for other times of the year...

I also had leftover supplies so I made another one...

and another one! Oh, and I am making two more; one for me and one for my mom for Easter... I'm a little out of control with the yarn wreaths right now....

And then lastly, I found this amazing bed and nightstands for sale at a consignment store in town a few weeks ago and I wanted it bad! Kyle is so good to me and agreed that it would be nice to upgrade to a king bed (in a queen now) so we got it and a new mattress and I tell ya, I feel like a dang queen in that bed. We love it but I do admit it feels like acres of space compared to a queen. I think Kyle likes it that way but it's still an adjustment for me to have so much space. But it does go nicely with my bedroom and gives us a great oasis from the girls when we need it! Hopefully next time I post it will be sooner and less hectic than this.

Oh, almost forgot... I also still like to paint furniture and decided to paint my coffee table blue (was green) to make it stand out a little more....

Family Christmas Card 2010

2010-12-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

So I don't have everyone's email that I thought I did so I decided to post our Christmas Card on here. Merry Christmas to everyone and hope you have a wonderful holiday!

December Happenings

2010-12-19T11:18:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've been hounded to get more pictures up so here they are in no particular order. The girls have been busy. I have 2 walkers now and a cruiser so I'm definitely wornout at the end of the day! They have had some exciting things happen in the past month: had their first Thanksgiving together at the dinner table, got haircuts (even Carly's few measly pieces), and got to meet Santa for the first time. Kenners also is starting to wear a patch to help correct her eye from any lazy eye business (if you were wondering why she looked like a pirate in one of her pictures) and I am getting better and keeping her glasses on all day and she is getting better at keeping them on! Anyways, just some pictures!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Carly in a turkey comatose after...

The girls love getting in any basket, box, etc together and then they fight about who gets to stay in the box. I need to find a bigger box I guess...

We put Maddy on Santa's lap first before the others, but had to get a picture cause she was so skeptical of Santa!

Here's another picture of it...

Telling Santa what they want for Christmas!

Picture of Grandma with the girls when they visited earlier in the month...

Carly

Mckenna (with bangs now)

Maddy Moo always looking like she is getting in trouble (which she usually is)

The girls in the Tartan attire for church...L to R: Maddy, Mckenna, Carly

They are growing up so fast!

2010-11-16T19:17:00.001-08:00

I tend to be so sporatic with my picture taking: I won't take any for a long time and then I take a bunch in a couple weeks. Is anyone else like that or is it just me? So here's more pictures! I love these girls! They are growing up so fast and showing more and more personality everyday. Sometimes all the new personalities are exhausting, but never boring!

Mckenna

Carly

Maddy

Kyle's new work of art he made for the girls out of their blocks...

Just pictures...

2010-11-10T11:36:00.001-08:00

Just loved these pictures of the girls and had to post them... :)

Carly

Madison

Mckenna

Family Pictures 2010

2010-11-08T12:08:00.001-08:00

Oh the misery! Carly after about ten minutes of picture taking...

So before we lost all the great fall leaves, we went and took family pictures this past weekend. The girls were cooperative for uh... maybe 5 minutes so notice we are in the same place for all of them. But the colors were beautiful! So let me know out of the ones listed which one you think we should use for our final family picture! Thanks! (Obviously the one of just Kyle and me doesn't count.... obviously...)

This one's not really a candidate, just liked the picture... oh, and L to R for all pictures below is Carly, Mckenna, and Madison.

Our friends came and took their family pictures with us as well and they took some with their camera so there might be some more coming that will be much better than ours!

Halloween 2010- It's a Bug's Life

2010-11-08T08:10:00.001-08:00

So, I am behind as usual with posting... Here's Halloween! The girl's went as two ladybugs and one bumblebee! (I couldn't find a third ladybug outfit for Maddy but I kind of like the variety...) We went around to Kyle's work and other friends and then went to our ward Trunk or Treat event on Friday night. The girl's did pretty well, they loved the crinkly paper more than the candy and Mckenna did have a total meltdown by the end of Friday night but we participated in Halloween this year unlike last year. It was a little exhausting for Mom but I guess that just comes with the territory right? Here they are in their outfits!

L to R: Mckenna, Madison, Carly

L to R: Mckenna, Madison, Carly (lovin' Maddy's meltdown)

Madison (sorry, bad picture)

Carly (sorry another not great picture, who was running the camera?)

Mckenna (cheezing it), Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

The Cutest "Four Eyes" I've ever seen!

2010-10-12T15:23:00.000-07:00

....at least I think so! Mckenna needs to wear glasses now for her farsightedness and she wants to pull them off all the time (as well as her sisters) but eventually maybe they will stay on permanently. Notice I had to take the picture with her drink in her hand so she wouldn't pull them off. Pretty cute!...

Warning: Major Information and Pic Upload

2010-08-10T12:27:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow (the 11th) is when the girls were supposed to be due last year. So we are celebrating the day because now they are technically an adjusted year old! They have grown so much in the last year and I can't wait to see how much bigger they are in another year! So pictures first:

L to R: Mckenna, Madison, Carly- As my mom says, Mckenna looks as innocent as Madison looks guilty. Poor Maddy... she can't help that she looks mischievous...

Mckenna, Madison, Carly

Taken today, L to R: Mckenna, Carly, Madison

Mckenna is doing so great! She is crawling everywhere and starting to pull herself up to standing. She's always so happy and loves to laugh at Madison, apparently she thinks Madison is hillarious! She looks very jack-o-lanterny right now with her teeth. She finally broke a middle tooth through so she doesn't look like a little vampire anymore... I love making Mckenna laugh because she is so easy to laugh, she is just always so constant with the same happy personality.

Her hair just keeps on growing and growing and growing... I just trimmed it again for the 3rd or 4th time, I lost count. But now we are attempting to grow out bangs....

Mckenna always has this same smile- my mom calls it the Mona Lisa smile- very content.

I guess this is more of a duck smile...

Same smile...

Same smile.... but it's very happy compared to Madison's new faces...

About a week ago Madison started pulling this squinted eyes/pursed lips/scrunch nose face...

And this face all day long... I'm afraid I end up mimicking her back cause she's so funny with it.

She is really into the cupboards and the surprising contents they contain. She especially loves the plastic baggies... of course, the choking hazard stuff...

Serious again (by the way, they LOOOVE yogurt, but I can't believe we haven't found a food that they won't eat yet, we even did broccoli yesterday and they gobbled it down...hopefully they don't change into picky eaters)

Just this week she learned how to climb up on the couch and she is so proud of herself, hopefully she decides not to fall over the backside. She is still standing and cruising around everything and anything but still doesn't want to walk yet. I thought with her crazy haphazard way she would already be trying but she is actually being very cautious about it. I guess I should be grateful, it will just get harder once she does start walking and then running and then all three and then ahhh!

There's a sweet innocent look from Maddy, she can look innocent. I guess that's more of a Mona Lisa smile huh?

Carly is really into clapping and waving lately. Instead of pouring her energy into crawling she thinks it is more fun to be social with mom. Definitely a momma's girl but has recently been enamored with dad. Here she is in mid-clap.

She is also really getting good at mimicking familiar sounds back and forth and can do "mama, dada, numnum, dis, baba, vava, clicking tongue, rolling tongue, and others" on demand. The other two are too busy moving around to play the game with me. But Carly army crawls like crazy. Her Grandpa calls her Special Forces because she can move lickity split in army crawl. She also is starting to pull up to standing as well but really doesn't have an interest in crawling on her knees yet. Someday I guess...

Carly loves her Jumper and just giggles and giggles in it. The others don't love it as much so unfortunately I can't put them in a jumper to entertain them. She ends up falling asleep half the time. I am not sure why she fell asleep biting the strap.

She also loves to roll onto her one side and sit like this all the time. It's her bathing beauty pose. And usually she ends up grabbing her foot and pulling it behind her head. She already does yoga moves!

Carly is definitely the most needy for attention but she is such a little cuddly teddy bear so it's just so worth it to get to hold her.

The girls are so funny. You can definitely tell that they are close to each other. They like to travel around the house in a pack. Which is a good thing. When one is getting into trouble the others aren't somewhere else getting into trouble. When I usually find one I find them all. They do a lot of laughing at each other and a lot of stealing of each other's toys and screaming at each other so they definitely act like siblings.

And they LOVE the fridge! There are two things that they will hear and come running for. One is the sound of the bath tub water starting for baths and the other is the kitchen door opening. (Oh and I better not leave out that they come running when they hear dad come home.) And then it's pure madness for me to get back in there and shut the door because once I move one and start moving the second the first one comes back and so on and so on. I'm sure the big machine that lights up inside with all kinds of ingredients is just too tempting to not come and climb into it.

Mckenna is so skinny that her pajama pants fall off her almost nightly before bed, so dad thought they would be more useful on her head.

And Maddy loves to crawl up on the mantle and shake the sliding metal doors. We are still working on her scooting her feet and butt off first to get off the mantle instead of diving head first onto the wood floor to get off. I just don't want people to think all the many bumps and bruises are from me, they are definitely self inflicted. I guess they are just in that bruises everywhere stage. I even found one on Maddy's stomach the other day... how did that...?

The other day I had a woman commenting to me on having triplets and ALL GIRLS for that matter (I guess the drama of girls?) and how do I do it and then she kept on saying over and over "I feel so sorry for you, just so sorry for you." I was polite and just said thanks but really I want people to know that even though it is definitely challenging, I don't want people to feel sorry for me. I feel like I am really blessed! We tried to have kids for so long I can't feel too bad about my plight or situation. It's true that my children all came at once but how blessed am I to receive such wonderful girls. And to be blessed so extremely with what I prayed for for so many years. To have my prayers answered is such a blessing in itself. How could I ever feel sorry for myself ya know? But with that being said, I am going to really try and enjoy every moment of them growing into toddlers because I am sure that I will still long for the day that they are a little older and easier to manage. Then I'll have a new set of growing up struggles right? I guess the other side isn't always greener, I guess I do have a nice patch of green grass myself.

New Kitchen! Kinda...

2010-07-06T11:13:00.001-07:00

So I have not loved my Honey Oak floor to ceiling look for awhile now. Too much of the same monotone wood color. When we moved into the house the red you see was blue color that I painted over. And I don't know why waiting until I had three one-year-olds sounded like a great time to change my kitchen cabinets, but why not create more insanity? I think I have been cooped up in my house to long, that's my reason for needing a change. Since I am OBSESSED with painted cabinets right now, I decided it would be easier to paint them, then try to strip them and stain them a darker wood color. It took me about three back breaking weeks whenever I could spare a free minute to finish the project and I just kept on telling myself it would all be worth it in the end.

Here's a before of the kitchen (who can spy the half naked kid in this picture? Madison wanted to be involved with the process...)

The hutch/desk next to the kitchen needed the update too...

Here's a sneak peek of the color: I went with an antique white and stained the cabinets to give them a beaten up look since they will naturally get that way anyway with three toddlers. I also learned that Premium Primer is a must, I actually didn't have to sand too much because the primer held to the surface so well.

Walah!!! Come on... the after looks sooo much better don't you think? I just felt like it brightened up the kitchen so much and I always think kitchens should be bright and happy... And you can't really tell in this picture but I painted the inside of the hutch yellow (gotta get my yellow in somewhere) and did strip and re stain the top of the desk in a dark walnut color. After re staining that small piece I was pretty glad I hadn't attempted that on the entire kitchen.

And then after some heated debate and deliberating and repeating that process over and over a few days... I finally decided to paint the island black.

And then I sanded it up pretty well so that you can see the red (and the prior blue) coming through on the sanded parts and I love it that way! I bought an old bread box at D.I. for a couple bucks that I am planning on painting an antique blue to put in the kitchen. Plus I have my yellow kitchenaid and bowl and red toaster to add some other colors in the mix.

And lastly, I found these cute cups on clearance at Fred Meyer that I think go perfectly with the new look. So for less than around $50-60 I have a brand new kitchen that I actually like to cook in now! But I might be done with painting for a little while... I'm a little painted out. What do you think of the new look?

Happy Fourth!

2010-07-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

I had one thing I had to get done today (per my mother). Get pictures of the girls in their Fourth of July dresses for Grandma to see by the end of the day. So here they are...and since I can't get a great picture of all three together (and Carly was having a bad day on top of it), I put a bunch up so, Mom...enjoy!... And Happy Independence Day everyone!

Left to Right: Madison, Mckenna, Carly

Girl's Birthday...

2010-06-16T09:25:00.001-07:00

So, I finally have the pictures of the girls birthday celebration. Here they are eating their cake. Mckenna and Madison completely destroyed it into little crumbs but Carly's pretty much stayed as intact as the picture shows. She also didn't want to eat the cake whereas her sisters loved it. They are definitely their own people. Anyways, just wanted to put up some pictures!

Mckenna

Madison

Carly

All together... L to R: Mckenna, Carly, Madison

My-New-Life

2010-06-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

I have seen this lady's blog but I just loved the video so wanted to share it. Click on the link below. If I remember and open my eyes to it, I learned from this woman that I am (we all are) extremely blessed in my life...

My-New-Life

Memorial Weekend

2010-06-02T11:23:00.001-07:00

I don't know why we were so insane (I guess we just really wanted to leave town) but we decided to go to Wyoming for Memorial Weekend to see family. The trip kind of felt like I was stuck in a little bit of a nightmare. It's just logistically difficult to travel with three babies even though they are much more manageable than when they were brand new. All I know is they cried about 80% of the trip over and back. And then we had to jump back and forth visiting two families during the trip which was a little crazy. But....with all that said, it was so nice to see our family and friends! The girls got to meet all the Pendleton cousins for the first time. Their cousin Laney just kept on saying, "Babies, babies, babies," and pointing to them. She also loved giving Madison hugs. Very cute. They also were able to see some of their Morrell cousins as well which was a little different for them since all the Morrell cousins are 13 yrs old and older. We were going to go back to Star Valley on the fourth of July but we might postpone and wait until Christmas. Call me a wimp, I don't care, but it was a little too chaotic for my taste. Anyway, Happy Memorial Day to everyone else!

Picture from my parents house. There was still a lot of snow in them thar hills (mountains)!

Morrell cousins.... Carly especially really liked Jace (far left). She gave him big smiles...

Pendleton cousins... yes, that's right, all girls... I think my mom deserves some girls after raising all those brothers of mine! Six girls in three years... crazy!

We took family pictures with my family one morning and I snapped one with my camera. L to R: Carly, Madison, Mckenna

The girls...

2010-05-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

I guess if I'm posting I better put a picture of the girls up. They are all doing so well. Mckenna and Carly have started the army crawling. It is just like having large ants underfoot with all of them moving at once. Sometimes I just scream and then I feel better. But they really are sweet girls--especially when they are asleep. Haha...
Here are my four fav. people in the whole world. L to R: Carly, Mckenna, Madison (and Kyle if you didn't guess which one he is)

L to R: Mckenna, Madison, Carly- So angelic...but I only had a moment to capture this...

Before this happened...

New House Color!

2010-05-20T15:16:00.001-07:00

So, we have needed to paint our house for a few years now- it's looking faded. We were going to do it last summer but we all know what happened last summer. So that put our plans on hold until this spring. Last week, Kyle's mom came over to watch the girls, Kyle took the week off from work and we painted like mad! We painted the whole house in four days. That's silliness since two of the days were overcast and rainy or windy but we needed to get it done. We painted it yellow! I have always wanted a yellow house. Good grief, if my name is Sunny, I deserve a yellow house right? I think it turned out well don't you? I do know that I did not love painting it and I hope that we don't have to paint the outside of a house for a long time to come. I love painting interiors (walls, furniture, etc) but I did not love outside painting. Maybe if it would have been warmer it wouldn't have been so bad.

Then after the house was painted Kyle went with my dad and brothers up to Coeur d' Alene for a boys weekend of golf. Lucky him huh? Good thing he has a nice wife. My mom came over and watched the girls with me while they are gone.

But this weekend, I am going to be all alone with the girls and no lifelines to help. Kyle is going on a business trip to Tennessee Saturday through Wednesday. Ahhh! Hopefully he finds us all alive when he gets back! Just kidding, it shouldn't be too bad. The only thing that makes we a little claustrophobic is that I can't leave the house, even at night. I guess I can with them but that we be crazy. I only attempt that with doctor's appointments. Anyway, pictures of the house...
Before: When we first moved in Fall 2005. We did paint the eaves and garage door to look like...

This before (a week ago): I HATED the terra cotta brick for five years so I stained it red/brown and we changed the whole body, door, repainted trim to white and eaves to black.

After: Ahh... I feel so much better with the new colors. I can't help it that yellow, black and white are my favorite combination.

Side view...

And painted and made my own street number. The house feels so much happier now...

Happy 1st Birthday to our three little girls!

2010-05-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

Gosh, I can't believe we have made it to a year--somewhat intact! The girls turned one year old today, technically they are adjusted 9-months old right now but today will always be their birthday. We celebrated their birthday on Sunday with family and it was pretty funny to watch them dig into their chocolate cake. Mckenna and Madison made a major mess and Madison ingested the majority of her cake, but Carly just kinda put a few fingers in it and then had no interest. She didn't even want to eat it when I gave her a broken off piece. She must not like to get dirty.... funny. Where the other two, the dirtier the better. I got my camera out for the pictures but it died right before I was taking the pictures. Luckily my mil got some pictures but I will have to wait a few weeks to get them and share them.... so just imagine chocolate cake everywhere.

I also was looking at pictures a year ago when the girls were born and had to have a look back. They have come so far and are doing so well. Madison is crawling everywhere and sitting up on her own as well as cruising the furniture. I'm sure she will be running before I know it. Mckenna and Carly are both just starting to crawl around (army crawl) and are loving that they can move around like their sister.

Sorry the pictures I took today aren't the best. We are painting the exterior of our house this week and so I pretty much ran in, took a picture and ran back out to keep painting (pictures will follow of the change in house color). Don't worry, I'm not leaving the girls alone, their Grandma is over from Wyoming to watch them for the week for us so we can get the house painted quickly. Next week I should have time to get some decent pictures of them at a year old.

So Happy Birthday girls. We love you so much and are so thrilled that you are in our family. We know Heavenly Father wanted you to be in our family and your Dad and Mom have been so blessed to have you in our lives! We love you! You are truly our miracle babies!

Mckenna- 1 day old

Madison- 1 day old

Carly- 1 day old

Carly- 1 year old

Mckenna- 1 year old

Madison- 1 year old

All together (taken at end of March) L to R: Mckenna, Madison, Carly

Couldn't resist...

2010-04-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

Mckenna has all this hair and doesn't like to have it put in pigtails.... Now they are a little off but how cute is that! I think I will enjoy doing their hair, at least for the first time I do it right?

11 months old!

2010-04-14T12:37:00.000-07:00

Wow... how time flies.... and then I look back at all that has happened and then it does seem like a lot longer. The girls get their last RSV shot this week and I am pretty happy about that. Shots are definitely no fun with babies.... course, when are they fun huh? The girls are just barely starting to take bite size foods. They don't feed themselves but at least we are starting to chew things. They are also trying out sippy cups and doing pretty well. Carly is almost 20 lbs! Geez! And Madison is around 17 and Mckenna around 16 lbs. Madison is now crawling and pulling up to standing on the couch, chairs, printer, in her bed, everything. I think she might run not walk when she starts to. Carly is pretty content to lay on her belly and play with her toys. She does try to do this inchworm thing to move but ends up just going in a circle. Carly does love to bounce on your lap though. Mckenna is finally rolling! And I think now that she has it down she wants to just roll everywhere. She doesn't go much further than her mat but she's my first baby to roll to get somewhere. She's also stuck in going in circles in one place land. I think there is a very good chance she might crawl before Carly. But I hope it's not for awhile. I can hardly handle one being mobile right now. It's amazing to watch how in the last couple weeks Carly and Mckenna have gotten noticebly more impatient to move around. I'm afraid it will happen sooner than I want.

Carly - 11 months

Madison - 11 months

Madison - I know I have two of her but how funny is that face! Hillarious.... she has a great scowl.. when I'm being silly with them or singing crazy songs I get this face a lot from her. She already thinks, "Mom, you're so uncool..."

Happy Mckenna - 11 months

We took the girls to church for the first time a couple weeks ago. All I know is that's a lot of work just to get them there! We took pictures before we went since my mil was leaving. I thought it was a cute picture!

It's been a lot busier since my mil left but I am getting along. I am still get help from my ward a couple times a week for feeds since that's when the frenzy usually ensues. I just need to get them to hold their own bottles and pick up their own food and then I am good to go!

The Three Amigos on St. Paddy's Day. L to R: Carly, Mckenna, Madison

Projects...

2010-04-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

The girls are sleeping for now, so I'm going to attempt some posts. I might not make it to the second one with the girls pictures which is the one everyone really wants to see. This is probably just mostly for my mom because she wants to see pictures.

So I was all in a frenzy finishing projects before my mother in law left. I have been without her for two weeks now and I must say it was much easier to have her help. But, I guess I have to learn to take care of those girls by myself at some point right? So here are a few projects that I have just finished. We needed a new TV stand because we were obviously not thinking in child proofing terms when we bought our first one (everything was open for little hands to find). And since our girls play area is right in front of the stand, we needed a new option.

So I have this crazy obsession with painted furniture right now... I love the vintage shabby chic look as long as it doesn't get too flowery, I'm not a big flower patterned person. I couldn't find a painted cream TV stand to save my life unless I wanted to spend major money and that's not an option. So I bought an inexpensive stand Kyle and I both liked and painted it cream and then antiqued it. I left some of the wood stain because I thought it would look better two-toned. All I know is it was a lot of dang work...and we couldn't park one vehicle in the garage for a good week or so. Then after I painted the TV stand my black end table just didn't go with it, so I painted it cream and antiqued it! And it looked to good I couldn't hide it between my couch and chair so it also sits on display next to the TV stand. I might have to find a basket or something for the other side to even it up. Maybe a toy basket... So here it is from two angles...

Oh I also painted the wall behind in a cornbready yellow for an accent wall (the rest of the walls are cream so you see why I had to)...

Then our decorative mirror in our bedroom feel off the wall and broke so I had to change the set up in there. I had a huge wall to cover and since custom made six feet shelves are way too expensive, I bought some cheap decorative L brackets from Hobby Lobby and bought a 2x10 six foot piece of wood, painted it black and wallah... a shelf! Don't ask Kyle how much he swore putting that beast up though... I thought it might be the end of my projects that night! Ha ha!

I had to show the picture underneath up close. It's an old picture (maybe 1920s?) of women lined up in their bathing suits. Thought it was cute and unique. The shelf goes perfect with my black and cream damask curtains.

And then, I didn't paint this myself but I found this old shelf in a thrift store here, already painted at a great price and it holds all my "treasures of trash" as my husband likes to refer to it. It's a cute corner hutch but I think the scallops along the edges are what makes it. Kyle bought it for me for our 5 year anniversary coming up the first of May.... So there are my projects. My next projects will be on a more miniature scale that I can do at night when the girls go to bed. I'm thinking about taking up knitting... wish me luck, I have no idea what I'm doing...

Remembering...

2010-03-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

So my mother in law is leaving me in about a week to go back home to Wyoming... I'll be all on my own with the girls and hopefully I can do this on my own without someone else to fall back on. So I have been in this cleaning, reorganizing, purging frenzy because I still have the time to be. Plus I LOVE to purge and reorganize... I'm kind of sick like that. Well, I was reorganizing the girls hospital documents, etc. when I came upon their ultrasound pictures! And that of course got me reminiscing about my pregnancy with them and some of my memories. Since I didn't start writing stuff down about the girls until they were born I thought I better get this stuff written before I forget it myself. So here's my favorite picture from my ultrasounds (I had to go in weekly for an ultrasound since they were so squished together and a lot can change in one week with triplets) because it shows all the girls together. Baby A= Mckenna, Baby B= Madison, Baby C= Carly. I know, Mckenna looks more like a blob and kinda creepy with Carly looking straight at the camera... They were only about 14 weeks old at this point...

Some of the things I remember:

Mckenna was always so difficult to see in ultrasounds. She sat right on the bottom of her sisters, almost always head down, above my cervix so they had a hard time seeing her. She was the hardest one to tell if she had two eyes, two ears, what sex she was and on and on. She also used to get in the funniest positions. She always was wrapped up in a weird contortionist sort of way every time I saw her- feet over her head, head turned like an owl. And funny now, she is still kind of like that with her long skinny legs and arms. She likes to clasp her hands together only after is has twisted her arms up, it's hard to explain.

Madison was always on the move in ultrasounds. The nurse would look at her and she would be facing one way and they she would look at one of the others and go back to Madison a few seconds later and she would be face in the other direction. Now I understand... she doesn't stop moving now as well.

Carly always hated ultrasounds. I think she just hated being poked around which is definitely her personality now. When we do her tummy time activities she moans and groans about it now. She is also the one that I felt kicking the most. Maddy was anterior so I had padding to protect from feeling her and Mckenna just moved the least. I probably felt Carly because I preferred laying on my left side where she was so she hated to have her sisters on top of her. But when they all got kicking at the same time, it was like a rock concert going on in there. Strangest feeling I've ever felt with three babies kicking everywhere inside of me. Sometimes it's still hard to believe I had three babies growing in me...

But the best story I remember was that one week when I went in for the ultrasound, Madison was kicking Carly in the head over and over again. I thought it was pretty funny at the time (don't worry, they do have a nice embryonic sack and stuff between them) but those two already fight with each other so much now. I guess the fighting truly started from the beginning. Poor Carly, she doesn't have a sack to protect her from Maddy now...

Development notes

2010-03-11T16:16:00.000-08:00

The girls have been really babbling a lot lately. Carly loves to say abababababbaaaa and Mckenna loves ablahblahblahblahblahhh. So funny they are close but not quite. Kyle says that Mckenna is just saying what it sounds like their mom says all the time (ha ha very funny...) Madison doesn't babble as much as the other two, too busy moving ya know. But she loves heee haaa and just a soft hhhhhhhh sounds. I think its as close to hi as she can get right now. They all like to do that rolling tongue sound and I'm always quite impressed because I can't roll my own tongue!

Mckenna is still such a sweet laid back personality. She hardly ever cries and when she does you know something really must be wrong. She is always very happy too, constantly laughing about something whether it is literally right in front of her or imaginary. She LOVES music. Whenever I sing an upbeat song with her she loves kicking her legs to the beat. So funny to watch! Maybe she will be musically inclined.

Madison, I have already talked a lot about. She is definitely an extremely determined personality. I think she might be the most shy socially of the group but is starting to smile at you more. She is starting to learn how to throw a fit as well. When she doesn't like something she flails her body on the ground and screams. I'm not looking forward to this. But Madison loves to be part of the action and loves when a lot of stuff is going at once.

Carly is our little teddy bear. She loves to just snuggle and snuggle and snuggle some more (I should say Mckenna loves snuggling too). She is very social and loves to just jabber away with you but mostly just smile and flirt. She definitely has the most emotions rolling through her. She also can throw quite the fit when she wants to but usually it's just cause she's hungry.... she's always hungry. I think she will be quite easy to tease- I feel her pain. I'm an easy target as well.

I love that they have such different little personalities and I think they will all have their own strengths and weaknesses to offer each other as sisters.

Right now Madison is trying to pull the printed pattern off of a rug and getting so mad so I better go! Don't get too excited about the picture below, she (Madison) held her bottle for the first time a couple days ago and I was so excited and took a picture but the phenomenon hasn't happened again since. Wishful thinking...

I never rest! Which means Mom never rests either!

2010-03-11T15:54:00.001-08:00

Not to focus only on Madison but she is the mobile one right now so I get much more interesting pictures with her than the others at this time. But interesting pictures usually means curiosity and trouble. I was never one to really want any of them to start moving fast so wouldn't you know I would get one that has been wanting to move from day one. I guess I can only hold off the inevitable for so long. Maddy now travels far and wide through our house. We have started closing off rooms- mainly bathrooms and breakable rooms. Of course, she loves anything adult: especially shoes, electronics, rugs, sunlight (quite entertaining to watch her try and grab it). All I know is I felt like I got a breather for a month or two when they started sleeping through the night and now I feel tired again. And this is only the first one. The bad news is Carly has now started to discover the edge of the rug and I remember that was about when Madison started to figure out she could scoot around. Great....
Maddy on the move, loves to go into the kitchen.

Girl just like mom, LOVES shoes!

And has to have one in each hand...

She finds crawling over top of her sisters quite fun and challenging. Good thing they usually don't mind, even Carly...

And today I have finally been forced into the decision that the play pen needs to be lowered. Madison doesn't take naps well in the room with her sisters so she sleeps here during the day. I didn't get the picture at the worst but at one point she was standing looking over the edge. So it's lowered now... wow, that happened fast...

Look how proud she is that she can see over her bed. Silly girl...

10 months old!

2010-03-11T15:19:00.001-08:00

The girls are getting so old! Tomorrow they get weighed so I don't know where they are at right now. I'm sure Carly will be at least 18 lbs., Mckenna I hope is at least over 15 lbs. and Madison somewhere in the middle. We love them so much! Something funny we have discovered, with Madison being so much more mobile she has started to crawl around and take everyone's toys, even if she has the same toy in her own hands. We kind of have always thought of Mckenna as the sensitive fragile one but always noticed that Madison would take away Carly's toy and rarely Mckenna's. So the other day she made an attempt at taking Mckenna's toy. Mckenna has always had a death grip on her toys and so when Madison came to take it Mckenna fought back and held on. It became a tug of war back and forth and Maddy started to get mad that Kenners wouldn't give it up. Anyway, I love it. Mckenna knows how to hold her own against wild Madison. I guess she really is the oldest-the alpha. And Carly definitely is already easy to pick on for her sisters. She gets her feelings hurt easily. Oh the drama...

Carly

Mckenna

Madison- always in blur these days...

L to R: Madison, Mckenna, Carly. Apparently Mckenna was the only one happy about this picture! Ha ha!

L to R: Madison, Mckenna, Carly- Once again, trying to get things focused on all and Madison ended up in blur.

Carly's Teeth

2010-03-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

I finally have apicture of Carly's teeth! She's had them for well over a month now. No hints or signs of teeth for Mckenna yet...

March is here!

2010-03-03T15:07:00.001-08:00

So Grandma has been begging for pictures so here we go! I also got some video taken (finally) and that will be up next. Girls are doing great! Starting to get a lot more mobile...well, at least Madison. She is all over the house now in her scooting/shuffle thing. I'm sure the others will be right behind her in a couple of months. Carly has really done well with rolling over. I was worried about how she would do because of her arm but so far, it doesn't seem to bug her at all and she spends most of her time on her belly with a toy now. She gets really mad because Madison likes to crawl up to her and take it away. Oh, the sibling fighting begins! They are also very into touching faces right now, even each others. They are really intrigued by each others eyes and mouths so we have to watch them or they are poking and biting each other. It's very interesting to watch them all learn things together.
Carly

Mckenna

Madison- love the smile, it's very hard to capture it on camera sometimes...

Sitting together... look at Mckenna put her head on Carly's shoulder. L to R: Mckenna, Carly, Madison

Valentine's Flowers

2010-03-03T15:03:00.000-08:00

This is a little late but Kyle gave me flowers for Valentines and they dried (in the vase) so pretty I thought, so I took a picture.

Just some pictures

2010-02-21T19:30:00.001-08:00

Just thought I would put some pictures up. I thought I had taken more pictures than I really had. The girls are doing so great. For sure we are holding off on doing the surgery on Carly's arm until 2-3 years old and we are pretty sure it will be done here in Boise....until something changes in her arm that we didn't anticipate. Also, she now has teeth like Madison and I haven't got a picture of the elusive pearlies yet. I also plan on putting some video up but I'm still trying to figure out how to run my video setting on my camera....I guess it would help if I read the directions instead of just pushing buttons right? Anyways, pictures!

Yes that is a beard of drool on Madison's chin... and she is starting to get up on all fours in prep for crawling!

Teamwork: I'm not sure what they are working on-maybe just holding hands (Madison left, Carly right)

Just thought they looked so sweet together! (Mckenna left, Carly right) Madison wasn't behaving so she is the green color you can see on the bottom right corner.

New Pictures!

2010-02-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

I guess it's been awhile since I have posted pictures... so here are a few and updates:
Pretty much everyone just keeps on growing and doing so well. Mckenna and Madison don't have much new news except that Mckenna is now 14 1/2 lbs. and Madison is 15 1/2 lbs. Carly is a whopping 16 1/2 lbs! I always worry and want to take her off her milkshake-like formula but they keep on telling me that she is actually at a healthy weight and the other two are a little underweight--so I guess I won't worry anymore.

Carly's trip to Boston has been postponed for now. They really don't want to operate on the arm until they have to so they want to wait until she is a little older (2-3 years old). So even though I just want to get it over with, I guess this is the best thing in the long run. If it ever starts really affecting her development though, then we would move it up. Until then, she's going to be Popeye. She really uses it so well, in fact, she is dominant using the right even though it is so much bigger. She does have a short ulna but it keeps on growing and hopefully will catch up with the radius bone (ulna-radius are the two big bones running down the forearm) and so far doesn't really affect her grasping things with her hand or rotating or anything. I'm kind of bummed not to get moving with it, but in the long run whatever is better for her is most important. Plus, if she is a little older, we might have a possibility of having a radiologist here in Boise do the surgery instead of packing up and heading to Boston. Not that I really would like seeing Boston--- just not with a little baby in tow having surgery there. So..... pictures!

Mckenna holding one of their beloved toys.

Bleary-eyed Mom and Kenners snuggling.

Madison- this makes her look so innocent when she usually is quite mischievous.

Madison and Carly- the girls really like to hold hands these days.

Carly on her belly- thought her facial expression was funny.

All the girls together! L to R: Madison, Mckenna, Carly

Where's Madison?

2010-01-18T18:15:00.001-08:00

The other night I had put all the girls on our rug in front of our TV, had walked away, and when we looked back, Madison was nowhere to be seen! Upon further inspection, we found her here, underneath the bouncer. She stayed busy with looking at the bottom of that bouncer for a good 30 minutes!

Who's going to get it?

2010-01-18T18:08:00.001-08:00

Who's going to get the lion?
Madison usually wins... look at the look of determination on her face... and then Carly usually cries when she doesn't get it...

Just thought this next was a funny picture... she's really into this face these days...

New Teeth!

2010-01-18T18:00:00.001-08:00

I don't know if you can see it but Madison sprouted not one but "two" teeth in the last month! Mckenna still has the tiny little white dot that she had a month ago. It's very frustrating to her. But don't let Madison get around her other sister's hands because she likes to taste (and usually bite) their fingers--and she bites hard! It even hurts my fingers.

Also, Carly started rolling (only once) on her own tonight!

Inspirational story

2010-01-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

I have a good friend that sent me this woman's blog. She posted an amazing post in the last couple days and I just had to share... Good perspective. She had twins, a boy (Dawson) and a girl (Mallory) and the little boy just passed away:

One Day We Will Know Who They Are:

So, I am back home. Trying to adjust. Trying to unpack. Trying to pack all of Dawsons things away. Trying not to cry...too much.

Yes, it is an adjustment. The last couple of days I have wanted to hold my Little D so bad. I miss the weight of him on my shoulder and his little lippers on my neck saying "Buh Buh Buh".
However, his presence is felt. Almost constantly. I love that! I must say that in the days since my sweet sons passing I have really gotten to KNOW him. Oh, I thought I knew just how amazing he was. I was wrong. He is more than that! My sweet hubby put it best when he said thinking about D makes the mountains seem small.

So here is the thought I have had since the funeral that I want you to ponder until I can gather myself enough to get back to the other things....hopefully in the next day or two.

Many times since Dawson's passing I have thought about who he truly is. I now we treated him well, but I find myself thinking how amazing it would be if I could know him like this, and THEN go back and do it all over again. Really honoring who he is. Feeling that constantly in our home.
Then the thought occured to me...."What is stopping you from believing that ALL children carry within them something amazing. Something sacred. Something pure and Christlike. Something WE are supposed to learn FROM THEM?"

"Think on that for a moment", as a dear dear man I once knew would say. Really pause and think about the spirits that live within your children, your siblings, your neices and nephews, your grandchildren. Do we treat our children like they are SPECIAL TO THE LORD? Because they are, you know, SPECIAL TO THE LORD.

My little Mally has struggles ahead. Struggles that will try the patience of her far from perfect parents. So, here is the thought I choose to have about the spirit that inhabits her tiny frame:
Perhaps there was a conversation that went something like this, "Father, Dawson and I both need to go to my parents. Dawson must go through much that will cause their hearts to ache. They will need comfort at times. Something to smile about when it seems there is nothing worth smiling over. Something to soften the bumps on a very bumpy road. Something to hold tight when they must let him return to home. Please let me go at the same time...WITH DAWSON. I could do all of those things."

Maybe the reply came something like, "Sweet Sweet Mallory. I know you could ease burdens that seem unbearable. However, we know that Dawson will arrive quite early. His body will be weak and suffer much pain. It will be difficult. If you want to go, you will also arrive early. Therefore the body you will inherit will not be whole. It will be hard, very hard."
And obviously, IF this were a conversation that took place, Mallory would accept. Happily. She would do it, because she loved us, because she loved our family, and because she loved Dawson.
Interesting isn't it. The thought of our children loving us so much they would sacrifice by submitting to seemingly impossible trials, if it meant through their faithfulness they could help us remember who we are and WHO we came from and give us a glimpse of what we are blessed enough to return to?!

It is interesting when you go through experiences when your children pass through trials that teach you WAY MORE than you could ever teach them. Humbling really.
So, the challenge....think about it. What if we treat our children like they are noble? What if we remind ourselves, when patience seems short, that THEY CHOSE US. Stop and think about who they are and what they were sent to do, and if what you are doing is helping them acheive it. Because one day, we WILL know who they are.
Surely they are our greatest blessings!

Welcome Allison Kate Pendleton!

2010-01-13T14:34:00.001-08:00

The girls received a great present this weekend... a new cousin! Justin and Nicole had their baby on Sunday the 10th. They named her Allison and she is adorable I think. She looks a lot like her older sister but I actually think she looks a little bit like my Mckenna! She was born 6 weeks early so she is in the hospital for about a week. She was 5 lbs. 3 oz. but doing great. She needed a little oxygen and now has jaundice but really nothing to worry about (in my perspective I guess :)). Strange... my parents have had 4 out of 6 granddaughters born early. Congrats Justin and Nicole!

8 months old!

2010-01-09T11:30:00.001-08:00

I might forget on Monday to post for the girls, so since I am thinking about it now... the girls will be 8 months old on the 11th! I can't believe how fast they grow. Not much different in weight as previously stated: Mckenna- 13 lbs. 7 oz, Madison- 14 lbs. 7 oz, and Carly- 15 lbs. 3 oz.

L to R: Madison, Mckenna, Carly

Merry Christmas and New Years!

2009-12-30T14:10:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful, quiet (for three babies) Christmas. It was lovely to not worry about doctor's, nurse, therapist appointments and just relax and enjoy the babies with Kyle. Here are a couple pictures of our Christmas. The girls got quite the haul. Spoiled... Kyle and I got a family present of a new camera! I am so excited because I can hopefully start taking better pictures. They even gave me a couple classes to take with it so hopefully I can figure out what I'm doing and get better at taking pictures. It's a Pentax KX for anyone who cares... I'm sure I'm the only one really excited about it. I put some pictures below of the girls separately while messing around trying to figure it out. Kyle was also pretty excited to get some more episodes of Seinfeld...and Florence chocolates. I think he has a second stomach for sugar. And I received some gift cards, or as Kyle says, the gift of shopping-which I love very much. But most important we are so grateful for the best gifts we could ever receive this year- three babies that are quite healthy. It means more than all the other gifts put together!

Girls: L to R: Madison, Carly (loved her stuffed turtle), and Mckenna with their Christmas loot

Mckenna....

Madison...

Carly....

Wedding Weekend!

2009-12-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

So Kyle and I finally got a small (3 day) break from the girls this past weekend. My brother Mark got married on Friday to lovely Ashley and we agonized over whether to take the girls or not. In the end, our fear of them getting sick (and would get tired and cranky through the trip) outweighed our desire for everyone to see them, so we left them home with Grandma Morrell and her sister Aunt Sharon. Thank you so much to them for allowing us peace of mind to leave and enjoy ourselves and not worry that they were in good hands.

Mark and Ashley got married in the Rexburg Temple and had a luncheon and reception in Rigby where she is from. I do love weddings...I'm way too much of a romantic. It always makes me reflect back on my happy wedding day. It was all very fun just to be with my family for a little bit since we are staying in Boise with the girls for Christmas this year. Kyle's mom, who has been staying with us for a couple of months, will be going over to her daughters (Kyle's sister) for Christmas for a few days and then coming back. So we are going to enjoy our quiet little family Christmas (although much larger family this year). I don't plan on leaving the house for days over the holiday. I guess I do that already....

Below is a picture of Mark and Ashley at the reception. Nicole, I cheated and copied this picture from you. I was a doofus and forgot to bring my camera to take pictures myself. So thanks for letting me borrow from you!

The girls got Christmas pajamas from Grandma Morrell a few weeks back and so we took a picture of our little Christmas presents this year. Just so you know, Madison only smiles that big right now for dad (she was looking at dad when the picture was taken). She LOVES her daddy. Apparently we have discovered who's the daddy's girl. And Kyle said that Carly is a mommy's girl. She is always looking for me and wanting to be held by me. Mckenna isn't partial to anyone, she loves all. Although she loves to laugh with Grandma! L to R: Carly, Madison, Mckenna

7 months old!

2009-12-13T10:22:00.000-08:00

Weren't they just 6 months old yesterday? For that matter, weren't they just born yesterday? The girls are 7 months old! Nothing really new to report so here are pictures. Carly's picture is specifically for Grandpa. The others were take back in mid October but we wanted to put up our family picture for the holidays!

Carly learning a new nosie.

Girls L to R: Carly, Mckenna, Madison

Girls L to R: Madison, Mckenna, Carly

A little bit of video

2009-12-04T16:31:00.000-08:00

Some videos of Carly smiling....

and Madison rolling....

and Mckenna talking....

We're eating turkey!... okay, maybe just rice cereal & apples

2009-12-03T15:17:00.000-08:00

So I tried to load a video of the girls chatting but it didn't work for some reason. So I'll try a video later at some point. But, exciting news! Since we got to have Turkey day last week we decided that it was time to start trying solids! So we pulled out all the booster seats (pretty much took up all of our seats from our dining table) and set up and started our trial. They did quite well. I was expecting nothing to end up in their mouths and all over their outfits but so far they have ingested most of their food so I am pretty thrilled with that. They seem to really like the food, they make the funny faces and all but in the end they swallow the food. I will say it is a ridiculous amount of work. It makes me tempted just to go back to bottles only because I know (and they know) how to whip out a bottle feeding in no time. Eating solids takes a lot longer. Well, hopefully they start eating faster and I will be happy that they aren't only on bottles!

They were doing pretty good at sleeping from 10 pm until around 5-6 am but then last week they reverted back to the 2-3 am... so that was exciting... But hopefully the solids will help them keep sleeping longer. The difficult thing is that when one makes noises in the middle of the night, it wakes one of the others, they start making noises, it wakes another, you get the point. Unless I sprint from my bed as soon as I start hearing peeps, I've missed my window. And I don't know about you, but I struggle moving really fast coming out of dead sleep. I'm getting better at it though, for fear of being up for an hour or so trying to get babies back asleep.

The only new news we have is that Carly will not be going to San Francisco anymore for her arm. We had issues using that clinic, so instead, we are going to the other vascular specialty clinic in the U.S. which is in Boston! I know it's a lot farther but it's located next to Harvard and maybe we can do a little bit of sightseeing while we are there since there is a lot of our country's history there. Of course, we probably won't have any time for that, who knows... We are still trying to get dates nailed down but this clinic tries to get everything done (tests, surgery, etc) in the same week so we will be there for awhile but hopefully we won't have to go back. I just really want to get it over with so Carly can be over the pain she will have and be recovering and healing and moving on with her life!

The girls just keep on growing! They were weighed today and they are: Mckenna- 12 lbs. 11 oz. and 24 1/2 inches long, Madison- 13 lbs. 10 oz. and 25 1/2 inches long, and Carly- 13 lbs. 13 oz. and 25 1/2 inches long.

All lined up for the feed! L to R: Madison, Mckenna, Carly

Different view and look how excited Mckenna looks for her food! L to R: Madison, Mckenna, Carly

Mckenna after eating (she's always the cleanest)

Madison after eating- like food all over the face is surprising with crazy Madison. She does love to get her hands involved when she eats so she helps fling food all over her face and loves to rub it on her legs.

Carly after eating- Well, this might have been just the beginning of the feed because she definitely looks messier than this normally.

One more picture...

2009-11-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

I wasn't too thrilled with the last picture of Mckenna posted and so I had to get another one. This is the face she makes when she is jabbering away. I went in to pick her up out of her crib the other day and she was so happy so I had to get another picture. Pretty cute huh? I guess I'm quite biased though...

6 Months Old!

2009-11-18T15:18:00.001-08:00

Last week on the 11th the girls turned 6 months old. And what a six months it has been. They have started to sleep longer through the night. Usually we feed at 10 and the earliest they have been waking up is 4 am and sometimes they go all the way until six! Those are good nights! It's a little difficult with three because if one cries out in the night and we don't get to them fast enough, the others are awake and.... I'm sure you get the point.

But they are all doing so great. No one has to read all of this, I am just journaling stuff for them. I do kind of go on and on..... We did find out that Carly does have an AVM (arterial venous malformation) which is pretty much a very enlarged blood vessel running down the arm. It carries more than twice the amount of blood a normal baby arm blood vessel would because she has developed extra capillaries, tissues, etc in the right arm so it has too feed all of it. So we are going to San Francisco right before Christmas with her to a specialized clinic for atery malformations and try and figure out the treatments needed. Most likely they will do what they call embelization, which means they go in and plug up all the extra capillaries, vessels, etc. not needed and they should clot up and kind of go away so that the big main vessel doesn't have to supply blood to them. In return, the big vessel should shrink in size as well as all the tissue. Sounds simple, but I guess it's a scary procedure with fear of clotting off a vessel that is really needed to help the arm work. Anyway, I'm sure with a lot of faith and prayers, we will get through it and she will be able to move on from this. I'm not super excited to take a premature baby onto a plane right now (and leave the other two at home) but.... such is life. It could be worse right?

But they are starting to smile (and laugh a little) and really like to talk, especially to each other or mom and dad. Carly is Miss Social; in fact, we have a hard time getting her to sleep during the day because she just wants to play and talk all day long! She loves to smile and is a happy baby except for when she gets tired or hungry. She is not patient at all for feeding time and so never has to be the one to wait her turn to feed. She always eats first because she gets herself worked up in more of a lather than the others if she has to wait for a sister to finish eating.

Madison is still go, go, go. I think I'm going to have to watch her very closely when they can walk and run because she could be a long ways down the road before I'd notice she is gone. She also loves to smile, especially when she is roughed up a little. It sounds crazy but I am a little rougher with her because she loves it! The more excitement, the better. She is rolling over from belly to back (has been doing that for a couple months now) but now she is rolling from back to almost belly. She can't figure out how to get that arm out of the way, and it makes her so mad. Unfortunately, she also loves when the TV comes on. The reason she started learning to roll was so she could get in a position to see the TV... even when it wasn't on. Rotten little girl! I think she just enjoys stimulation and even though she likes her sisters she doesn't get quite enough out of them like she wants. They'd have to be dancing around her for her to be mesmerized.

Mckenna is doing well. She is really the easiest baby and thank heavens for letting me have one of them right? She is so happy.... all the time. She does do her fake cry and loves to stick out that bottom lip, but she usually only does it when her sisters are crying. She's very compassionate. We thought she would be the quietest talker (cooer) but she is so loud when she is jabbering away! So, even though Carly is so social, maybe Mckenna we'll have more to say. She just went to her follow up appointment with the neuro surgeon and she is doing so well which is so great to hear!

We are so excited that they are six months (three months adjusted age) and I'm hoping that they are holding their bottles soon. Just kidding! Only in my dreams....

The Girls: L to R: Mckenna, Madison, Carly

Carly- half smiling

Madison- half smiling

Mckenna- I couldn't get my camera to work fast enough to get a smile out of her.

Funny story... One night, this is how Madison fell asleep on Dad's lap. Dad was patting her back and next thing he knew, she was out!

Happy Halloween!.... it's a jungle here!

2009-11-05T14:49:00.000-08:00

I had major internet issues this week, but we have a new service and I can finally post the pictures of the girls. Due to sickness, preemies, etc we didn't take the girls out for All Hallows Eve but I found these outfits for such a good price I had to dress them up for at least a picture! We took these pictures a few weeks ago when my dad and brother (and his fiance) came to see my mom and the girls. We decided a jungle theme was appropriate since it seems like a jungle everyday at my house! They were actually very tired on Halloween and after we put them down to sleep at 10 pm, Mckenna woke up at 4:30 am and the other two didn't wake up until 6 am! It was a Halloween miracle! Unfortunately, it was a one night deal and they are back to their 2:30 to 3 am schedule again. Someday I will get a full nights rest. I was sick with the flu last week (the girls have stayed healthy) and its no fun to have no energy and try and take care of three babies. So I'm so happy to be feeling 100% again.

My mom (Grandma Pendleton) sadly has taken her leave this week to go back to Wyoming. She has been here for 3 months helping me. I definitely was sad to see her leave, she has been such a major help... I can't even explain how much she has done for Kyle and I and babes. I know she misses them but I think she's pretty happy to get her rest again and to be with my dad again. My mother in law (Grandma Morrell) will be coming on Saturday to take the next 3 or so months shift. Hopefully, by that time, I will be able to manage quite easily. Being alone this week has helped me realize I can do it alone but I'm running on fumes and would love to keep getting grandma help!

Nothing else new with the girls except they are all starting to smile and interact more. Carly and Madison are both 12 lbs. 12 1/2 oz. and Mckenna is 12 lbs. even. We also took family pictures so I will have to post some in the next few days. Happy Halloween!

L to R: Carly (Giraffe), Madison (Tiger- perfect for her), and Mckenna (Zebra).

I just couldn't get enough of their animal tails so I had to get a picture of the cute little butts!

Mark and his fiance Ashley, look at Carly smiling big at Ashley. Just thought it was a cute picture I would add!

3 Ballerinas!

2009-10-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

We took family pictures, etc. last weekend and wanted to post a few. Family pictures will be posted around Christmas time. The girls are growing like little weeds. All are smiling now and starting to talk (coo). They just get more and more fun to interact with.

The only new information is that Carly went to see the hematologist. I really had no idea what I was talking about in the last post. I had said that arterial venous malformation and hemangiomas were the same thing. Completely two different things.... They are still doing studies; I guess Carly's kind of a stumper. She has symptoms of both the arterial venous malformation (AVM) and a hemangioma depending on the test they are doing. They know it's probably one or the other so they have sent information (MRI, etc) to a specialty clinic to see what they recommend. If it's an AVM (enlarged blood vessels the size of an adult in a small baby) then they would surgically go in and remove blood vessels and somehow trace a new blood flow into smaller vessels. I still don't understand all implied with this route. If it's a hemangioma, they will treat it with steroids and it should shrink. So, once again, we are waiting. We are also putting off going to the dermatologist in SLC until sometime in the spring (or until the get the underlying stuff in her arm taken care of). Thank you to those offering a place to stay! But she is doing great and is quite the little charmer. She loves smiling at everyone, including strangers. Very friendly little girl.

Nothing else really new with the others. Madison has mellowed out a bit since her wild newborn days. She does still have ridiculous, exhausting amounts of energy but I think she is finally learning how to self soothe like the others are doing. And Mckenna is still as sweet as can be. Although she is finally starting to get a little louder in her crying and demands. I think it's good, they will probably all be loud to be heard above each other. They are still eating and sleeping about the same. Unfortunately still going through a ridiculous amount of diapers (25-30 a day) but that's the life of triplets I guess! Kyle and I figure and some day we will be able to sleep through the night, maybe in 18 years! Enjoy the pictures!

Here's the two best of the pictures we took. These girls are exhausting when it comes to picture taking....

L to R: Madison, Carly, Mckenna

L to R: Madison, Carly, Mckenna

5 months old!

2009-10-06T16:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it has taken me about two weeks to get this blog posted! These babies are busy! It's amazing how much can change with them in a month. They are smiling now and even more awake during the day than they used to be. All are doing so well. We just went to our last eye doctor appointment (they go every other week) for Carly and Madison. Mckenna will go again in two weeks but then should be done as well. They do have to do a three month follow up to the eye doctor in January but that is a whole lot better than every other week.

Carly is going to a hematologist next week to see what the next process is for her arm. They will starting with injecting some sort of medication that will kill off the extra capillaries and hopefully shrink down the size of her arm. They believe she does have a certain type of hemangioma and they called it arterial venous malformation. They still don't know until they get rid of the masses (one at her wrist and one above the elbow) if her ulna bone (one of two long bones in the forearm ) is missing or just shortened due to the hemangioma. I guess we will just slowly find out information as we go. She also has an appointment with a pediatric dermatologist in Salt Lake at the end of October to start working on her port wine stain (caused from the hemangioma). We might go or might have to postpone if the hematologist says that we don't need to take care of that yet. Anyway, poor Carly will have a lot of appointments for awhile.

The are continuing to grow at a perfect rate. They were weighed last Thursday and Mckenna was 10 lbs. 10 1/2 oz., Madison 11 lbs. 13 1/2 oz., and Carly was 11 lbs. 14 oz. They are definitely feeling heavier when we have to lug three car seats around to doctor's appointments. I guess it just means that my arms will get stronger.

Below are a few pictures of the girls taken about two weeks ago. We have cut Mckenna's hair since this (just trimmed the top cause it was out of control). I don't like the straggly hair thing so I'd rather have it short and thicker until it's thick enough to start growing long. Oh, that seems like so many miles down the road from now....

Girls having social time together. L to R: Madison, Mckenna, Carly

Mckenna- 5 months old

Madison- 5 months old

Carly- 5 months old

I just think this picture is cute. I was trying to get a picture of Carly smiling (she has the biggest smile so far) and this is about as close as I could get to it.

4 months old and blessing day!

2009-09-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

So I am WAY behind on this blog. I was looking at these pictures and thinking, they look bigger than this now! But, I guess I have an excuse. The days just kind of run away from you. So I wrote 4 months but technically they are going to be 4 1/2 months old next Tuesday! They are all doing so well. They have gotten gigantic (compared to where they came from). The nurses say that they don't have a problem with thriving (gaining weight and growing) which is a relief. As of yesterday, Mckenna weighed 8 lbs. 15 oz (pretty much 9 lbs), Madison was 10 lbs. 2 oz., and Carly was 10 lbs. 3 oz. I think last time I wrote they were in the eights or something.

Carly had an MRI done on her arm on Wednesday to start looking to see what needs to be done to help clear out the vascular mass she has in her arm. We meet with the orthopedic surgeon next Wednesday to see what he says we need to do moving forward.

They are all developing right about where they are supposed according to adjusted ages(although we are still working on less messy eating). They do tummy time everyday and sometimes they scream and hate it and sometimes they love it. Madison even rolled over (twice) from her belly to her back. I'm afraid I need to get in better shape for when she gets older and takes off on a dead run and I have to go and chase her down. They are all sleeping better and better each week. It took a lot of work but I think we have them all eating on the same schedule and so we only have to get up twice to feed them in the middle of the night. They still have off nights (usually a different one each time) in the night and require a little extra help to go to sleepy land. I think they are finally getting used to and adjusting to home. Madison might be the hardest baby of the three. She really likes to cry but once I can get her in a tight enough swaddle and with her pacifier in, she can usually calm down and go to sleep. Carly, recently, has become a little tougher to get to sleep than Madison plus Carly is not too interested in her pacifier anymore (great) so we also hear a lot of crying from Carly. And when they all get going (crying) it is quite the chorus. I can see why moms go crazy.... Mckenna is such a mild baby. She does cry, but not very much compared to the others and there is usually a reason for it (dirty diaper, a burp, etc.)

We blessed the girls on the 5th of September and I meant to post this then but.... anyway.... They looked so sweet, like little angels in their dresses and they kept clean diapers the whole time. As you can see, Mckenna slept through most of it but the other two were awake the entire time. Kyle gave them beautiful blessings and it was so nice to be able to have that experience of seeing three babies of our own blessed at the same time.

Mckenna- Blessing Day

Madison- Blessing Day

Carly- Blessing Day

All together for the blessing and no one was crying!

I'll have to get another picture (hopefully in the next week or so) to put on here of how much bigger they are getting.

We're getting bigger!

2009-08-31T14:42:00.001-07:00

I can't believe how the time is just flying. And yet in the middle of the night it drags on and on! The girls are growing so fast. As of their last weight check (which was almost a week ago last Thursday) Mckenna weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz, Madison 8 lbs. 7 oz., and Carly 8 lbs. 12 oz. They are starting to really get their personalities. From the physical therapist that meets with them, she said that when you have twins there is always a watcher and a mover. There's never two movers or two watchers. And then with triplets there is always a combo as well; either two watchers and one mover or two movers and one watcher. So we predicted that Madison will definitely be the mover, Mckenna will be the watcher and we are still on the fence with Carly. Sometimes I think she will be a watcher and then she surprises me and I think she is a mover. We'll just wait and see. They still mainly eat, sleep and poop right now but they become more aware everyday!

I tried to get a new picture of the girls..... Do you know how ridiculously hard it is to get a good picture of three babies? And for some reason I can never get Madison in a good picture with her sisters. So I took a couple pictures and you can decide which was is the best. And then I gave up and uploaded a video as well. Maybe it was because this was taken right before a meal. From left to right: Madison, Carly, and Mckenna.

And the video!.....

First week all home!

2009-08-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

Well, we made it through our first week with all the girls. It seems more like four weeks but I'm sure it's just the lack of sleep. The girls are doing so good! They have all gained at least 1 ounce to 2 ounces a day since they have been home. They were weighed last Friday and Mckenna was 6 lbs. 2 oz., Madison was 7 lbs. 5 oz. and Carly was 7 lbs. 11 oz. We are so glad they are doing so well. They definitely do their fair share of crying and don't always sleep for a good consistent time between feeds but it's usually every other day that they are a little naughty. And I guess that is just babies. I don't know, this is my first experience. Here's a few pictures below. The first is trying out tummy time. Madison loves this! Mckenna falls asleep as soon as we put her on her tummy. And Carly does not like it at all. Carly actually likes being on her back more than the others. But we've got to start building up the muscles!

And I had to put a picture of Grandpa and Grandma Pendleton holding the girls. My mom has been staying with us for a few weeks and my dad missed her too much so had to come over for the weekend (and of course to see the grandbabies too).

Also, congrats to Justin and Nicole! They are having their second baby in February, number 6 grandbaby for my parents (all in the past 2 years)!

13 Weeks Old.... 3 month birthday..... and Home!

2009-08-11T15:47:00.001-07:00

I can't believe that we have finally arrived at August 11th! If the girls hadn't been in such a hurry to come then they would have been born today. But I think the experience that Kyle and I went through has made us appreciate them so much more! We love our little girls.

Well, my pictures downloaded out of order but as you can see in the last picture, Carly came home on Friday night! So now we have all three at home! It has been so exciting (no more traveling to the NICU/hospital every day, hooray!) to have all the girls at home and moving on into the next stage of our lives!

But it has been completely nuts. I don't know how many times I've tried to sit down to post a blog and gotten sidetracked by one or more babies crying. We have developed a shift change through the night and that has helped so that we can all (me, Kyle and my mom) get some uninterrupted sleep. I haven't become skilled enough yet at feeding more than one baby at a time (there are still hard to feed in multiples at this age) but I am determined to figure it out. Kyle has had the week off so me and my mom have not been alone enough to have to feed two at once out of necessity. But I'm sure the day is coming since Kyle eventually has to go back to work. Somebody has to make the money since we are currently going through a can of formula a day. I hope that I can even feed three at one time--- but one day at a time for now.

Madison is definitely the noisiest baby. She has quite the set of lungs. I am pretty sure Carly has lungs too since she is so big but I don't know if she has learned how to REALLY let loose and cry and we're hoping she doesn't discover that for awhile. Carly is pretty laid back and just loves to sleep unless her reflux is really getting to her. And Mckenna is so sweet and quiet although I notice she has gained some louder habits from Madison in the past week.

We love our little girls and are trying to enjoy this time even though I sometimes can't remember my name due to sleep deprivation. The best part of being home is I can take pictures whenever I want of them, so here are some of the pictures that we have taken in the past few days. Triplets do make awful cute pictures! I recommend them!

Left to Right: Mckenna, Madison, Carly

Left to Right: Mckenna, Madison, Carly

Left to Right: Madison, Mckenna, Carly (Madison once again always makes the pictures exciting)

The sleep deprived parents (actually this was the first night home for Carly so we were pretty alert at this point---- and even fixed our hair!)

Carly coming home!

12 weeks old!

2009-08-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

It's amazing to think that next Tuesday (the 11th) would have been the girls due date. I still sometimes have a hard time believing that they were born three months early and now are getting bigger. It makes sense that they were due next week because they are finally starting to look like real newborns to me now. We just took a scary detour before getting to this point.

Well as you can see from pictures below, Mckenna is also home now! She came home on Saturday night. It really hasn't been too bad so far with the two girls. It helps that my mom is here to take care of half the work. She will stay for a little while to help with all the girls and then my mother in law will come over for a little while after that. I'm a little nervous when that all stops because then I have to handle nights on my own. It's still my biggest fear that they will want to eat at the same time and I won't be able to do it. But the longer I do this I realize they are just going to have to be patient with each other.

So Mckenna is now home and doing great. We are really working at fattening her up right now since she is still sooo skinny (of course her sisters are too but she is definitely the one that needs the most extra fat right now). After starting with Madison home first, Mckenna has been quite a breeze. She is very quiet and sleeps really well. She's a little slow when she eats compared to her sisters but I just have to practice patience with her. Her shunt is doing very well and hopefully will continue that way. She was 5 lbs. 3 oz. when she left NICU on Saturday and she was weighed today and is now 5 lbs. 5 oz. Oh, and she was 18 3/4 inches long so longer than Madison. She's really quite a perfect baby. Sleeps and doesn't cry much.

Mckenna headed for home. Look how little she looks in her car seat.

Dad and Mckenna at the house!

I don't really like the color purple but Mckenna looks awful cute in it!

I don't know if you can see it, but this was putting Madison and Mckenna in the crib for the first time and home and they were hilarious; they just stared and stared at each other. So cute!

Madison is still doing so great at home. We might say that so far she might be the high maintenance one. She really not that bad but can be a little noisy and she screams really well when she is hungry! She might have some reflux because she loves to be upright and has a hard time sleeping in her crib or pack n play. Here favorite place to sleep is on Mom and Dad's chest... of course. She hasn't been weighed in a week so we aren't sure how much she has gained yet but they will weigh her on Thursday. I think she has to for sure be over 6 lbs. by now. Anyway, I think she is loving having her sister home!

Madison also loves to sleep in her bouncer. Thank heavens for bouncers!

Carly is still coming along well. Each day she gets better and better at eating in a more coordinated manner. She doesn't suck and stop breathing as bad. I think one of the main reasons is because they have her on a thickener to keep the formula more weighted and then they also put her on Zantac (weird, I never thought of it for babies) and maybe changing to Prilosec when she goes home. It just helps keep things settled in the stomach. But hopefully she will keep doing well and maybe she will join the other two in the next week or week and a half. She is still growing at a ridiculous rate. She is 6 lbs. 11 oz. right now! Almost 7 lbs.! That's the size of a normal baby! Anyway, I don't think she is missing her sisters yet because she is an excellent sleeper. Maybe that's why she gains so well. Since her sisters have left Carly she now has a roommate like she did when she first started in the NICU. It's a little boy right now who is very very sick. He was born at 23 weeks and it's a miracle he is still alive. It just makes me realize how grateful we are that we were blessed with such healthy girls for being so early. We are truly grateful for these girls and how well they are doing!

Carly getting some quality sleep time with Dad.

11 week mark!

2009-07-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm a little late this week but A LOT happened this week so it finally took me until now to update the blog. I also don't have the best pictures of Mckenna and Carly this week but I will make sure they all get enough pictures on here. So, here we go....

Mckenna: Mckenna finally had her brain surgery on Friday last week. They decided to put a shunt in her head because after they did the CT scan of her brain, the stint wouldn't have helped the right area where she has clots. So, she went into surgery on Friday at 11:50 am and came back to the room around 3 pm. They also had to check to make sure she didn't have a fistula (connection) between her bowel and bladder. They assumed she wouldn't because in girls the reproductive organs are in between the bladder and bowels. It's more common in boys. So the neonatologist surgeon went in laproscopically through her belly to make sure that everything was good (which it was- everything is just fine!) and then Dr. Churney (neuro surgeon) started the shunt procedure. They cut two incisions on the top of her head; one near the front and one near the back to make sure they threaded the long tube that goes from the brain down her body. The tube runs down her neck and across her chest and down into the abdominal cavity (not into the stomach) where there is a lot of excess fluid just floating around anyway and then the body will just absorb it. Dr. Churney went in as well through the small incision made in her stomach to make sure that everything took proper placement. Sounds pretty easy huh? The surgery went really well and it takes about a week to recover completely. Hopefully everything stays okay with the shunt. She does have a 30% chance that it will clot up (the shunt) with leftover clots from the brain in the first couple years so we have to watch her pretty carefully for anything unusual. Hopefully nothing will happen and if it doesn't then she probably won't need it replaced with a new one until she's about 12 years old! That's sounds pretty great to me! The shunt does look a little big on her head. It kind of looks like a small ridge that rounds across her head. It does look a little big now but they said that in about a year when her head gets bigger it will not even be noticeable. Especially if she keeps on growing hair as fast as she does right now!

She has recovered well in the past few days. She is off the ventilator and was able to start oral feedings without being fed through a feeding tube. When she's awake she still has a little pain from the incisions but is still acting like sweet little Mckenna. She's always been quite a happy little baby which is amazing with all she's dealt with. And her coloring looks so much better! I didn't realize how pale she normally looked before this surgery. Now she looks nice and pink! Such a pretty color on a baby! Anyway, nothing else really new except she did break the 5 lb barrier today so she is finally just in the five pounds!

This picture was before surgery, I'll have to get a picture after for next week.

Madison- Well, one of the best news of last week is that Madison was able to pass all her tests and was stable long enough that they sent her home with us! We couldn't believe it because it is about three (four?) weeks before her actual due date so she is quite a spunky little fighter. It has been so great to have her home! I think one baby is pretty easy but I have to think that way since there's two more still to come! I think I had said before that she is a noisy baby and in our quiet house it really sounds noisy. But I think she loves being home! And she's eating like a maniac. She was eating 60 mls feeds before coming home and now almost always downs 90 mls. It does help to have babies in the NICU because they have them on a strict schedule in there and so she is actually quite scheduled. I was so worried she would wake up every 1 1/2 to 2 hours to eat but she will actually go 3 1/2 to 4 hours before she eats. So nice.... And she weighed 5 lbs. 5 oz when she left the hospital last Wednesday (and 18 inches long) and we went to the pediatrician on Monday and she weighed 5 lbs. 10 oz.! So she is definitely gaining well. The only thing I don't enjoy is having to lug her back and forth to the hospital everyday but I also think it's good that she sees and is around her sisters everyday so she doesn't get lonely and miss them. Who knows if they even miss each other, maybe that's me making it up.
Anyway, we love our little girl at home and can't wait for the others!

Madison and Dad coming home through the door!

Her first real outfit at home!

We just had to show this picture. Madison gets crazy when she wakes up to eat and sucks her hands or whatever is near her before she gets the bottle. One night I was going to kiss her while waiting for the bottle to warm and she grabbed my nose (she has quite a grip) and then started sucking on her hand. We thought it was funny, maybe it's just funny to us. Oh, and she had my hair in her other hand. I guess no earrings for a while....

Carly- Oh Carly, Carly.... Carly just about came home with Madison last week but then had a bad morning the day she was going to go home. I was a little nervous already about taking her home (she wasn't quite as stable with breathing and eating and Madison was) so it was a good thing she acted up because it gives her a little more time in the hospital for some help. They worried she was still having breathing problems but her lungs are great and then they ran a ticker tape on her stats for an hour one afternoon and believe she just has pretty severe reflux compared to her sisters. That's why she holds her breath all the time. So they put thickener in her feeds but then they did a Swallow test on her yesterday (watch with an xray in real time where the formula goes; whether it goes down the esophagus like it should or down the trachea into the lungs where she could develop pneumonia) and she does let it get down her trachea but her vocal chords stop it and push it back out to the esophagus. When she was on the thickened feed it was worse then when she didn't have the thickened feed so...... they took her back off the thickener! I don't know... Carly will probably be the last one that will go home. Kind of ironic (as Dr. Myers told us) that the biggest one without the brain surgery might be the last one to go home. But reflux just takes a lot of time (up to six months old I guess) to recover from so we just need her to get a little more stable before she comes home. We'll see what the next week brings with her. She is gigantic now, 6 lbs. 2 oz! So good, she is doing so great!

Also don't have a lot of pictures of Carly this week but she is so happy in this picture! I do love to see them smile, it's the sweetest thing I can think of!

10 weeks!

2009-07-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

We are in double-digit weeks! I just can't believe how fast they are improving right now. They said that once they get on a good run of weight gain, they just seem to take off! It has been kind of a wild week so hopefully I can remember everything:

Picture of the girls together at 10 weeks old! L to R: Mckenna, Madison, and Carly

They love to touch each other, it must be comforting. Here Madison looks like she is checking Mckenna's temperature on her forehead.

I didn't get this picture at the perfect time I wanted. Carly is on the right, Madison on the left and here it looks like she is kissing Madison's head but earlier it looked more like she was sucking on the back of her head.

Updates:

Mckenna- So I guess I shouldn't have said that Mckenna was having surgery last week. They ended up postponing it because she had kind of slowed down on her breathing, eating, etc. improvements so Dr. Churney is waiting a little longer before he has to make the permanent decision. He's trying to give her a chance to take care of it on her own. But in the last two days she has improved again so possibly (and I do mean possibly) she might have the surgery this week. If not this week, then next week. Things change back and forth all the time in the NICU.... there's a lot of planning and then the planning didn't matter cause things were cancelled. And it's not unorganization on the hospital's part, it's because of the girls. They really act according to what the girls do not according to what the doctor's and nurse's want the schedule to be. I love that they put the girls as first priority- it really has been a great NICU experience for us. Also, we won't know if they are going to do a shunt or stint until after surgery since Dr. Churney has to wait until he gets into her head to know what will be best for her. Good thing we have a lot of confidence in him! Besides the big brain surgery, Mckenna is doing amazing. Still the best coordinated eater (sucks, swallows, breathes the best) and she just had her feeding tube pulled out a few days ago and I think it will stay out (except for post surgery for a few days) permanently. Hopefully.... She also is gaining just as well as her sisters, she's just about a pound behind but she should catch them eventually. She is 4 lbs. 8 oz. so getting close to 5 pounds! Oh, and she is still being tapped (brain liquid sucked out of her head) every other day and they are taking out about an ounce when they do it. She still tolerates it pretty well but I would assume she gets a big headache in the process (I know I would) because she is a little sensitive for an hour after. But with surgery, that would be stopped. We'll see what they decide this week.

Mckenna always has the sweetest happy face. It's rare that she looks upset. Such a happy little girl, especially with her major stuff she is dealing with right now.

Madison- I don't know how I missed it but Madison has become the front runner of her sisters of first to go home. She has had her feeding tube out well over a week and eats at least 2 ounces of formula right now. She is actually quite a little piggie. She makes a lot of noise while she eats and really acts like this is her last meal. But she is the best at not desating while she eats (her sisters are still working on this). We actually were able to room in (at the hospital- they have separate rooms set aside for this) with Madison and Carly on Friday and Saturday night. What they do is put the babies in the room overnight with mom and dad. The girls are set up on monitors still so that the nurses can make sure nothing goes wrong. But besides that we take care of them through the whole night. So we change their diapers, check temperatures, feed them, report on anything strange or not good that happens. I was very excited to do this but after the first night, Kyle and I both said to each other "What were we thinking having this many kids!?" It was pure chaos..... They had tried to get them on the same schedule before night started but Madison ended up eating early and Carly late right before they came in with us so they were exactly 1 1/2 hours apart in feeds. Plus, Carly was quite a pill. I think she must have been so overstimulated with mom and dad alone in the room with her and in a different environment that she wouldn't go to sleep for about 4 hours! So by FOUR in the morning, we finally were able to get them closer together on the same schedule and we were actually able to finally fall asleep! AND, that was only two, we haven't even thrown Mckenna into the mix yet. I knew I would be busy and tired but good grief. I learned that I really am going to need my mom (who is coming to stay for a few months once the girls come home). But, after such a crazy Friday night, we made sure that they were on the same schedule on Saturday night before they came to the room with us (and had taken their vitamins earlier in the evening which gives them an upset stomach) and Saturday was actually a pretty smooth experience. They both slept for four hours between two of their feeds! Amazing! Now I know it won't always be like that but I at least have hope when we can have SOME good nights like that. Anyways, this is going to be a lot of work... So don't expect blog posting to be quite as good when they come home.

Anyway, Madison did great for the two nights but Carly struggled a little with desats, etc. so there is a chance that Madison could be coming home in the next week. But, like I said with Mckenna, that doesn't mean it could happen. She could take a step backwards and not come home until a few weeks later. We'll just see. When I think of taking care of three babies, one sounds like a piece of cake. I did make a mistake on Madison's weight last week. I said she was 4 lbs. 13 oz. and she was actually 4 lbs. 10 ounces. But are you ready for this? Through most of the week she gained up to 4 lbs. 13 ounces so not a lot of weight gained in a week. But then, the two nights she roomed in with us she gained 9 ounces in those two days! So she is now 5 lbs. 6 1/2 ounces! As of yesterday she was only one ounce smaller than Carly. I told you she has been eating like crazy! So maybe they will all easily be over five pounds before they go home.

I put this picture of Madison because she has serious cheeks and a double chin. Good thing it is so adorable to have those at this age! We love to touch and pinch her little double chin, I think it's adorable!

Carly- I kind of already gave Carly's report in Madison's. She stayed in the room with us. I think we have learned that Carly is going to be the most sensitive baby. She cries the easiest (mainly when she wants to eat and we just aren't moving fast enough to get it to her). She also drinks her bottle like she is in the Sahara and hasn't had water for days! The problem that she has is that she doesn't breathe when she sucks. It's like she gets so panicked that it is going to be taken away that she decides breathing isn't necessary. And then she desats and you have to pull out the bottle until she catches up with breathing but she gets so mad that you have taken the bottle away. It's quite cute in the middle of the day but at 3 in the morning, so frustrating... But after she has the edge taken off her hunger then she gets coordinated with her eating and does great through the end! So she might need a little more time in the hospital to get better at that. We are assuming that she is probably going to go home at the same time as Mckenna (if Mckenna recovers fast and well from her brain surgery) but once again, that could all change. They also got concerned again with Carly's bigger right arm (like she had at birth and still has) and so they ran tests but we don't have the result back yet. They are pretty sure it is a hemagioma (I'm sure I slaughtered that word) which is kind of like a tumor that sucks blood from the blood vessel it's next to. It's typical for people that have it to have a limb larger than the other one and it's discolored (kind of like a port wine stain). They can laser out the little tumor-cysts things but if they are too big she might just always have a big arm. We'll see how it progresses as she grows. Her right arm is very functional and it's not life threatening (they've already done tests to make sure of that) so we'll just wait and see. She is still gaining weight, just a little slower this week. She weighed 5 lbs. 7 1/2 ounces.

Don't mind me in the picture but I put this up of Carly because she LOVES to cuddle. It's the best way for her to calm down. She just melts into you when you hold her like this. And Mom loves to cuddle too!

They are doing so well and we are so blessed! They are getting so close to going home, I can hardly believe how fast it has gone!

Nine Weeks Old.... and 2 Months Old!

2009-07-13T11:17:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited because they are all in the same bed! Hooray! It took a lot of persuasion on Kyle and my part to get them together but the doctors had their monthly meeting last week and talked about our girls going together and it was kind of split down the middle but the director over the doctors sided with us! They had to put them all in isolation for the rest of their time in the hospital which just means that no other baby can be put in the room with them (and I'm not complaining about that). The doctors and nurses also have to gown up every time they handle our babies but we don't we just can't linger in the waiting rooms of the NICU which is no problem since I never do. Who has time to linger right? So I didn't get any pictures of the girls alone, just all together. We went to Wyoming this past weekend (it was very hard to be away from the girls for a few days) and had a great time but our battery on our camera died on the trip so I could only snap a few pictures of them all together (and a video!). A few updates on the girls....

Mckenna- Mckenna started out the best bottle eater and is still phenomenal. They took her off the feeding tube first but because she is still so small she tuckered out too fast (and having her brain liquid drained out every other day does help her cause either) and so had to go back on the feeding tube. She was also weaned of her caffeine but still needs a little pick me up until her lungs mature a little bit more. We also learned this week that Mckenna is going to have surgery on her brain tomorrow (Wednesday). We knew that the Reservoir in her head was only temporary for her stay in the hospital and that she would need something more permanent. I think I talked in a past post that Dr. Churney (her neuro surgeon) was debating between a shunt and a stint for this first surgery. He probably won't know which one he will end of up doing until he gets into the surgery (how scary does that sound but he is more than capable so we feel safe with him). So we probably won't know what he is going to do until after the surgery is done. If she gets the stint there is a chance in a few months that it will resolve the blood clots but if it doesn't she will get a shunt put in. If she moves to a shunt then she will probably have to have multiple surgeries as she grows up and the shunt shortens. They actually run the shunt from her brain (the ventricles where the cerebral liquid lives) down her neck, across the front of her chest and into the stomach and that's where it will drain. So we'll see which one is going to work. We appreciate all the prayers on her behalf through this hard time. Sometimes it breaks my heart that such a little baby has to go through such an invasive surgery but I wouldn't have it any other way if it is going to make her life more full. And she is finally over the 4 pound mark at 4 lbs. 2 oz. She will probably loose weight through this surgery but hopefully she can catch up easier after that.

Madison- Madison has kind of taken over as the best eater right now. They took out her feeding tube about 4-5 days ago and she has just taken off. In fact, she is kind of a pig in the eating spectrum. She drinks it like it's her last meal! She used to play around with her bottle but they said that now that she doesn't have that huge tube down her throat it probably helps her eat better. She is also completely off caffeine and doing quite well. We predict that she will be the first one home (it would have been Mckenna except for her brain stuff has slowed her up) and hopefully I am ready whenever that happens. She is trying really hard to catch her sister Carly and weighs 4 lbs. 14 oz.

Carly- Carly is doing so much better with her desats but she is still on a full dose of caffeine per day because she just needs that little help. I'm sure she just needs a little longer to develop her lungs and then she should be great. She is also a pretty decent eater and more than half the time finishes her whole bottle. (I should throw in Mckenna almost always finishes her whole bottle as well) She is such a chunk compared to her sisters and now weighs..... 5 lbs. 5 oz. Crazy! So I guess I am probably not going to have to worry about preemie clothes for her, she is already getting big in the preemie clothes.

Everyday they are getting more alert and actually looking at us more and smiling more which is so great to see. I'm feeling like they are getting closer to acting like newborns and I can see a little light at the end of the tunnel!

Here they are together! L to R: Mckenna, Madison, Carly

I thought this was a really cute picture because you can see all their faces. It goes in order: Mckenna (oldest-left), Madison (middle-middle) and Carly (youngest-right).

I hope that this video works out. I am talking in it if you have sound (don't make fun of me, I'm talking baby talk in it). Enjoy!

8 Weeks!

2009-07-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

This is just a picture thrown in with this weeks updates. I thought it was so cute. Carly loves to touch Madison and I know you can't tell in this picture but their little fingers are interlinked. How cute is that! Madison on the left and Carly on the right.

Well, as you have read from the numerous posts of last week it has been a great week! I feel like we have made such huge strides forward. Hopefully that doesn't mean that we are going to go backwards soon. Since the girls are 8 weeks old today (2 months old on the 11th) I would put a picture of what they looked like their first week and now this week. It is CRAZY how much they have changed and improved. I think that I sometimes don't even remember how little they used to be. So even though it sometimes feels like they are never going to leave the NICU, I guess we are getting closer.

Mckenna- I should look back at the older posts but I'm just going to update and if I repeat myself, oh well. Mckenna started bottle feeds on Friday and of all the crazy things, she is the best eater of the three! I guess I should have guessed that with her being the best breather. I think sometimes everyone expects less of Mckenna with all the brain stuff she is dealing with but she is one amazing little girl. I think she deserves to be a good breather and eater since she might have to deal with the unfun life of shunts and brain stuff in her life. She is such a good eater that she drinks her whole bottle and has been for a few days. They are only bottle feeding them one time a shift to let them get used to it and rest. It really wears them out. She is also still off her cannula and doing so good and they are starting to wean her off caffeine as well (I don't know if I had ever said that they are on caffeine as an additional stimulation for breathing). She is also officially out of her incubator and in a crib now and they are still debating if she can be with her sisters. We will see this week. She weighs 3 lbs. 13 ounces and just hasn't gained in the last four or five days so hopefully she starts picking up the pace. We all know she eats all of her food.

Her brain is still being drained every other day and they are up to draining 26 mls. That's almost an ounce. I can't even imagine having that much liquid drained out of my head every other day. But she tolerates it well so maybe it relieves pressure. Dr. Churney, Mckenna's neuro surgeon, looked at her head ultrasounds this week since they are going to need to make a more permanent decision before she goes home of what they are going to do. She still has quite a large blood clot where the liquid drains out so they are looking at a permanent shunt which they would need to replace as it shortened and she got older. But they are also considering a stint (spelling?) which would go through right where the blood clot is so that she could drain. It also eventually gets to short as she grows (like it would be only in for a few months) and then it might take care of itself or it might require being shunted but it at least buys her a few months to see if her body can take care of it on her own. Or she can just resolve it in the hospital and then we don't have to worry about any of this. But I'm not planning on that one because it happens but it's very rare.... and I don't want to get myself all set up for a disappointment. Dr. Churney said he still has about 3 weeks before the decision needs to be made so they can get the operation done. We'll just wait and see. Now I can see why people get gray hairs, things with your children can be quite stressful and I hate things that I have no control over. Oh well, I guess I better get over that. I do need to remind myself all the time how much we have been blessed with how they are doing.

Mckenna her first week of life.

Mckenna now! (8 weeks old) We think she looks so much like Madison right here.

Mckenna bottle feeding- I swear if she was strong enough she would have stolen the bottle away from me!

Mckenna getting a bath - she loves them just like Carly!

Madison- There's not much to report on Madison which is great! She is really doing so well with her breathing just like Mckenna. She has also remained off her cannula and doing great and also being weaned off her caffeine. Madison is such a grunter. She just likes to make noise all the time! Even drinking her bottle she will grunt through the whole thing. I'm guessing she is going to like to talk. They are all starting to get to the point where if we don't put them down they will just try to stay awake and look at us. They all love to look at faces and really respond to voices. They love their Daddy's voice. It's quite cute when he starts talking how they look for him. Madison is drinking about half of her bottle feeds so far (I think she has drank a full one once) and she is a really good burper. I pretty much sit her upright to start rubbing and patting her back for burps and she does it on her own. I hope that doesn't mean she is going to throw up well! The girls are all also working with an occupational therapist to do exercises with their mouths and legs and arms to strengthen them more like a newborn would be. They haven't had that practice since they haven't been able to float around in amniotic fluid for the past couple months so they work with them and we will do exercises when they come home as well. Baby jazzercise! It's amazing how a couple days of work from the occupational therapist helped the girls so much so they could suck better on their bottles for feeding. We have also been told that they are all doing so good at bottle feeding for such young babies. Hopefully they will be on full feeds and off the feeding tubes within a few weeks--- it does take time to get them to that point. Madison is sitting right at 3 lbs. 15 ounces and then she bounces up to 4 lbs. 0 ounces and then she comes back down so hopefully she can get above 4 lbs. this week.

Madison the first week of life.

Madison 8 weeks old now!

Madison's bathtime!

Just had to throw another cute picture of these two together!

Carly- Carly has a ravenous appetite. She always gets hungry way before her feed and by the time you give her the bottle she is ready to suck it to death. She can get a little overzealous and tries to suck too much before breathing and then chokes on it so we are working at that. She also has to be on a special bottle because she sucks in too much air compared to her sisters. And I'm not surprised she is so hungry, she is getting huge! She is a pound heavier now than Mckenna at 4 lbs. 13 ounces. She is almost five pounds which is amazing. But Carly still has some apneac breathing problems and has a hard time coming out of desat spells so they have had to keep increasing her caffeine and she had to go back on the nasal cannula today. Hopefully she can get through this phase but she could go home with caffeine. I think she is just addicted to caffeine and knows she has to be naughty to get it! Silly girl! Besides that she is doing well and is drinking almost her whole bottle as well. Hopefully she will be over 5 lbs. this week!

Carly the first week of her life.

Carly now at 8 weeks old.

Finally..... I'm Starving!

2009-07-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

I know.... yet another posting. But there has been so much this week that I have to put another post or else I will forget everything by next week. Today was another day of fun stuff! As you can see in the picture below, Madison and Carly were able to start attempting to bottle feed today! I took a picture of Carly below but I don't know where my brain was to get a picture of Madison. They prepped us with knowing that they probably won't drink or be able to breathe very well so don't be disappointed. Well, Madison drank 10 mls of her bottle (I think she is around 34 mls a feeding) which they said was awesome for her age. And then, not to be outdone, Carly drank 25 mls of her bottle! (She's around 42 mls right now) So exciting, hopefully they will be eating their full meals from a bottle in a few weeks. It does take them that long to work up to the full amount. Mckenna should start tomorrow so maybe I will have my brain on and make sure to get a picture of her as well.
Carly's first bottle feeding- even though the nurses fingers were right there, she really was holding onto the bottle.

Dad feeding the second half of the 25 mls to Carly.

And then there's another thing different too (two things). Yes, they are in the same outfit. The night nurse actually found the same outfit for Madison and Carly to wear (the one on Carly belongs to us) and then found an additional one for Mckenna also! So they all had the same outfit on today. And yes, my brain truly was missing today because I didn't get a picture of Mckenna's outfit as well. I promise, I'm coherent enough to take care of three babies. At least I hope.... Also, I don't know if you can tell in the picture but Mckenna, Madison (left below), and Carly (right below) are all off their nasal cannulas! No more oxygen help! They might have to go back and forth on them so we don't want to get too excited, but how exciting that they did so well to go off! I actually feel like they are moving in a great direction.

We are a little worried about Mckenna's head draining right now. They are having to up the amount of liquid they are taking out so hopefully that isn't going to mean a bigger possibility of a shunt for life but we'll just pray and hope for the best. I think my family is having a special fast for her this Sunday.

We're so glad they are improving so much! And we might be really biased but they are really looking awful cute and we feel very blessed!

Which one is which?

2009-07-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would put up one more post for this week because we had some fun pictures in the last couple days. First, I got to hold two of the girls together! Can you tell who is who? I will say that I only held them like this for a few minutes because it was more difficult than I realized. And I know they are only 3-4 lb. babies but they started to get heavy, plus, when one spit out their pacifier, I didn't have another hand to put it back in. Now, you ask, how am I going to hold all three? I don't know... I'll get back to everyone on that.... By the way, this is Madison (right) and Carly (left).
Yesterday when we came into the room this is what we found! Two of them have graduated into cribs (Madison and Carly if you didn't read above). When Kyle came in they were facing each other and Carly was touching Madison's arm but that's about all the interest she has in Madison. Madison, on the other hand, loves to just stare at her sister! When she is put back in her crib she will turn her head to be able to look at Carly. So funny! They look so cute together don't you think? Oh, Madison is on the left and Carly is on the right.

A side look at the girls (once again, Madison on the left Carly on the right). Look at the size of the pacifier in Carly's mouth. And she is the big baby (almost 4 lbs. 5 oz. now).

Here's their crib. When Mckenna joins them (hopefully) they go to a gigantic crib compared to this. Apparently they only have this small size and then the big one. There's no in between.

Oh, and I realized I have never shown a picture of the girls room in the NICU. See the crib in the very back. And then Mckenna is in the incubator to the left. I tried to get their nurse to turn for the picture but she was camera shy. The room looks huge now that there is only a little crib and one incubator in it. You should have seen it with the big incubators before. Very crowded.

I just had to show a picture of cute Mckenna because she is left out of the crib! So sad, she even looks like she's sad about it here. Don't worry, we'll get you with your sisters soon!

7 Weeker Girls!

2009-06-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, they are so close to two months old. Some days it seems like its gone so fast and other days seem like an eternity. Yesterday (Sunday) was a great day! They were all doing so well and it's amazing how great that makes your day. Sorry in advance for the pictures. For some reason they are all so blurry. There wasn't a whole lot of eventful things this week....

Mckenna- Mckenna doesn't have her Urinary Tract Infection anymore and is just finishing up her Cdiff antibiotics in the next couple days so hopefully (cross our fingers) she doesn't get anymore infections! I've had it with those and I'm sure she has too. Despite her setbacks with infections and being taken off food she gained some serious weight this week. Yesterday she was 3 lbs. 13 oz.! And I think it's pretty easy to tell. She is starting to definitely get the baby cheeks. Yesterday she was finally back up to full feeds like her sisters are and is going great with them. She desats (monitors beeping) here and there (mainly when her belly is getting full and she is getting reflux) but is still the steadiest with respiratory and has started the process of weaning her off of her oxygen (cannula). It takes a few weeks but hopefully she will do well. She was the first to start the weaning process. Nothing else really new with Mckenna except I can tell she is going to be a good, happy baby. She is ALWAYS smiling and rarely in a bad mood or irritable. Such a sweet little personality! Of course, as their mom, I think they all have sweet little personalities! One other thing about Mckenna, we weren't able to get as good of a picture of her but she was able to be dressed this week like her sisters are! She can't wear the right sleeve right now because of her IV but hopefully that won't be much longer. The first picture is her first outfit. She wouldn't stop wiggling so I had to take a picture of her swaddled so you can't see the whole thing. There's also another picture of Kenners. We think she looks a lot like Kyle, and yet (as you can see in the second picture), she looks an awful lot like my brother Scott and his daughter Laney (when she was a newborn). Weird... I guess cousins really do look alike.

Mckenna at 7 weeks old- look at that cute smile.

Mckenna- I've even seen my brother make this face! Ha ha!

Also, this is her first outfit!

Madison- Madison has had the least amount of setbacks this week. She has just kept to herself and grown. Like the others, lots of desats and beeping still going on. But she was the second one to start the process of weaning off oxygen cannula (one day after Mckenna). Yesterday she weighed 3 lbs. 10 oz. so she is still the smallest but not by much. She is definitely very social. She loves to be held swaddled so she can look at your face and has a hard time falling asleep when you are holding her, afraid that she'll miss you when she opens her eyes. I bet she will be the one when she grows up a little that won't want to go to bed because she's afraid she is going to miss something. We can't quite figure out who Madison looks like. It used to be that she looked like my other brother Justin and then she looked like me. Then she sometimes looks like her Grandpa Morrell. Heck, the other day I thought she resembled Kyle's sister Lisa. She's the ever changing face! I didn't get the best pictures of her (like I said, I struggle get a good picture of her in general) but she is definitely getting bigger cheeks as well!

Madison at 7 weeks old! She's almost smiling!

Carly- Carly had a little setback this week (little). On Friday she was just not having a good day. She was desatting all over the place and they were having a hard time reviving her. She just didn't want to breathe and was quite tired and lethargic. So they ran some tests and xrays and her lungs were fine but she was very backed up in the bowels (constipated) so they gave her an enema and ran some cultures for an infection. The enema worked very well (believe me, I know, I changed one of the diapers) and the cultures came back negative for an infection. So she might have been just having a bad couple days. They did put her back on CPAP for a few days to help her through the slump (which was frustrating at first, but I understand now why it was important). She also had to have her feeds stopped so they put her back on an IV for nutrition. Yesterday she was back on the nasal cannula and was almost back up to full feeds so it was just a little hiccup. It does help put me back into perspective about how well they are doing and not to get frustrated with things that really aren't that bad. Anyway, Carly hit another milestone. She was 4 lbs. 1 oz yesterday! I figure she will probably be the first to hit the weight milestone each time between her and her sisters. I'm just so excited that they are all almost 4 lbs! That is twice the weight they were born at. We've decided that Carly might be a little stubborn. She is quite laid back but when she digs her heels in, nobody is changing her direction. I'm glad she is a fighter, it's what has helped her get through this hard part of her life to want to live. Some pictures of Carly Loo! I am quite certain that Carly is a little Kyle in female form. I think she looks just like him. And yet, the nurses have told me that she looks like me. I can't quite see that yet. Except for the ears, she did get my ears, poor little girl.

Carly at 7 weeks old!

We couldn't quite get it at the right time but she was looking at me in that concentrated look before the picture was taken.

Kyle and I have to say that we have been so blessed with such beautiful healthy girls. We know that Mckenna's brain bleed is definitely not ideal but overall they are all doing so well! Thank you to everyone for all your prayers. We know that that is one of the main reasons they are doing so well. And thank you to all of you (since I keep forgetting to say this) that post comments. I love to read them and they definitely help to encourage me to stay happy and positive. We love you all!

Look how big we are-- 6 weeks!

2009-06-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

So there have been good and not good things happening this week. I guess that happens every week. The bad is not horrible, just frustrating. Oh, one thing I need to say before I forget. Someone helped me remember that I haven't told everyone that the girls are all in the same room and have been for about three weeks. It's lovely that way (there are only three spaces in our room) so that we don't have to share with other babies. If the girls all go to the same crib though, then we might get a roommate. So, let's start with Mckenna:

Mckenna- Mckenna was having a stellar week. She had increased feeds all week and was almost to the full amount of feed (the other two have been on full feeds for a few weeks now). She only had like one or two days left on her antibiotic for the urinary tract infection she had and then they were going to take out her PICC line (IV that runs up her arm). Then she had a bloody stool and so they ran some tests and she has Cdiff. In a nutshell, it's an infection of the gut usually caused by taking antibiotics because not only the bad bacteria is being killed but also the good. So they had to stop her food (she's getting nutrition through an IV) for a few days and let her belly rest before they start her back up again. She's on a new antibiotic for the Cdiff now and has to keep her PICC line in until she's through the amount needed. So, she will be over the sickness soon. The only annoying thing is that it's very contagious so the girls room is now in isolation which mainly means that nothing can leave the room and everyone has to really wash their hands when they come in, and we have to be gowned (and the nurses gloved and gowned) to work with Mckenna. It's the hospital policy. So I could handle that for a week or so but.... once a room goes into isolation, it's in isolation for the girls remainder of the stay. So, even when Mckenna gets better they still have to be very sanitary (more than normal) around her. The main reason I'm so annoyed about it is because she will probably not be able to co-bed in a crib with her sisters during her stay in the hospital. But I might keep on pushing and maybe I can get them to break down and let her be with her sisters at some point. I just think that she of all of them needs her sisters the most. Anyway, Kyle tells me to calm down and not worry. But I must be stubborn (as we've learned this week that Carly is) and I just want the best for my girls. She is still having her brain drained everyday and the liquid is always getting lighter and lighter in color and we're still waiting to see how it goes for future diagnosis. But besides all that, Mckenna is an amazing little girl. The nurses are always amazed at how relaxed she is when she has her brain drained. She is always happy, even with having the most problems. I know she is a tough little girl and maybe that's why she can handle all the hard stuff. They even said that when most babies get Cdiff they are quite cranky and she is all smiles and happy as a clam. She's going to be a great baby to take care of. Anyway, we love little Kenner Bug! She reached 3 pounds this week but dropped back to around 2 lbs. 14 oz. after the Cdiff so hopefully she catches back up with her sisters. Here's some pictures where it's no surprise that she is smiling and happy.

Mckenna 6 weeks old!

She opens her eyes really wide- she loves to really look around when she's awake.

Mckenna once again, smiling! I think she's sharing jokes with the angels.

Madison- Madison (and Carly) had some exciting things happen this week! Madison was so close to 1500 grams (at 1500 grams they let the babies be dressed and start to wean off incubator warmth and air) that they let us dress her! And they let you bring in clothes from home for them to wear. Pajamas are pretty much the only thing allowed because they need something on with snaps up the front so they can have all the monitor tubes coming out to the machines they are hooked up to without more work for the nurses. I thought that those dress sacks might work but we learned the hard way last not on Carly that it's only P.J.s from here on through the NICU. So we dressed Madison and she looked adorable. Here she is below in her first outfits.

Madison 6 weeks old!

Are you my mother?

So cute!

Full picture of the whole outfit- thanks Uncle Justin and Aunt Nicole!

She loves to look at people's faces- I think she will be quite social.

I'm glad we got some good pictures of Madison because she is so difficult to get a good picture of. It's like she knows when to make a bad face for the camera. She will be the one crying in all family pictures I'm sure. And she hates to be out of her swaddle. She gets cranky and then I can't get a good picture of her in her clothes! But some of the best pictures I have of her are close up and swaddled. I call her my little cherub because I think she looks like those cherubs (like Cupid is a cherub.... I think). She has a smaller head and face than her sisters. Yesterday she weighed 3 lbs. 1 oz.

Carly- Carly is still the leader in weight. Yesterday she was around 3 lbs. 8 oz. As you can see from the pictures below, Carly was also able to be dressed this week (she was dressed first and Madison a couple days later). Oh! And another great thing about them being dressed means that we don't have to do skin to skin and can swaddle them and hold them! (We still do skin to skin every other day because the girls love it so much) So its the first time they get to look at our faces because they can't quite see us really well through the incubators. It also means that other family members can hold her too. So their Grandma Morrell was in town this week and was able to hold Carly for the first time. I think Grandma was in heaven! (Just to throw in- when Madison was first swaddled and held she didn't have her eyes open when I pulled her out and so when she woke up and opened her eyes in my arms she made the funniest face. She kind of startled like she was so surprised! She made this funny "Oh my goodness, what a treat" face. Then she smiled and just stared for an hour. So funny.) When Kyle and I first held Carly she was all about concentrating on your face. When she concentrates she furrows her eyebrows and kind of looks mad but I think she is just thinking. She must be a deep thinker. Also, Carly and Madison are "hot babies" as the nurses say because they have had no problem weaning off the air in the incubators. One nurse said that Carly is so low on air in her incubator that she's almost moving on air conditioning in there. So hopefully they will both be moved to an open air crib (co-bedded) in the next week. They are all still in the "not breathing" and then being encouraged by nurses and us phases as talked about last week and their monitors are still dinging all over the place. It makes the nurses nuts, and me too sometimes. They will probably beep like this for the next few weeks and then hopefully die down and then we can start trying to move them off the oxygen. One last thing about Carly, we were able to give her a bath last night (as in a real bath in water, not the sponge bath) and she loved it! She was so happy, she was breathing really really well because they have to take her off monitors when they do that. And after the bath we put her back in her incubator and dressed her and she just zonked right out. She was really relaxed and was sleeping very deeply. I love baths... Anyway, here's some pictures below of the girls. Hopefully by next week we will have some pictures of Madison and Carly sleeping together!

Carly's first dressing- 6 weeks old! Look at her yawn, she's bored with the whole thing.

There's the concentrated, furrowed eyebrows look.

Bath time! Look at her death grip on her feeding tube.

Grandma Morrell holding Carly for the first time!

Another cute outfit from Uncle Justin and Aunt Nicole. And she's almost smiling in this one.

Carly's additional picture

2009-06-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Here's the picture that didn't make it on the last post. I like Blogger but there is definitely some things that I would improve on it. I would definitely have an undo button like you have on Word or wherever it is. Or I would have a way to paste a picture into your paragraphs where you wanted it not just only put at the top. It would be helpful for scatter-brains like me. If anyone knows a shortcut that I'm missing out on, please let me know. Anyways...

Carly at 5 weeks old with ring. She loves when Daddy holds her like this.

Five Weekers

2009-06-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been kind of a crazy week for the girls. The nurses explained to us that this is normal but they had kind of a not fun week. When they first went on the CPAPs and cannula they were rock stars and wouldn't drop their heart rates or oxygen levels and when they did it was only for a moment. This week I have learned how to revive my kids when they stop breathing! I know it sounds scary but don't worry--it's actually normal, as crazy as that sounds! It's just this stage of their prematurity. They are learning more and more how to breathe on their own (with assistance of cannula) and sometimes when they are "bearing down" either because they are uncomfortable, pooping, or getting reflux, they forget to breathe and have to be rubbed or helped along to remind them to breathe. They usually shoot a larger dose of oxygen up the nose and a lot of times that helps them to remember, oh yeah, I'm supposed to breathe! In a few weeks the nurses say they should be out of this phase and more automatically breathing on their own. It just hasn't been the best week because they have had a lot of "spells" when we are holding them so we have had to put them back in their incubators more than one time. But the week ended well yesterday as they were all angels and their beeps and alarms (that tell us that they were dropping, etc.) were pretty quiet. But.... even though it seemed like this week was a step backwards it did have steps forward too! For one, they are all on nasal cannulas now! So hopefully they behave and never have to go back on CPAPs. We'll see....

Mckenna: Mckenna probably had the worst week of the three. She was really lethargic at the beginning of the week and had tests run on a couple different routine things. They find out that her hemoglobins were low, and she had a urinary tract infection. Sooo.... she had another blood transfusion on Monday and they started her on antibiotics for the urinary tract infection. It's amazing what a little blood and drugs can do! By Saturday and Sunday she was doing much better. As you can see in some of the pictures when she was on the CPAP she also was retaining her liquids so she looks puffier than normal. She also had to stop her feeds for a few days because of all the fun stuff going on so her feeding is starting over again and she is only back up to 5-6 milliliters so far. Hopefully we can eventually get her to full feeds like the other two. Her brain stuff is doing pretty well though. They suck out about 10 mils of liquid from her brain everyday and it used to be a motor oil color (lots of old blood floating around) and now it is a light amber color. So hopefully it just keeps getting better and we just hope that she can eventually absorb her blood clots so that she doesn't have to have a shunt in her head the rest of her life. We'll just wait and see. Mckenna is also at 2 lbs. 11 1/2 ounces! So she is so close to 3 pounds! She is also a wiggler and a mover (enough that she moves a little too much and then can't gain weight). As you can see in the picture below, she will kick her legs and wiggle herself down into the bottom of her bed and have her legs hanging out of her swaddle. She does it about every half hour and it makes the nurses crazy because she won't stay in her tight swaddle.

Mckenna at 5 weeks with ring on left hand. As you can see, she has wiggled herself to the bottom of her bed once again!

Mckenna on one of the unfun days. She's holding Mommy's hand for support!

Funny picture I had to take. I opened up her cover over her incubator one day and she was just chillin' like this. Pretty cute!

Oh, one last thing with Mckenna.... I did get to hold her last night without a cannula attached. She was breathing on her own. I held her about an hour like that (and she was high sating which is really good) and she stayed off of it for an hour back in her bed before she pooped out and went back on the cannula. So she is really doing great respiratory-wise more than the others!

Madison: Besides the crazy up and down with breathing, nothing really new with Madison this week. Except she has the same wiggle problems! I think that Mckenna and Madison might be handfuls when they can crawl and walk. Madison was already trying to make her escape when we came in yesterday. In one of the pictures below you can see that she almost made it to one of the doors out of her incubator. I'm not sure where she was headed. Probably just ready to be done with the NICU! I'm just amazed that for such small babies they can get themselves out of the blankets around them and to the doors. And the nurses are watching them constantly so they wiggle out in a matter of minutes. Crazy wigglers. Madison is still on full feeds and is up to a really high calorie dosage to help her gain weight because she has the hardest time gaining. I think it's because she's always trying to make escapes out of her bed! Madison is still the smallest weight at around 2 lbs. 7 1/2 ounces.

Madison at 5 weeks old, I know the ring is not on her finger but I'm holding it in the picture. She also loves to hold Mommy and Daddy's fingers!

Here she is making her escape! Unfortunately, for her, the door is locked (fortunate for us).

Carly: Carly made a big milestone this week and reached 3 pounds! She also graduated to big girl diapers and is now in true Preemie diapers (not the micro-preemies like the other two are still wearing). As you can see in the picture below, they are still a little big on her. I think she looks a little Urkelish in them. You can tuck them under a little bit but Dad changed her diaper before this picture and didn't tuck them under. Carly, so far, is the most laid back of the three. She doesn't wiggle around and try and get out of her bed like the others. She's pretty content to just relax. And that's why she has gained the easiest. And she doesn't have to be swaddled as much as the other two. She is pretty happy go lucky. Yesterday she weighed 3 lbs. 1 1/2 ounces.

Yesterday, we were also able to give Carly a bath (sponge bath)! It was so fun and I think for the most part she liked it. When I was cleaning her mouth she kept on sticking out her tongue and wanted to lick the washcloth. Such a funny girl! This picture is Dad holding her after her bath. She smelled so yummy!

So, I lost one of the pictures of Carly so I will post a new post in a second here with it....

Madison- Take Two

2009-06-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

Here's another picture of Madison that I just took today. It looks better than the one posted yesterday. For some reason her picture looked a little scary yesterday but she is really super cute and I love her sweet cheeks! Today after Kangaroo Care all three girls were very alert and curious about what was going on around them. Mckenna even went cross eyed trying to check out the CPAP they were putting on her nose. And Carly couldn't look away from her Strawberry Shortcake blanket. Madison-- she just likes to look at you! So sweet! I don't know if you can tell in this but we like to tell ourselves that she looks like she is smiling.

We're 4 weeks old!

2009-06-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

The girls are 4 weeks old! I can't believe it's already been almost a whole month. Do I say that same sentence every week? I have got to learn to say something new! It has been such a fun week. The girl's Grandpa and Grandma Pendleton came this past weekend to see the girls. Not only that but all of the girl's Uncles (except Brad on the mission) from the Pendleton side and also one Aunt came to see the girls as well. Their cousin, Molly, also was here but she was too little (20 months old) to come back to their room in the NICU to see them.

It was nice to have my parents comment on how good they looked compared to last time they saw them. When I see them everyday I think they look the same but I guess from an outside observer, they are looking better! I do notice that they are starting to finally get little chunky cheeks and they are all starting to get fat on their butts! It's good to see just the smallest things like that. And little round full bellies.

There is not a lot of new updates on the girls (which is a good thing not to have too many issues). But here's a quick run down of the girls. Also, I noticed that I did their weight in grams but, honestly, who cares about grams? So I am recalculating to approximation of pounds and ounces. Also, I want to make sure that I record what their little personalities are starting to do for future. I know nobody reading this really cares it's just for me and Kyle and the girls.

Mckenna- Mckenna got her results back about the bladder/bowel fissure test and as of right now they can't see any connection! Such good news! That doesn't mean they might not see something down the road but for right now she is doing great! She started feeds up right after that and I believe last time I saw her she was at 8 mililiters of milk (they are all still fed through a feeding tube). She is still on the CPAP. They tried to move her to the cannula a few days ago but it wore her out too much so they will keep on trying. But she is still moved to the cannula for Kangaroo Care (holding) with us. As of today she is gaining weight at a crazy rate and was at 1180 grams or around 2 pounds 9 ounces. She has gained about 7 ounces or so in the last 3 days which is crazy to me. Hopefully she keeps on gaining well. Chances are she could plateau at this weight for a few days or week. Oh, she also is getting another blood transfusion today.

Personality- Observations of Mckenna are that she is such a little steady rock. She remains the most stable with her oxygen, respiration and heart rate levels. (It's pretty common at this stage for those levels to jump up and down a lot because of their prematurity. The less jumping around, the better...) I think she is pretty tough (heck, they're all pretty tough) but more so for Mckenna. She has been through a lot and has handled it so well without a lot of fits. She does love to be swaddled. She's a little bit of a wiggler and arm flailer and loves to be all tight in a blanket. She also loves to feel things with her hands. She has these ridiculously long skinny fingers and it always looks so funny when she feels new fabric laid in her incubator. I know she is going to love to touch different materials like her Mom!

Madison- There really isn't a lot of new news with Madison this week. She is eating about 23 mililiters right now. She hasn't been gaining weight as well as her sisters. She hasn't really lost weight, just not gained. But she has finally made it over the 1000 gram mark. Today she was 1040 grams which is about 2 pounds 4 ounces. She is also still on the CPAP and cannula for the holds only.

Personality- Madison is very verbal. She was easily the first one to cry (there cries are not that loud at this point- picture a baby kitty meowing, that's kind of what it sounds like) and cries very easily. She doesn't like a dirty diaper and makes sure to let the nurses know about it. She likes to remain clean so hopefully that remains when she is a 2 year old toddler. She might be the drama queen of the three but LOVES to be touched and held. I should say that all three love to be contained (have someone hold their arms and legs up around their body) and be touched softly which means they can be calmed down. Madison showed facial expressions first (scrunchy face when she doesn't like something). She also likes to be swaddled but especially has a funny need to always have something gripped in her hand. She is the one that I can give my finger to and she will grab it with a death grip.

Carly- Also not much to say with Carly this week. She has permanently moved from the CPAP to the cannula and is doing great on it. Hopefully her sisters can join her soon. She is eating around 23 mililiters as well. She is also gaining great and as of today was 1185 grams or 2 pounds 9 ounces.

Personality- At first everyone thought that Carly was the most dramatic but I've since thought that she is actually the most laid back. She loves to be held as well and completely relaxes more than the other two during holds. She seems to also be the calm one but is quite alert to sound or movement around her crib and opens her eyes the most when someone is around. She doesn't really like to hold hands that much and isn't as into swaddling. But she loves her pacifier! She sometimes will have it in her mouth and goes to town on it! Hopefully that means she will eat well also.

Well, I have written far too much but they are doing great and I think it's mainly due to all the prayers on their behalf. We actually got a picture of all of them the last two days with their eyes open so I had to put those in here. Madison looks a little goofy but I promise she is still super cute! We love them so much and can't wait for them to keep getting bigger!

Mckenna 4 weeks old

Madison 4 weeks old

Carly 4 weeks old

Three weeks old!

2009-06-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it has already been three weeks since the girls were born. It really just seems like one big day most of the time. Since the post a couple days ago there really isn't a whole lot to update on. The good news is that all three have been able to go on a cannula (oxygen bar with little prongs up the nose, what adults get for oxygen when they are coming off of anesthesia) for the holds (they call it Kangaroo Care) with us. The cannula is not as stable as the CPAP and they have to work hard to breathe on it where as the CPAP is easier for them and keeps their lungs pumped up better. But.... hopefully within the next week or so they will be moving to the cannulas permanently and then after that no tubes needed! But I am getting way ahead of myself. They need to all easily weigh over 1000 grams (I think that's 2 lbs. 2-3 oz.?) and gaining before they can be on cannulas. As the doctors and nurses say it's all about hurry up and wait (mainly for them to gain weight). We took the three pictures of the girls below without the big ugly blue tube CPAP on and with the cannulas on. You can see their whole faces!

Updates on each girl:

Mckenna- She is doing very well and keeping right up with her sisters with oxygen and going from the CPAP to cannula for holds. I was worried she would lag way behind with the brain surgery last week but she is (as the nurses say) steady as a little rock. She even gained over an ounce today from yesterday! They are all sitting at about the weight they were born at so I can't wait for them to start to really gain weight. Mckenna also had the test done today to see if her bladder and bowels have a fissure between them. Still don't have the results for that but I will update later on that. Besides that, nothing really new. She weighed around 960 grams today.

Madison- Madison eats and bowel movements like a champion. She is eating 15 mililiters every 3 hours and also gets some fortified stuff put in with the milk for extra calories. Hopefully that will help her really start to gain. It's a race between her and Carly for who will be the first on the cannula. She weighed around 950 grams today.

Carly- About the same as Madison. She is eating really well and is around 15 mililiters every 3 hours also (she will be able to go up to 20 mililiters every 3 hours because she weighs more). She weighed around 1030 grams today and even though that means she is cleared for the cannula, she hasn't steadily gained weight everyday, she's still fluctuating too much.

Anyway, pictures below and an extra one of Madison cuddling with Dad and mainly I wanted to put this picture in since you can really see most of her body and how small they all really are.

Mckenna at 3 weeks

Madison at 3 weeks- kinda bad picture, she really doesn't look that scary!

Carly at 3 weeks- also pulling a funny face, where's the congeniality ladies?

Kyle and Madison- look how sweet with her little hand!

Cuddle Time- Take Two!

2009-05-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Mckenna went off the ventilator onto the CPAP today as well so we were able to hold her today! Kyle hogged her while I held Madison and then I held Carly after Kyle went back to work. It's, by far, the best part of our day. And even preemies smell fantastic! With all this great news I hope there is still something to post about on their 3 week birthday....

Mckenna getting some Daddy time!

Cuddle Time!

2009-05-28T19:48:00.000-07:00

Well, the girls are not quite three weeks old yet (2 1/2 weeks) but this week has already been filled with some great big steps and one setback. The big steps forward are that Madison and Carly have moved from their ventilators onto CPAPs (oxygen tube on the nose) and because they are handling breathing on their own (with a little assistance from the oxygen tube) we get to hold them! So today I held Carly and Kyle held Madison. I can't think of anything much better than that! I had a perma grin the whole time I was able to hold Carly. They call it Kangeroo care and you have skin to skin contact to help bond with them. It also really helps them to feel and smell their parents. Carly was very happy and just slept deeply during the time I held her. Madison wasn't super excited and a little upset when they first took her out of her incubater, but as soon as she was up against Kyle's chest, she calmed right down and also slept deeply. We knew they were going to feel small and light as a feather but I didn't realize how much until we really held them. Hopefully from now on we should be able to hold them everyday or at least every other day. I does take at least a minimum of 1 hour because of how long it takes to move all their millions of cords and oxygen machine, etc. around to the recliner you sit in. Unfortunately, we aren't able to hold Mckenna yet since she is still on the ventilator but we are hoping in the next couple days she will move to the CPAP and then we can hold her as well.

The other piece of news for the week is that Mckenna's blood pressure started going up a couple of days ago and they didn't know what was causing it so they did a bunch of tests and blood draws and found that her liquid in her brain was starting to fill up and put pressure on her brain. The only option was for her to undergo surgery where they put a small tube into her ventricles where the liquid sits to help drain out and take pressure off the brain so there won't be more serious trauma to the brain. The neuro-surgeon that performed the surgery has had a lot of success with the procedure so we trusted it was the best thing for her. The surgery went well and they will continue over the months to drain the liquid until the blood clots are absorbed by the body. Chances are very high that she will always have to have a drain in her brain that will run down to her stomach and drain there when she gets a little bit older and can handle a larger drain (or shunt). We just hope that this continues to help her. Her blood pressure did go back down after the operation and she is still moving forward to come off the ventilator which is still very amazing. I think she is a pretty strong little girl with everything she has gone through and we just keeping on hoping for the best for her.

Just wanted to share the news since a lot has happened in the last couple days!

Carly and Sunny cuddling!

Madison and Kyle cuddling!

Sweet little Mckenna expressing her frustration about not being held yet