Don't step in it

As H's mom says, "It tastes good, but you wouldn't want to step in it." My sister and I have tried numerous times to replicate our Granmother's burnt caramel cake. We've tried it together and we tried it separately, always heavily deliberating afterward to see how we can improve the frosting next time. I decided to try again since my dad and Linda were coming to visit. This cake was my best effort yet, still not Granhaysel's, but the closest I've come. I clearly didn't get the caramel onto the cake fast enough, but it still tasted okay.

"Happy brithday, Grandpa."
Grandpa and NanaLin came for a visit this week. They kept the babies one day while I went to the big city. It is always nice for the babies to spend time with others because they learn new things. The babies learned how to get off the ottoman by themselves and how to push themselves on their riding toys. It is a long drive for NanaLin and Grandpa to come see us, and we are always happy when they make the trip. Next time we are going to see them (help!--ten hours!).

"The frog and the sheep are talking to one another."
"Push the sheep's mouth to get him to talk."
"Let me try."
"Give the sheep a kiss."
"Hello, this is Lucia, may I help you?"
"Where's NanaLin? There she is."

New Happenings

We have a few new things going on around these parts. The babies now will go get an item. For example, I can say "Elliott, go get that ball," and he will go get it and bring it to me. They have each done this several times.
When the babies were little I would sing the alphabet song to them and sign the alphabet. It always would soothe them and hold their attention. I have started back doing this again, this time, however, the babies are now moving their hands as if they are signing the alphabet too. Of course they aren't signing the letters, but it is fun to watch them try. They enjoy doing it.
We have a large ottoman in our family room where we change the babies' diapers and dress them. When we got the ottoman (at a yard sale for $25) a few months ago, Mama Bee started the "safe escape." After we finish with the babies, we roll them onto their stomach and slide them down the side of the ottoman until their feet hit the floor. Safe escape! Grandpa and NanaLin have been here this week and have taught (or let) the babies now do this on their own. When they finish changing a diaper, the babies roll over and slide down themselves. They look so grown doing this.
The pictures are of another diaper hat session we had a few days ago.

Mine

I typed the second half of this post and then about an hour later Lucia and Elliott had an altercation over this orange towel. So, these first photos illustrate the possessiveness going on in our house right now that I write about below. Here Lucia and Elliott are fighting over a dirty, wet dish towel that one of them pulled off the back of a chair. They are dragging one another around the room and playing tug of war with it. They both want the towel for themselves; they both end up crying over the wet towel because I took it away.





This is a pizza box that they fought over a night a while back.
The amount of "interaction" among the babies has been building for months now. While the biting has gotten better, they are now into pulling hair. It is usually the girls who do the hair pulling. Elliott likes to get in their space, walking by and knocking into one of them with his shoulder. We have even seen him lunge at Mazie and bite the air as if he were reaching out to bite her, though he was five feet from her. She still cried.
We are only saying a few words right now. To be honest, I am amazed that mine is not one of them. They are big into stealing toys. Elliott is the worst offender. He wants whatever one of his sisters has. Sometimes we let them work it out, but if the offense is egregious we will step in and referee. We have found that their favorite toys to steal are not what you might expect.
Usually the toys they love to steal are small and very portable, perhaps so they can swoop in, grab, and take off. Their favorites that I show here all have some sort of sensory attraction. The pink duck lights up when you touch it. The yellow smiley face ball makes a jangle sound. The clear ball has a little top in it that spins when the ball rolls. They Love this one. They also will sometimes fight over cardboard, like the pizza box or prune box. They like putting those in their mouths. I imagine they also like the way the pizza box smells.
We are using the sign for share with them to reinforce the word. One other thing I have done a few times is to let one complete a task and then let the other baby sitting there get a turn. We got some really fun "lift the flap" books for our birthday (thanks Landon). The babies love to read these. I have found these books work really well with taking turns because with each page the next baby can lift the flap. The reading goes pretty quickly so they don't get too frustrated waiting for their turn, but I do have an opportunity to direct them to wait their turn sometimes.
I am sure we will be working on sharing for many years to come. "No, Elliott, you can't take Mazie's Camero out without asking her" and "Mazie, you have to ask Lucia if you can wear her skirt on your date tonight".
We hope you have a great day and that someone shares some love with you this weekend.

Parade

Today was the homecoming parade in our little town. I took the babies up to where H works and we watched the band, team, and floats march through town. The babies loved all the activity and getting to run around on the porch. It was a cloudy and chilly day so we got to wear jackets. Autumn is definitely here. We hope you enjoy the snapshots from our afternoon.
They also liked watching all the big trucks go by.
Donna is introducing Lucia to the scarecrows.
Karen and Elliott watch the parade.
Donna helping Mazie give all the scarecrows kisses.
Being friendly with the scarecrow people (can you tell the girls really loved them?).
Lucia pushing the bus around.
Elliott waiting for the parade to start.
Mazie keeping her ears warm.

Baskets & Boots

I have shared a few photos of Elliott lately, so I thought I'd share some of Lucia and Mazie.

The babies really like cubbies and crannies. Mazie loves her corners. Elliott loves to get behind the books under the library table. Recently Lucia has claimed one of the toy baskets as her favorite spot. One morning she spent 45 minutes sitting in the basket playing with the toys in it.
As you can see in the last photo of her, she does not like sharing her space.

Mazie is sporting her Mama Bee's boots here. One boot probably weighs as much as she does, but she has enough personality to fill the boots beautifully.

First Night

Saturday night H and I spent a night away from the babies. While she has had to spend a few nights away before, this was my first night away from them. She and I went to the big city, got a hotel room, ordered supper in, ordered a movie, and did absolutely nothing. It was wonderful. We ate hamburgers and Caesar salad and chocolate molten cake and watched 27 Dresses. We looked out our window at the water. Saturday during the afternoon, we went antiquing, something we did a lot before babies. Sunday we walked to brunch before checking out of the hotel. The only negative of our experience was that neither of us slept very well. But, overall, it was a very enjoyable time.


H's mom stayed with the babies Saturday night. Our friends Tiffany and Clay and then Karen also took shifts. When we got home about five o'clock Sunday afternoon we were shocked and amazed to find that the babes had done just fine without us. Hhmmm, maybe we'll have to go away again sometime.

Twelve Month Check-up

Yesterday we took the babies to a new pediatrician. We loved our first pediatrician and I was sad to change. I liked the idea of having one pediatrician from birth to...whenever children stop seeing pediatricians. But, our first pediatrician went to working a half day a week and we were having some scheduling problems (like not being able to see her for our twelve month check-up until the babies were almost fourteen months), so we switched.

The babies had their twelve month shots and check-up yesterday at thirteen and a half months old, and just a few days shy of the first anniversary of their full term due date.

We liked our new doctor and her nurse. Our doctor made us feel good about where the babies are developmentally and about their diet. She did suggest we make a few changes. One, which H has been suggesting for a while now, is to switch from bottles to sippee cups. The more teeth the babies get, the more the nipples can mess with their teeth. Also, I am feeding them Way too much milk. They need to be getting more of their calories from food. The babies each get about 30 ounces of milk a day, Elliott a little more, Mazie a little less. She said they need to be consuming 16-24 ounces a day. We will make both these changes slowly. Since they are no longer taking formula we are going to put them on vitamins.

Here are their measurements and percentiles:
The percentiles are for full-term babies.
Lucia:
Weight--19#11oz (25%)
Height--29 1/2 in (50%)
Head Circumference--47 1/2 cm (90%)

Elliott:
Weight--21#14oz (25%)
Height--30 1/2 in (50%)
Head Circumference--48 1/2 cm (90%)

Mazie:
Weight--16#13oz (<5%)
Height--28 1/2 in (25%)
Head Circumference--47 cm (90%)

H and I are a little concerned about Mazie's weight. She is just so small still. She still mostly wears 3-6 month clothing. The doctor just said she has not done the catching up that the other two have done. When I looked online at a growth chart for premature babies, it said she was at about 10% for weight. (Lucia was just under 50% and Elliott was just over 50% for weight on the premature baby growth chart I looked up.)

One other issue is that our first pediatrician did not approve us for a second season of Synergis shots. We are working on at least getting Mazie approved for a second season. We feel like the babies did so well last winter with not getting very sick and we hope this coming winter goes as well. We will see what happens.

Due to the shots, today we are having a feverish and fussy day. I think I am going to take the babies to a town thirty minutes from us and pick up some dry cleaning in order to get us out of the house a little more today. I thought a ride might be relaxing for them.

The photo is of Elliott playing the piano in the middle of a diaper change.

A Great Weekend

Our good friend Seth came for a visit this weekend, and he brought along his mamas. We had a wonderful time with our friends. Living away from Summer and Rachael makes us sad. We love to be around them and the terrific son they are raising. Seth is just under three months older than our babes. (He was almost born on my birthday.) The four children got along well. We had only a few hair-pulling incidents--Lucia was quite taken with Seth's abundance of hair. Since we don't get to be together enough now, our time with them feels very concentrated and rich. Thank y'all for making the trek down to see us. Hopefully we can all be together again soon.

Here are some highlights from our weekend together.

The babies enjoyed several meals together. (Seth wore the same bib all weekend. My little triplet-overloaded brain cannot even fathom that.)
Since we had an adult for each child, we decided to walk over to the barn one afternoon. It took quite a long time but was very enjoyable.

Seth and Summer.
H and Mazie.
Lucia, making her way.
Seth, on the move.
Elliott, enjoying the flowers.
Mazie, trying to crawl into the horse pasture.
Seth and Rachael looking in on the horses.
Lucia with her favorite snack--grass.
We had quite a lot of rock eating, or at least attempted rock eating. I was never able to snap a picture of Seth with a rock. He is more mature than our babies. While our babes try to eat the rocks, Seth has advanced to just licking the rocks and putting them back down.


We spent a little time with the goats.



Mazie, starting to tire out, got a ride back to the house.
Here we all are barely making it back by dark.
One of Seth's many talents is growing hair. He is very good at it. Summer employed Holly's expertise willingness to cut Seth's hair. She and Seth did a good job, though it did take quite a bit of Nilla Wafers to get through the event.