Birthday weekend was SO busy! In fact, I feel tired trying to remember all the things to complete a blog on it. I enjoyed all the festivities occurring over a weekend and allowing the girls to stay entertained with all kinds of activities centered around the celebration of their wild entrance into the world. How has it been FOUR years already?! How has it been four years since that wild c-section delivery and four years since Craig and I had a decent night’s sleep?! I don’t even know.

The weekend began with a daddy/daughter dance on Friday night. Grandma Sue arrived at the airport in mid-afternoon and daycare pickup was completed a little earlier than normal, ensuring enough time to “get fancy” and for the girls to get a few grandma snuggles and chats in. Everyone picked out a tutu dress from the closet and tights with barely worn ballet flats (I forgot about them!). They rarely wear any type of shoe that isn’t boots or tennis shoes, since we live in Alaska after all, and were thrilled to wear new accessories to both the dance and just at home throughout the evenings. Since spring is not yet upon us, they continue to ask why the new apparel isn’t worthy for outside in the snow and slush and are constantly asking about it.

Overall I’d say the evening was a success. Craig noted everyone was a bit wild (sounds about right) and danced together but overall had a good time. Grandma spent the free ninety-minutes making cupcakes while I melted icing and produced white, pink, purple and teal snowflake decorations and prepped goody bags. The girls returned home tired but enthusiastic for their new balloons and evening with Dad. All the special ladies received flower, light up hair crowns and Craig managed to get some cute photos of their adventure with Dad, Shiloh and his two girls.

Saturday was a busy day prepping birthday festivities and scooting the ladies out of the house for a little while to open up the living room for a big pre-birthday surprise in the afternoon. Papa Cliff’s fun present this year meant an in-person visit from two of their favorite princesses. Can you guess which two?!

If you guessed Frozen’s Elsa (okay that’s fair- she’s actually a queen) and Sleeping Beauty’s Aurora, then you are correct! I definitely went back and forth a few times on which two would win the contest, and after multiple kiddo inquiries, received the most responses for those two.

We shut all the front curtains and herded the kids and a couple friends downstairs to prepare for “the surprise.” As the visitors walked up the stairs and rang the doorbell, I pushed the three to answer the door, which was met by total silence and surprise to see two of their favorite characters on the porch. The first words uttered were my legs are cold, followed by a snappy Queen Elsa response of sorry, that is probably me!

The feelings of awe helped the girls behave a bit better than the normal wild activity of early afternoon. Aurora read everyone a story about all the Disney princesses and sang a song while all the kiddos excitedly watched from the couch. They were definitely too celebrity struck to sing along and just watched with wide eyes. Emerie volunteered that Let It Go is her favorite song and Elsa showed everyone some dance moves to it- everyone definitely hummed along to that one! A quick game of animal charades was played and all participated, which was very cute. The hour sped by and ended with a photo op,small gift bags for the birthday girls, and of course, hugs for everyone. All in all, it was quite the magical experience for the birthday girls!

After such a busy day we opted to go out to dinner with Grandma Sue and Papa Cliff and ended up at Red Robin, one of the girls’ favorite spots (and their mother’s- because who doesn’t enjoy bottomless french fries!). Everyone was quite chill munching on and dipping their fries and let the adults actually eat warm food. At the end of the meal the serving staff sang Happy Birthday and announced a triplet birthday to the entire restaurant. This same experience happened as they turned three; that time everyone ducked into parents and hid from the noise- this year Reagan and Emerie hesitantly smiled at the chaos while Harper grinned cheek to cheek and danced in her chair to the music.

Sunday morning was spent finishing party prepping and decorating the cake while the girls had intermittent meltdowns and were whisked off to the jump park with Craig so we could finish things up. You’d think the grumpiness would be to a minimum on their birthday, especially given the fact that Craig made fancy pink and blue-ish colored crepes filled with whipped cream and sausage. Hard to resist such a delicious breakfast! Overall Harper had a great day and was not only in a good mood, she wasn’t whining or melting down like her womb mates. Reagan and Emerie both needed a nap by party time, but of course we powered on through and they did pretty well.

Cake preparation was quite the team effort and spanned the whole weekend- Grandma Sue baked the cupcakes and made the frosting, the girls organized them into the planned dress design, Megan strategically added said frosting into bags and decorated each cupcake, then I added the dress’s belt, necklace, ruffles and snowflakes for the finishing touch. Most importantly, Craig kept the kids from destroying the masterpiece and entertained everyone while we completed brought the masterpiece to life.

Ironically we did not consider attaching all the cupcakes onto the board base and now know better for the future. Car turns and unsecured cupcakes, however gorgeous, don’t mix very well…just ask Grandma Sue’s coat! Luckily disaster was averted enough to shove everything back together at the party…and they still tasted great!

The party, which was unsurprisingly Frozen themed, was a total success. Turnout of family and friends was great and for a few minutes, I forgot we are still stuck in a worldwide pandemic. You don’t even know the stress of hoping and praying everyone stayed healthy for their birthday weekend; I’m so glad it all worked out! It was great to see so many friendly faces and the kids were thrilled at their small guest list of friends. The kiddos (and a few dads) immediately vanished into the play center, ball pit and slide. So, allegedly, did an adult knife off a belt…but fear not! Crisis was averted when the missing knife was discovered in the car and not the play center, and said knife holder (ahem Russ…) was grounded….hahah kidding.

After depletion of most of the fruits, veggies and other delicious snack food, we gathered everyone together to devour the cake and then sugar everyone up further with a Frozen themed pinata. I always enjoy watching the littles take a bat to a pinata, questioning if they are really allowed to hit it hard. Harper, Emerie and Reagan all laughed throughout their turn and I assume all the adults enjoyed watching a couple of the boys hit it HARD (Arrow and his pre-school muscles…am I right?! and Kaden of course- since he was sharing HIS bat for this event!).

The rest of the night consisted of opening presents and very tired adults and children. It was a good weekend, but also very exhausting and I still need another nap from it. Favorite birthday presents from family this year included fancy princess nightgowns from Grandma Anne, which everyone wants to wear to school, new princess costumes from Grandma Sue and Papa Lon (Reagan loves the Merida, Emerie another style of Elsa dress, and Harper a non-specific pink princess robe) and a few other small things here and there. If I’m being honest, we haven’t actually opened all our presents yet- a few are still sitting on the shelf, awaiting attention, but you can see the theme of princess and dress up is very strong in our house this year.

I cannot believe we’ve made it four years as triplet parents- some days I still find myself surprised that I am a parent, let alone one of three kiddos or almost school aged ones! Another blog will follow after this one with an update on everyone’s personalities, temperaments, and general variants throughout age three, since they are all their own persons, and it will note all the major milestones our household lived through this past yaer. If I had to choose a favorite moment from the three-nager stage (since that’s much harder to do than choosing disliked things for age three), I would say my favorite adventure was our family fishing trip last summer and my favorite change for this age is the ability to do more things now that they are older and can take better direction. And I will end with a photo of me and my girls, since I managed to get no photos of myself from this weekend.

Happy fourth birthday, Harper, Emerie and Reagan!! ❤