Mar 25

Triple the Trouble

As we round up to age three, the girls all know their colors, numbers up to about fifteen, most of their shapes and a TON of vocabulary. Life skills include mostly dressing themselves, running away given the opportunity, potty training pros, teeth brushing, baking, tower construction, coloring and drawing, and so much more!

But just because the girls were born together, look similar and hit most of their milestones together does not mean they are always the same. In fact, it continues to get easier to answer some of the differences between them as they grow and learn new things. Here are a few for the current stage of toddlerhood as we round up to age THREE!

Popcorn is prepared in the same pot, in the same heat, in the same oil and yet…the kernels do not POP at the same time. Don’t compare your child to others. Their turn to pop is coming!
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Harper Anne – the strong willed one

Height: 39” (90% in height)

Weight: 32.2 pounds! (66% in weight)

Harper is all about her pink color and anything princess related. I’m unsure which Disney princess is her favorite, as she will randomly ask for Cinderella (and Gus Gus the mouse), Mulan, Snow White, Pan (Rapunzel), Ana and Elsa. She also loves to color everything black and always requests the black marker when given a choice. In fact, this little girl will color an entire page, making sure to fill up the color every where; if black isn’t available she opts for brown or pink. I’m sure this is just a phase! She dislikes water the most of the three and is very nervous going around the floating river at H2Oasis; she will not do it unless she has a tight grownup safety net the entire way around.

Harper is the hugger of the group and the only one that will really voluntarily give one to a sibling! She is also very expressive about her feelings and will tell you when she likes/dislikes something, or when she wants to love on it. I want to kiss it is a common term that applies to a variety of things such as the trash man, the forklift driver at Costco, and Daddy’s four wheeler. She is a cuddler and most nights will snuggle up with me and watch a show before we go up to bed. That is worth noting because as an infant she resisted cuddling the most of the three!

We shifted “top diva status” in the past year, with Harper taking the title as we round out age two. This is likely because she’s a girl that knows what she wants (and doesn’t want!) and has no qualms about throwing a full out, pouty tantrum over it. Her grumpy face is adorable in my opinion, which is surely not her intent when giving it to me, and her strong willed attitude combined with the face is one for the memory books. She also provides the entertainment of a silent tantrum and will lay face down on the floor and wait for you to react. It’s hilarious!

Favorite word/phrase: I love it, I kiss it, I hug it (about everything!) and I tired! when she’s not happy about something.

Favorite food: Harper enjoys meat more than the other two, liked plain chicken, bacon and, of course, hot dogs! She also LOVES black olives and would eat an entire can if given the opportunity.

Favorite book: Llama Llama Nighty Night (referred to as the “Potty Book”); she can quote the whole board book by memory now but will only do it when she feels like it.

Favorite song: Cocomelon’s Itsy Bitsy Spider and Shake It Off is making a comeback. She’s also on a Little Bunny Fufu kick.

Favorite show/movie: A few months ago I would have said Wreck It Ralph replaced “Pan!” in her heart but more recently she is on a big Cocomelon, Netflix’s Leap (ballalina movie as she calls it), Cinderella and Mulan kick. She is also anti-Moana and doesn’t want to watch it.

Favorite toy: her dolls and all things princess related. She enjoys playing with the American Girls dolls and towing her favorite one around. She’s also on a Cinderella kick and really likes Gus Gus the mouse (and received a stuffed one for her birthday!)

Favorite activity: coloring or watching a show. She favors black and brown and will take the time to color the enjoy paper or ornament before she’s done; she’s also the most willing to sit and watch TV, much more than her siblings. She also loves to play pretend napping, with her dolls and sisters using blankets and pillows on the floor.

Hand dominance: right hand

Dislikes: sleeping by herself, some sweets and being cold

Favored Parent: she’s a Momma’s girl for sure!!

Emerie Faye – the helper

Height: 38.2” (76% in height)

Weight: still hovering around 30 pounds (37% in weight)

Our little Baby B has turned into quite the sweet little girl. Emerie is such a helper and very willing to share with her sisters (when asked and even on her own accord) as well as clean up toys and get dressed on her own. She loves playing with blocks and building things, her purple monkey (seemingly named “Monk”) and her cabbage patch doll Sadi and loves to play pretend with them. Her towers continue to grow in height and she insists she doesn’t need help on them.

Emerie is a complete water baby and would live in the bathtub if allowed. She often gets an attitude because she doesn’t want to share her water from the spout and will fight for it at all costs! One of her favorite things is floating the wavy river at H2Oasis, near an adult but freely by herself in the water!

Patching the past six months has greatly improved; now that she is older and better understands rewards and obedience, we are able to get more time each day than when she was younger. I find that she’s a little more timid when we go places wearing it, but for the most part will still run, climb and slide at the playground. Instead of pulling it off immediately, she will ask when it’s time to remove it and wait until we say yes, which is SO helpful. The past few weeks the patch’s new home seems to be on Grandma Sue’s leggings, while she is wearing them no less, after she takes it off herself. Silly girl.

Emerie loves to read the entire Llama Llama Nighty Night book from memory; she loops one of the pages twice and it’s very endearing. She can recite her own name as well as both her parents, Grandma Sue, Papa Cliff and Uncle Will and Aunt Manda. She likes to remind her sisters not to run in the parking lot and is the only one of the three we don’t have to worry about darting out in front of a car.

Favorite word/phrase: I do it myself! and I want to sit in the middle! of the car, where she is definitely the best behaved.

Favorite food: she always downs her berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc.) and as many pickles as available. And does snow count as a food? Because she is always eating that too.

Favorite book: she seems to favor the That’s Not My Llama book and most other Llama Llama series books. She randomly likes to read “Tyler book” from Christmas.

Favorite song: Jesus Loves Me or Dave and Ava’s Lola the Cow

Favorite show/movie: Pan (Tangled) and Cocomelon

Favorite toy: it used to be her tiny monkey but lately monkey is getting a little less love while she plays with “my purple sloth” and stuffed Olaf. She enjoys building with the magna-blocks and making towers all by herself or adding a handful of Little People into them.

Favorite activity: building towers, reading books one-on-one with you and wrapping up her Cabbage Patch doll Sadi and carrying her around.

Hand dominance: right hand but sometimes left

Dislikes: she will plug her ears at loud noises and her patch. She’s also in a kick right now where she doesn’t want to feed herself and wants someone to scoop up the food for her.

Favored parent: she plays pretty evenly between both of us

Reagan Jean – the comforter

Height: 39” (90% in height)

Weight: 32.6 pounds (70% in weight)

Miss Reagan still appears to be the tomboy of three and I’m interested to see how that plays out. She isn’t a huge fan of dress up, other than the occasionally sparkly tutu, and really likes to “drive” the four wheeler with Daddy. She plays with her cars and construction equipment the most and went through a phase of always ensuring one was in her coat pocket. She LOVES play dough and can sit at the table for an hour making shapes. Her coloring masterpieces are getting fancier by the week and several are hanging on the fridge once she agrees they are finished. Reagan loves playing at the water park; or, you know, running away from you there. She is also a girl after her Dad and Grandma Sue’s heart and loves any and all sweets.

Reagan expects you to focus if she is speaking to you and after a year will still hold your face in her hands and speak nose to nose. She concentrates when explaining a story and thinks out what she wants to say. She has mastered the art of getting dressed and will put on pants, socks and shirts without needing much help. If the pants have back pockets she will put them on backwards so she can use them- how well thought out is that! Toward the end of every evening, becoming tired equals a burst of energy and she often wants to climb all over everything (us) and irritate her sisters as they are calming down for the night. In general it takes her the longest to fall asleep in her bed (or at least to settle) at naps and bedtime.

Reagan continues to be the spontaneous singer and dancer and will often break into both when it suits her mood. The maternal instinct is growing for Rher too, as she now babies her stuffed animals. You will find her walking around the living room with a teddy bear wrapped in a blanket, whispering loving words to it and shushing her sisters because it’s trying to go to sleep! She will tell you baby is tired or baby doesn’t feel good and console it; her new baby doll with matching binkie is quite the hit. She will also bring toys to her sisters when they are upset and pat them on the head when she has to apologize.

Favorite word: why! But it doesn’t sound like why, more like wwwhhhyyyyyyyy….? and daddy fix it.

Favorite food: she is the biggest sweet tooth of the three but also likes lettuce, celery and bananas! She also loves Craig’s sweet pancakes and will eat several of them in one sitting and inhale the neighbor’s homemade lumpia!

Favorite book: the kid Bible and bedtime llama llama books. She loves to recite them for you.

Favorite song: she likes Cocomelon nursery rhymes and sings the ABCs a lot. She is definitely quite the little singer and breaks out into song quite often

Favorite show/movie: Tangled, Cocomelon and Leap

Favorite toy: she favors playing with cars and little people and always has one handy in her pocket; she really likes Daddy’s four-wheeler and her musical “cell-phone”

Favorite activity: play dough, paint and coloring – she is always asking to color, use markers, or paint something. She also really likes to decorate cookies and pretend cook her cake and cupcakes.

Hand dominance: right hand

Dislikes: being told no, having a voice raised in her direction, tags on any of her clothing and dress up

Favored Parent: she’s a Daddy’s girl all the way

So how are they different?

A perfect example of how different they all are- look at their magnetic block creations! Reagan really likes to make flat, 2D puzzles and strategically choose which color goes where. Harper generally makes a big stack and then runs off with them or demands more help from an adult. Emerie will start with one 3D square and collect little people to add to her castle as she expands it across the table or up to the sky. At some point, if no one destroys the creations, they usually end up all connected in some way or in a huge pile on the floor.

When we first overcame the fear of the loud four wheeler, everyone fought over sitting on Daddy’s lap for an excursion around the neighborhood. Now Emerie prefers sitting backwards on the sled and look at me while Harper and Reagan both like to “drive.” Harper discovered it’s fun to sit on an adults lap on the back of the actual four wheeler and look out too.

Everyone responds a bit differently to discipline. Reagan will straighten up with a stern voice in her direction much more than the other two will, Harper often needs a time out to miss the current activity, and Emerie responds to a combination of time-out and spanking, although she ends up with both a lot less often than her sisters. All three respond really well to positive praise and a reward system.

But not everything is different- of course there are also similarities to raising three of the same age at the same time. Everyone likes to sit in the middle car seat and fight over it, with Emerie the best behaved of the three during rides around town. Favored activities include the trampoline park, sledding, playgrounds, neighborhood walks, swinging (yes it needs its own category), baking, play dough, arts and crafts, anything with buckets and scoopers and pretend play. Everyone loves to play in the bathtub and make a huge mess on the bathroom floor. They all LOVE trash truck and snowplow visits, seeing forklifts at the store and helping hold things in a shopping cart. Moose sightings are a huge deal and worth talking about for days. Everyone loves their designated colors and fully believes they should never have to share something that is “their” color, including silverware and dishware, clothing and any type of toy/stuff animal that is pink/purple/teal. All three love to FaceTime with family and hold the phone themselves, hogging it as much as the parents will allow and running off with it to hide.

When asked what they wanted for dinner on their birthday, the overwhelming response from all three was cake!! In future years I plan to let each kiddo choose dinner one night over the course of the birthday week, but for now how can I refuse such an excited response! For the record, they didn’t each as much cake as you would have expected them to over birthday week! They did, however, pick the icing and berries off said cake.

Since you all know how smoothly the actually birthday went…we managed to finish prepping for a jump park birthday party last Sunday and it was pretty much a twin-fest up in the park for the morning. Later that night we attended our rescheduled dinner to Red Robin. The waiter and crew sang happy birthday Red Robin style and Harper, being a mini Becca, was super embarrassed, turned red and stuck her tongue out at everyone while Emerie and Reagan smiled and watched the charade with amusement. Everyone enjoyed the ice cream sundae and sprinkles.

We continue to open random presents we’ve forgotten about and it has really become a birthday week. I still can’t believe we are now in age three!!

❤

Mar 19

Age 2 Family Favorites

Everyone that knows me knows I am a fan of taking pictures of everything. This “problem” has grown exponentially since having children and more and more I’m trying to resist the effort to snap a photo versus being in the moment and enjoying it. All these photos do pay off at the end of each year when I can look over the fun adventures and challenges we’ve faced as a family, as a parent, as a society; and recognize the happy and fun parts in the midst of a very interesting age two.

Here are my favorite family snapshots from March 2020 through March 2021:

The Anchorage Zoo is always a fun stop; I’m unsure if I prefer it in the summer or winter more! The summer time brings warmth and less gear to drag around, but the snow makes the experience so gorgeous on a sunny day and allows us to go without a stroller (in other words, they can’t outrun us in their snow gear!).

Best friend play dates occurred so much over this year and I owe Aunt Janelle a ton of credit for keeping me sane throughout the chaos of 2020. This is one of the few photos I have of everyone a good sport at the same time!

Grandma Sue was here for the 4th of July this year, where we went to the wildlife preserve and made a few exploration stops along the Seward Highway. It was a beautiful day to see live bears and moose and check out the mountain views. Grandma rode in the back seat and entertained the tiny minions on the drive down and back and they loved it.

I didn’t realize until looking back how very tan our household was from spending every day outside for the whole summer. The girls loved playing on the back play sets, “riding” their tricycles on the back deck and sporting swimming suits through the sprinkler pad and small pool. Maybe this summer they’ll stop yelling about the cold water! and allow us to stop dragging hot water buckets out to fill the pool.

Fun morning adventure out to the local sand dunes. Easy trek to it with three littles and a beautiful, cool but sunny day. The girls enjoyed walking in the sand without their shoes and exploring up the big hill.

Yay for neighborhood walks all spring, summer and fall. We are blessed to live in a neighborhood with multiple playgrounds, a gravel walking trail and a creek! It has gotten us through many grumpy baby days and allowed us to get some fresh air, sanity and a lot of mosquito bites.

Can’t complete a summer in Alaska without a trip to the Sealife Center. For our first, big roadtrip, it went really well! The girls loved the park along the water more than anything else other than maybe touching the starfish in the aquarium and the silly seal outside. They napped the whole way home and it was quite the fun (and tiring!) day.

This is one of my favorite photos from the whole year, the day the girls went berry picking up in Arctic Valley for the first time. We went a bit late and missed most of the wild blueberries, opting to pick a good amount of moss berries while the girls looked for any left over blueberries to eat. It was such a fun day and I can’t wait to go in 2021!

Random visits from Cousin Tyler are adored by the littles and you should see them fight over the phone for a moment to FaceTime with him.

While Halloween was a more unorthodox this year than most, we still took our little Aurora, Cinderella and Pan (Rapuzel) princesses around the neighborhood and were joined by Papa Cliff, Cousin Tyler and Uncle Will. It was cold but the the girls were good sports and enjoyed some candy at the end of the night.

Some winter days getting out of the house meant donning snow gear and heading to the dog park for a walk and snowy adventure. Most of these ended with french fries and a hot drink…

As you might imagine, it’s a rare moment to trap these four in a photo together, especially one that doesn’t include some form of flour or butter.

It didn’t take long for the girls to overcome their fear of the loud four wheeler and understand how much fun could be had on it! Constant four wheel trips around the neighborhood as well as seventeen houses down to our friends occurred throughout the winter. As their circle snow pile grew, so did the requests to visit Jessie and crew and her chickens!

Papa Cliff visits are loved by all and the girls constantly ask when he is coming to visit again. While FaceTiming almost nightly is a great way to stay in touch, they really love his visits and all want his attention and presents!

This is our only family photo on Christmas Day. We ended up shuffling the kids out the door after presents and breakfast and trekking around the neighborhood on the four wheeler and sled. Our neighbors were kind enough to snap a quick photo (note the donut trails on the ground behind us!)

Grandma Sue’s baking extravaganzas are always meant for the memory books! This includes pink donuts and pecan bars, homemade scones and dinners, mini toddler decorated pizzas, and a LOT of flour spread across the house on a daily basis. It also means some pretty great food for us to eat!

Cousin visits are the best and we love that most of Craig’s family is only a short plane ride away. Have to celebrate these times with some sweets and adventures around the city.

Walks at the nearby boardwalk, even on cold days, give the chance for the girls to search for their favorite moosie and get some fresh air. It wasn’t so long ago they were running down the plants as new runners, excited to see if they could outrun us. How fast it goes!

I will end on our Christmas village snapshot plus Kaden. Gingerbread villages, hot chocolate (and spilling it everywhere) and running around one of the local hotels turned out to be a fun morning.

Drop us a comment on any family photos you guys have over this past year that I haven’t included here!

❤

Mar 16

Top 12 for Age 2

Since the lovely quarantine kicked off right at their birthday last year, I thought it would be fun to do the top twelve photos of each kiddo at age 2, so here we go! This was originally a top ten, but of course I couldn’t decide which ones or possibly narrow it down to that number so top twelve it is.

So here are a few favorites throughout the year, in no particular order, for those of you that don’t get to see us all the time or don’t live locally. Lots of personality and attitude coming…

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
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I couldn’t resist a side by side comparison of birthday # 2 with birthday #3. Check out the difference!!

Harper Anne

Emerie Faye

Reagan Jean

It’s crazy to see how much smaller they were only a year ago, with so much less hair on their heads and words in their mouths. I can’t even imagine how many more changes we will have over the next year.

❤

Mar 10

It’s Whine O’Clock

It’s nothing new, but something I haven’t written a lot about over the past six months. The girls are venturing down the path of constant whining, and by this I mean the high pitched, drawl of a voice when asking for things or complaining about not getting their way. We are to the point that normal pitched voices get forgotten and we are stuck listening to the constant whining, even after correction. They play off each other and the issue gets exponentially worse. Anyone else in the thick of this??

We are to the point of not responding to those voices and reminding them that whining won’t result in what they are asking for, no matter what it is. Is this working? Not really sure yet; they sure are putting up a fight on it! I assume this is all a phase…and not an incredibly fun one…but one we will eventually get through and past.

Toddler tantrums are now a daily standard in this household; luckily they don’t happen too often when we are out and about (which means going to more places than we have over the whole winter). I’m still waiting for a triple tantrum (I’m excited to see this!) but for now the trend is they all continuously take turns. This is clearly so they can attempt to get the upper hand on the adults and something that will be ongoing for years to come. Harper is the queen of the tantrum and will wail and cry and give you the poutiest face possible, with cinched eyebrows, narrow eyes and a hard stare. It’s hilarious and she’s certainly perfecting her angry look at a young age. Reagan is more of an all out screamer and wants you to immediately console her no matter the reason for the outburst. Emerie still has the type of cry that you want to give in to, no matter if it’s a fit or not, and is great at outpouring the tears on command.

We continue to practice listening and stopping with direction when out at the store, the mall, on a trail, everywhere. Emerie is the most agreeable for all locations and actually prefers to hold your hand and walk most of the time. A little of this could be because it’s often morning so she is patched, but more so she likes to be close to you while exploring. Harper and Reagan alternate who runs away; some days they are responsive and obedient and other days they won’t listen worth anything and we have to head back to the car earlier than planned. Going to social, open spaces isn’t easy yet but the practice is slowly helping. Craig takes the girls to Get Air and they are doing well when he is solo. I’m hoping by the time snow is melted we will have better listeners and obeyers and can do more things without requiring extra hands to survive. The neighborhood walks (without a stroller) and other outside adventures across the city are a breath of fresh air as well as good practice. The random house pictured below is one of the hot spots around the neighborhood according to the children because it has a clock!! on the side of the garage. Other popular places, in addition to walking over to Jessie and crew, are the fans that blow in the wind at several places and the decorative, light up peacock at the end of the street.

They may not be those things all the time yet, but they are definitely talkers and conversationalists! Everyone is exceptional at using “you, me, and I;” they use them correctly most of the time. We aren’t quite as good with “he and she” but we are working on it. Harper will rattle off multiple sentences in a row and it blows my mind! Reagan will tell you a story with great enthusiasm and can recite a couple books by memory. Emerie also recites a few books and gets a few of the pages looped and it is so sweet to watch her be so excited about it.

All in all, a decent week. Now we shall go back to the whine o’clock, the more fun version of it anyway, the “wine” o’clock!

❤

Mar 03

Busy Little Bees

It could be the fact that the girls turn three in a couple of weeks or the fact they are home all day again, but I feel like they are advancing a ton on everything the past month or so. For example, Grandma Sue helps them dress each morning but takes more time to help them do it themselves than our typical routine of doing hair, eating vitamins, removing pajamas and dressing for the day on the counter…one, two, three. Reagan is thriving at this newfound independence and can quickly pull up underwear and pants and push her arms through the shirt holes. A few times she’s pulled a shirt up, feet first, and managed to get it on correctly! Harper seems to be a little less coordinated on the steps and easily get flustered and demands you do it. Emerie is a bit more patient but often ends up asking (a little nicer) for assistance. At this age I continue to choose the outfits each day, partly because it’s fun to mix and match and partly because we’d never leave the bedroom if I let them decide each morning. Lately a lot of long-sleeved dresses and tights combinations make it easier to stay warm while shifted between inside and outside, not needed to deal with the dreaded socks (which, by the way, they are getting better at putting on correctly themselves). I am excited for the next season to show up, first because I’m ready for light hoodie weather and secondly, it will be amazing to get all the snow gear out for the summer!

An extra set of hands in the house the past few weeks not only allows us to get so much more work done without needing to do a lot of night hours; but it also means more hands-on activities. The play coloring house was a hit for a few days and surprisingly didn’t end with marker all over the living room walls. The girls continue to bring their dolls “inside” and demand we be quiet so they can sleep. Coloring is a key activity each day and I’ve tried to get a little more creative on things to do with all the crayons and markers we now possess. We colored custom yellow sun shines the other day to hang up on the wall next to the existing sparkle snowmen and moose. There was great conversation about this as I cut out the finished products. Markered orange moose will likely be up any day now as well. Everyone is close to mastering puffy sticker crafts and removing the paper on the back. We tried doing flower beds with sparkly flower stickers but everyone just wanted to pull the circles out from the middles and add those in. Apparently I need puffy shapes, since they kept asking for octagons- we’ve moved on from a love of the triangle to a love of the octagon.

One cold morning we ventured into the garage and used the summer water table as a snow table, using the fake snow kits and giving the girls sand shovels and buckets. The girls insisted on wearing their slippers and winter hats the entire time and did pretty well overall. The mess was more minimal than expected and the “snow” felt like cold gelatin. Everyone enjoyed watching it thicken with water and dumping it out from bucket to bucket. This activity will definitely happen again.

The girls continue the Douglas baking spree and helped make fun shaped cookies (rainbows are a hit right now), blueberry/lemon scones (they taste tested both the blueberries and the lemons), apple muffins, and helped Grandma whip up a batch of stuffed peppers and even ate the finished product (with some threatening of no dessert). Stroganoff the other night was a decent hit for all three, who eventually cooperated and ate all the noodles and meat at the mention of some ice cream. Another night Reagan devoured everyone’s beer battered halibut, claiming this chicken is yummy.

Speaking of grandparents, another funny theme going around the household. All credit for everything, I mean everything, goes to Papa. They don’t specify if this is Papa Cliff or Papa Lon; I assume it depends on the moment and that some goes to each grandfather. If they put on new shoes and recognize they are new, when asked who got them, it is always Papa got them for me or they are from Papa. So thanks, both Papas, for “giving” us everything in the house, it’s pretty funny! The other day I asked Emerie who gave her the new slippers (new size since the older ones were getting tight) and she responded with someone got them, ummmmm, Auntie Manda. So thanks Amanda for getting those for the girls (when it was really me haha), they were clearly thinking about you that morning!

The repeating of Rapunzel, Wreck It Ralph and Moana movies over this winter inspired us to push the girls to branch out on their movie theatrics. This was not met with enthusiasm at first, but after a bit we now FINALLY have new feature films to watch for the bedtime routine. It generally takes a couple times before they accept something new and are now asking for Cinderella (Harper especially), which is also referred to as wanting to see Gus Gus the mouse; Snow White, where they want to see Dopey, and the other night they asked for Mulan for the second time. Cinderella and Snow White refer to the original Walt Disney versions from 1937 and I think 1950, which move at a much slower pace than most current animated movies, but they are still met with great excitement. You can often catch them calling out to each other in their cribs saying, Cinderelllleeeeeeeyyyyy like the mice do in the movie. We are now working our way through a few other selections like Beauty and the Beast and The Fox and the Hound. Another laugh-worthy observation at this age? They all harbor intense disdain for the prince in every movie. I couldn’t tell you why this is, but they will downright insist I don’t like the prince. I don’t like the bad guy (the prince) and it’s hilarious. We will see how long it takes to overcome that opinion, hopefully twenty years or so.

As we round out age two the girls are working on holding up three fingers and telling you their age. Reagan is very proud she can do it by herself now; she holds her ring finger down instead of her pinkie and it’s adorable. Harper is working on a birthday dance and song and Emerie is hard at work on holding up the right fingers. When asked how old they are the response is still two, with the occasional my birthday next! Having a number of birthdays in the past three months, starting with Craig and including mine, a cousin, Paris and Aunt Janelle, practice of the song and witnessing of candles has them excited for their own upcoming day, even though they don’t fully understand it yet. A calendar now hangs on the fridge, with stickers added each day until the big day! The girls are thrilled to count down AND use stickers! Pretty exciting stuff people.

The girls experienced their “first” decent earthquake, at least one they were old enough to notice. The 5.3 aftershock from our 7+ jolt when they were nine months was enough for all three to freeze and look at me while the waves rolled across the house and the light swung from the ceiling. We ended the quake in a group hug but otherwise they were completely fine and judging me as I ran across the living room to grab them off the hearth.

I should also remember to mention, after almost THREE years (and more for me since I couldn’t sleep very well past probably 25 weeks along), we’ve had the majority of nights in the past two weeks where Craig and I both slept through the whole night without a peep from anyone, who all stayed in their beds allll night long. This is likely our biggest accomplishment in 2021 and only two months in! Craig can claim the credit for this; he pushed to stop pulling them out of bed in the middle of the night when they wake each other up, where usually they’d fall asleep quickly with us, and spent a few full nights himself on the nursery arm chair until they started to settle. Will this continue? One can dream. For now it still feels strange to walk into their room in the morning and get everyone up together, since that is not the routine we’ve done the past year. It is, however, white wonderful to sleep in my own bed for a while. The girls were calling the guest room bed Mommy’s bed. That tells you how much I was sleeping in there with a kiddo! Exciting times indeed.

There’s no shame in a little bribery to encourage this either; everyone understands a yummy reward is available to grab if they sleep in my own bed! This usually involves a marshmallow for Harper and Reagan, which Harper enthusiastically calls a farshfellow with great seriousness, and Emerie opts for a jelly bean of her choosing. Candy first thing in the day may not be my best parenting choice, but we’ve worked hard to get overnights in their beds!

❤

The Douglets

Triplets in Alaska

multiples mom