growing up

Another Six(cess)ful Year Around the Sun

It’s that time again this year -well, it was a month ago when I actually started writing this- for the annual contrasting and comparison between our rapidly growing girls and what they were up to throughout age five, as we somehow transition to a house of six-year-olds! The past year was once again very busy, and included many more adventures and activities, as flexible schedules and unplanned events are easier to handle and jump into. As usual, narrowing down my favorite “triple photos” proved difficult from the massive amount taken over the past 365 days. I eventually settled on this collage after unsuccessfully narrowing the count; it highlights the girls’ adventures since their last birthday. Personalities continue to grow and change and while the girls still have matching faces, they continue to emerge as separate individuals with many different likes and dislikes, and reactions.

Favorite activities for all three include playing with anything water related, bringing umbrellas outside to protect them from falling snowflakes, being “swim girls” and wearing swimsuits when it’s zero degrees outside, coloring at the table in the living room and asking for a million prints from the printer to color, doing their reading practice on the iPad, cooking anything with Grandma Sue, FaceTiming with family, riding the four-wheelers, picking flowers and making “soup,” building blanket forts, girls nights with Mom, sledding with cousins, trick or treating with Tyler, riding their balance bikes (which are way too small for them now!), going to Becky’s house and playing on the dock, snuggling with Mom on the couch before bedtime and watching a show, doing “beautiful nail salon” with Dad in the evenings, Daddy daughter dances, and so much more!!

The girls grew SO quickly this year; check out how much their faces matured- it’s pretty crazy! Their platinum blonde hair continues to grow darker and I assume they will end up as darker, dirty blondes in the future. No more baby faces in this household; just little ladies! Here is my annual overview of the past year, noting milestones and major changes as we shifted from preschool to elementary school.

Kindergarten: We can’t leave out this major milestone, transitioning from preschool into kindergarten with their beloved Miss Tawni! The girls remain at the same school since age three and the comfort and knowing the day to day really supports their schedule and happiness there. Their writing and comprehension skills have also increased dramatically and reading comprehension is right around the corner!

School Besties: Having a small kindergarten class of 15 kids, three of those being the girls, meant development of close, new friendships. The girls are especially fond of Coco, who maintains the BFF status for all three outside of our household, and randomly claim to have boyfriends as well, although that’s a bit harder to determine who goes to who ❤

In-State Traveling: Leaving town and road tripping to other locations in Alaska became a normal occurrence over the past year. Even more so than during age four, we can now explore and execute travel plans a little more by ear, without the essential planning every detail ahead to ensure a smooth ride. This year we went to Kenai, Soldotna, and Homer multiple times and enjoyed all those locations have to offer! The girls can handle a long roadtrip without any screen time too, which is exciting!

Three Peas in a Pod Style: All three still accommodate my desires to dress them in matching or coordinated clothing and take cute photos, or out to family pictures sessions a few times a year. Luckily we are still in the stage of smiles and requests for pictures, something I hope continues for a few more years!

The Incident We Blocked Out: This is simply one example of the more recent childhood shenanigans that we seemingly skipped over in previous ages, likely because most of the house used to be blocked off from kid access. In addition to the mortar incident, Reagan gave herself unapproved bangs recently and spectacular messes now occur more than when they were younger and other parts of the house weren’t freely accessible yet.

Home Depot and Lowes Build Days: This started with Craig taking the girls and morphed into weekend requests to do the activity, even on weekends it isn’t offered. The girls sure can swing a hammer and love adding the stickers and paint to each creation, continuing to be less messy and better builders after each time.

Toothlessness: the loss of SO many teeth started toward the end of age five. In fact, over a two week period in March, another tooth for Harper and for Reagan bit (haha) the dust. The girls’ bottom adult teeth are promptly pushing through their gums and arrive as soon as the baby ones make an exit, and all are excited for the tooth fairy visits. We are still working on the tooth brushing.

A Whole New World (Aladdin pun intended): Our first downtown Nutcracker show this year was a success and the girls did great; I am very glad we waited until age five to attend! They also sang songs for the school Christmas play and attended several school field trips to see other plays at various places across the city. They seem to both love and hate sitting at them and have conflicting responses!

Dance Dance Baby: Last May was Harper’s first Dance Recital, and we are already almost to the next one. The 2.5 hour performance for all dance classes was a bit long, but luckily the other two had a fun night with Uncle Will. Last fall we combined everyone back to one class and all three are very exciting for their upcoming performance, and to wear their fancy costumes.

Actual Sleeping at Night!

Actual Sleeping at Night: This is mostly a parent win and definitely worth a little bragging. It took us almost six years to get here-that’s more than 2,000 evening bedtimes if anyone is counting- but now for the most part they are decent at staying overnight in their beds and using the bathroom without running into our bed! Main night time snuggles now are inspired by bad dreams or when they aren’t feeling well.

Going to the Movies & FINALLY New Music to Listen To: After approximately one million plays of Let It Go, Cover Me in Sunshine, and Towards the Sun, we finally have new material to listen to. This year was a lot of Trolls music, My Little Pony, Rapunzel’s television show, and other girly things, mixed with a little Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. The Tonie box is also a fan favorite and our inventory of music continues to grow. Hallelujah!

Ease of Shopping Trips: This may sound small, but as a parent of multiples, it really is a biggie- less need for shopping carts! We now have the ability to step foot in a store without complete and utter parental failure and chaos. Do the kids still run amuck and get scolding in the store? Absolutely! Do they run straight into oncoming traffic? Not all the time. Do they find random things and throw them in the cart and we accidentally buy them? Yes… This improvement makes shopping more doable than in past years and it’s cause for celebration.

Birthday Parties Galor: School age brings a newfound plan several weekends a month…birthday parties. These are important life events that the kids demand to attend and who knew that we knew so many kids that have birthdays?? This photo is, of course, Craig supporting the craft time at a Taylor Swift themed party, with the girls bejeweling their custom microphones. Girl dad for the win.

Games: I am pretty excited for this one! Craig introduced board games to the girls, especially the favorite Squirrel Game, which his family played when he was young. On occasion they now play it without Craig and for the most part get along. It’s sweet to watch. They also love Alphabet Bingo, and we are starting to introduce card games. I often find one sitting on the floor playing a matching card game.

Family Dinners: We continue to love having cousins close by and especially when they drop in to say hello or celebrate a holiday. The volume increases ten fold when any boy cousin walks through the front door, which is a delight to the kids and more of a hindrance to the parents’ hearing, but we love it. It is wonderful to have family nearby and accessible!

All About the Girls

Harper Anne

Loves dancing, dressing up, and sleeping in.

  • Obsessed with seals
  • Team Sleeping Beauty
  • Most sassy
Harper Larper

Emerie Faye

Loves collecting tiny things, books, and puzzles

  • Turtles are life, just not live ones 😀
  • Team Elsa (still)
  • Creative name calling
Emmy

Reagan Jean

Loves to draw/color, write in notebooks and sing.

  • Needs panda everything
  • Team Jasmine
  • Most artistic
Ray Ray

All About the Girls – Harper Anne

Harper had quite a year. She continues her fashionista attitude from age four, and still has a love of black and pink, although the black is waning a bit. She is all about makeup and her doll Babela, and I’ll often find the makeup destruction in her room after a fashion event at the salon, her favorite toy set from Christmas. She is not a morning person, much to her dismay in a family of morning people, and is often the hardest to get up for school. That, or she just really likes being cozy in her bed, something she showed as a toddler as well. She has the eye roll and grumpy face down, something we are still trying to break (and not laugh at!), and the goofy faces at any event or show she participates in.

Height/Weight: 54 pounds/ 48.5″ tall – she gained 9 pounds and grew 3.5″ in a year!

Favorite Activities: dance class and playing with her doll (Babela); swimming

Favorite Movie/Music/Show: music this year transitioned to several new movies, one of which is Trolls Band Together. She now loves all the songs by Velvet and Veneer (the nemesis of the movie!), and occasionally still asks for her “shadow song” by Rihanna, but not nearly as frequently as she used to. And, of course, Bluey and My Little Pony the series.

Favorite Princess/Character: By far her favorite is now Sleeping Beauty (Aurora). Given it’s age, finding outfits and toys for this princess is harder, so when we do, she is very excited. She often sleeps in her Aurora nightgown from the Disney store or changes her doll into a matching costume.

Favorite Color: pink and black

Favorite Food: Sneaking candy! She is definitely our sweet tooth kid and would eat candy all day if she could. Also if Ketchup is a food, then that would be the winner. She also loves cucumbers and chicken nuggets and my homemade zucchini bread.

Favorite Animal: Stuffed seals are still the winner for her, although many other animals make the cut for bedtime snuggles. She has seals of every color and loves to see the live ones when we visit Seward each year. She also loves koala bears.

When Harper grows up, she wants to be: She reiterated last week that she still wants to be a ballerina AND a queen; both, not either/or 🙂

Unique Personality Trait: Harper likes to watch and observe and then jump into the action, but also displays daring moments and climbs a forty foot tree by herself because she wanted to. She is definitely an instigator, but not always with the follow through. She also prefers to let others figure something out or get something for her, so there might be some leadership qualities in there to watch out for as she grows older.

Major Dislikes: Cleaning up is always a challenge and a fight, as well as convincing her to brush her teeth so no cavities appear. It is an everyday battle! She also seems to get hot in the car, random I know, and always requests fresh or cooler air on drives, just like her Mom 🙂

Of the Three, She is the Most: Girly! Dressing up in fancy clothes and shoes, makeup, and accessorizing occurs daily. She isn’t afraid to get down and dirty outside, but she doesn’t mind doing that in a stylish outfit either. On the flip side, of the three she goes to the doctor the least, and now notices this. She often asks when she can go and you see a little sister competition come out of it.

Favorite Quotes: Mom, guess what?! I love you the mostest. This is one of my very favorite quotes that I hear from her every few days, always with a big smile on her face. The other day she also noted that Grandma Sue is so bossy; she’s always bossing me around. I asked her if she liked all the things Sue does with her and she agreed to that, but still maintained the bossiness is there!!

Emerie Faye

As we round out another year, Emerie still maintains her love of being at home and hanging out in her room, listening to stories on the Tonie box or sorting through picture books. She seems to run a bit colder than her sisters and often wears a hoodie or coat, similarly to her Grandma Anne! She continues to eye patch on weekday mornings and the school year is a bit more of a struggle, mostly because she sees other kids (and sisters) don’t do it and is more observant on that. Collecting tiny things continues to be one of her favorite hobbies and we find all kinds of random things around the house.

Height/Weight: 48 pounds/ 47.5″ tall – she gained 10 pounds and grew 4″ in a year!

Favorite Activities: Legos and puzzles are two new favorites this year, both things she can do without adult assistance! She also enjoys collecting tiny things, doing everything in a fancy, dress up outfit, going swimming with Craig, and funny enough, she loves to brush her teeth and will randomly do it throughout the day.

Favorite Movie/Music/Show: While Emerie still loves her Frozen movies and music, requests are much fewer than in the past. She loves all the music by the boy band Brozone in the new Trolls movie, and asks for multiple plays anytime they come on. And, of course, Bluey and My Little Pony the series.

Favorite Princess/Character: No change from the past three years- Elsa (Frozen) is still leading the charge in her heart. After watching Trolls Band Together last fall, she also loves the boy band Brozone, specifically “the heart throb” (her words!).

Favorite Color: You guessed it….PURPLE!!

Favorite Food: She claims chicken nuggets, broccoli, and ice cream. One of my favorite memories of her last summer was sitting in the dirt at the you-pick farm in Palmer, eating broccoli straight from the plant and extensively enjoying herself. She continues to scarf down everything on her plate instantly, or just pick at her food, but not a lot in between.

Favorite Animal: She still loves turtles and has a bunch of them. Her experience with a live one at the fair, which she adamantly wouldn’t touch, has not diminished her requests to own a real one. She also recently adopted and named some ants in the driveway 🙂

When Emerie grows up, she wants to be: Another similar answer to last year, Emerie wants to be “Queen Elsa of Arandale” and continues to stick to this answer.

Unique Personality Trait: She is stubborn to the core, and this can serve her well when she is on a mission for something, and sometimes be an obstacle. She is our snuggler and loves to sleep in her own bed with her stuffies. Emerie is also a homebody and completely self sufficient entertaining herself.

Major Dislikes: She hates being talked over by her sisters when trying to explain or ask something, or count! She doesn’t appear to like group instruction classes (or maybe she just doesn’t like obeying in them…) or being outside if she doesn’t have to! It is also a constant battle on wearing her glasses and keeping track of where she puts them, when not on her face.

Of the Three, She is the Most: Outspoken and direct. She is always announcing we are triplets to random people in public places and making friends everywhere. She will also dig her heels in and stick to an opinion, and there’s not swaying her mind.

Favorite Quotes: In the last month or two, she jumped on the ruuuuuude train and now says this multiple times a day when responding to things. It’s close to the duuuuude we also hear, but with different context!

Reagan Jean

Reagan continues to love all forms of art, especially coloring and drawing, and creates new artwork daily. Her drawing and writing skills dramatically improved over the second half of age five; she now draws family photos and so many beautiful pandas are taped up around the house. She enjoys crafts and anything artsy, and really excels at trying different related activities. She will sit much longer than her sisters to finish and perfect something, and I can’t wait to break out all my 90’s stamps soon and see how she loves them. Her storytelling is now more intricate and sometimes it’s hard for her sisters to get a word in edge wise, just like her Grandma Sue! Over the winter she began speech therapy for her lisp and loves going each week and is improving on her pronunciations.

Height/Weight: 52 pounds/ 48.5″ tall – she gained 10 pounds and grew 4.5″ in a year!

Favorite Activities: She recently discovered how to take pictures with my phone and requests to do that. As mentioned above, anything arts and craft related, and putting together big puzzles- she’s getting really good at them- and going swimming with Craig. She also enjoys ice skating and continues to ask for lessons.

Favorite Movie/Music/Show: Reagan likes a lot of different things, including the Lilo & Stitch and Rapunzel television shows, Bluey, My Little Pony the series, most princess movies, and of course Abominable. She likes similar music to her sisters, and also some of my music like Imagine Dragons or Lady Gaga. Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus is also becoming a favorite.

Favorite Princess/Character: Team Jasmine is going strong and she was excited to see the real Jasmine Broadway show this spring. She loves all the Aladdin costumes and swimsuits and often wears them around the house.

Favorite Color: You guess it…TEAL. This should not be confused with blue or green; it is teal and she will remind you they are different!

Favorite Food: She is definitely one to always request macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets and French toast bites; she also loves blackberries, cantaloupe, and cucumbers, and of course ice cream. The love for cotton candy ice cream is real…

Favorite Animal: Pandas are still the front runner, but she also claims to like hedgehogs now. She doesn’t snuggle or cart her pandas around as much as past years and that shows how much she’s growing up (cry!), but her bed tells a different story; it is covered in a shapes and sizes of panda. She now has 2 small pandas that spent half the year going to school with her; it used to be one, until that one was lost and we caved and purchased another, and then found said lost panda inside the couch after a week! Now one wears a tutu and is the girl, and one is a boy, both with equal love in her heart.

When Reagan grows up, she wants to be: An artist! She loves coloring and making creations. Her second consistent answer is a teacher like Miss Tawni.

Unique Personality Trait: She is our storyteller, just like her Grandma Sue; listening to her explain the synopsis of a movie is simply amazing and detailed. She is also our helper and often requests to help make dinner, or put something away for us; it’s very sweet. She is very much the mom of the group and probably the most bossy. Not sure if it’s a personality trait, but she is the only one of the three to pull out her own teeth and remove a sliver from her own hand without help!

Major Dislikes: She’s a little quirky about her socks not fitting perfectly on her feet and hates when someone draws on her picture creations. Overall she is mostly chill on things and doesn’t complain about a lot of things.

Of the Three, She is the Most: bossy like her grandma Sue, especially during games and pretend play. She has great ideas, but her sisters don’t always agree with the direction and that causes fighting. She is also the most detail oriented of the three on anything she is doing, whether that is cleaning the living room, coloring a picture, or telling a story. Reagan also displays a gentle spirit for animals and both new kitties can tell and want to snuggle with her.

Favorite Quotes: No quotes popped into my brain for her this year, but her detailed storytelling really speaks for itself. Ask her sometime to tell you about a movie she’s seen and what the story is about, and you will see for yourself!

Five Year Old FAQs

What are the biggest differences between the three? What are their similarities this year? All three continue to enjoy much of the same things, as in years past, like princess everything, dressing up, riding bikes and swinging and playing pretend. Emerie continues to self entertain and I often find her in the bedroom playing with dolls, or sitting and listening to a Tonie story on the chair, or in the bathroom making a huge water mess but having the best time! Reagan will sit and color for long periods of time while Harper wanders off with Babela for “nap time.” Reagan learns new skills the quickest and with the least effort, this is especially true with her school work and letters and reading, while Harper becomes flustered before putting in too much effort. Emerie takes a bit longer to gain a new skill and you can see her kind methodically thinking out how it all works, just like she did when younger.

What is the biggest personality difference? All three are growing into strong, independent little girls. The main difference hasn’t changed from last year, Emerie continues to love time at home and playing herself, while the other two are much bigger fans of adventure. When it comes to discipline all three are also still different; timeout might actually kill Reagan (in her opinion) while Emerie could care less about that, but if you threaten a spanking, she’s off to the races. Harper is willing to throw down if she believes she is right, and we often have to track her down if she stomps off with an eye roll and “whoa is me” attitude. All three clearly get irritated at times about being with sisters constantly, but when you split them up, they always note they miss sisters and it’s very sweet.

What do they all constantly fight about? This one is a little silly and a new advancement this year- all three constantly bicker about who gets to stand or sit in the middle for a picture. We see this for our family photo events, and for everyday in-the-moment photos; apparently it’s life or death to be standing on a side…They also fight over toys and the usual things but are getting better at sharing is caring. We no longer buy three of everything (thank goodness!).

Who is now the best sleeper? Who is the worst? Emerie and Harper are both excelling over the past year on this, and Reagan made GREAT progress sleeping in her own bed.

Who is Team Mom and who is Team Dad? This remains consistent, Emerie is 100% Team Dad, although I do get a solid snuggle in every now and then. On the other hand, Reagan is 100% team mom and Harper trends toward me, but has her dad moments.

What was my favorite memory of age five? What about Craig’s and Sue’s? This is easy for me- it was the ability to travel around and have adventures with the girls. For example, right before they turned six, going to Seward and sitting at a dinner spot, with everyone coloring at the table and enjoying being together, or taking them to the beach last summer and exploring. Craig’s fitting answer is them sleeping in their beds…finally! Sue enjoyed watching them become little girls with their different personalities and desires to tell their own stories.

I am looking forward to what age six will bring us, and definitely have new adventures planned! Happy birthday Harper, Emerie and Reagan, Mom & Dad love you very much! ❤

Death Discussions & Dancing

Death discussions continue to occur around our household since we told the girls about our beloved “senior” kitty Rory going up to heaven. It happened immediately after the girls’ birthday party a couple weeks ago and during our Monday Seward day holiday. He was likely deteriorating for a few days prior to us noticing, since the birthday hubbub kept us all pretty busy over that weekend.

The random questions crack me up when I focus on how they are funny and not sad. For example:

  • How does Rory get to heaven?
  • What happened to his head?
  • We need to bring a hair drier outside and melt the snow so we can put him in the ground.
  • Why did he have to go to heaven?
  • What happens to his bones?
  • How does he float up to heaven?
  • When you get old do you die? Does that mean you and dad are going to die soon…because you are old? Dad is older than you, does he die first?!
  • If you die when you get old, does that mean I die when I get old?
Our first kitties as adults, Rafi and Rory, now both in heaven!

This month everyone is on a tangent about being old and death but haven’t spiraled too bad from it yet, and the girls randomly got stuck on Rory losing his head during his end. To be clear, there was no head loss with our kitty, more so kidney failure and euthanizing, which we did not explain in detail and did not bring the girls to witness. Their head loss questions probably relate to Mr. Rooster losing his after sassing Grandma Sue a while back, and it’s hilarious they still remember that after almost two years.

Their comprehension of the entire topic overall is impressive. They casually bring up the kitten in conversation and that they miss him, and want to participate in the back yard funeral once the ground is thawed, like we did for Rafi.

After a little time we opted to shop around the municipal pound for another young cat to pair up with the now solo Winston. The girls did pretty well looking at the animals and demanded a bunny who was cutely hanging out in a hallway cage (no we are not getting a bunny!). We settled on a shy, part Siamese kitty, who instantly attached to Reagan both at the pound and after we returned home. Winston is not as impressed, but I believe he will come around. After a bit of time they are at least not hissing at one another!

As the new baby gets used to her new home- who is named Rosie in an unusually unanimous decision by the girls- she is almost over the cold she gave Winston and settling well into our family life. Even better, she’s filling the gap of us missing Rory and continues to snuggle all night in bed with the grownups while Winston tends to stay with the sleeping girls. A bit of an adjustment but everything appears to be working out!

In happier and unrelated news, the girls attended their first Broadway show as part of a class field trip this week, seeing Aladdin! It is reasonable to say the parents were probably more excited than the kids for this event, but overall I believe everyone enjoyed it. The music and characters were great, as well as the storyline modified to fit a live show; what really wowed me was the intricate costumes and the set changes, which were SO amazing. All three wore variations of Jasmine dresses and ooohed over the sparkly outfits and songs they recognized from the movie. I didn’t go to a Broadway show until this year; pretty great they are starting early at age six!

All three sat through it pretty well, with a demand for a snack at intermission; but overall there was minimal fidgeting or disruption and no potty breaks in the middle of it. I’m already receiving requests to listen to the new songs that don’t reside in the movies. It’s exciting to know they are now old enough to cooperate for longer, more grown up shows and we aren’t always a public spectacle (other than for the cuteness part!). Everyone left the show with a gold lamp necklace, not the full sized, solid gold lamp they wanted, and I’m ready for the next show to come. Exciting times!

Spring Break Sprint

As amateurs to the concept of spring break, we jumped in full force this year to keep our first one with kids interesting. Thinking back to this time last year, I remember telling myself to enjoy my last spring break with childcare for the foreseeable future, and it’s crazy to think that was already a year ago. Grandma Sue was happy to come up early to help me with birthday preparations and child watch while Craig and I got a few (or more!) hours of work in over the two week span, and of course that comes with all the Grandma Sue benefits of toy sorting, house re-organization, and fun birthday antics!

The weeks before spring break continued the theme of weekend birthday parties, and trying to get the kids outside a little more than when it was extremely cold temperatures. Craig broke out the kid and adult four wheeler for an afternoon and their BFF from school and her brother experienced the fun too. Maybe it’s just my kids, but other kids sure seem to be able to steer better than my three. This was the first afternoon that Emerie saw the need for speed and instead of her usual slow down scolding, she was smiling ear to ear on the back of the wheeler with Noah driving, something not often seen from her.

Reagan pulled a first in the household and gave herself unplanned bangs. Craig and I didn’t even notice; in fact, Sue noticed on Facetime before we even realized it happened. Reagan eventually caved and claimed they were annoying her, so she chopped them. A few days later I found the small pile of her beautiful hair under the bunk bed. During that same cleaning excursion I also found a good amount of doll hair trimmings, something we hadn’t noticed either until now…and doesn’t grow back!

Speaking of hair cutting, one to-do for spring break week was a triple hair trimming to cut off those ends. Because I absolutely refuse to go to the places that charge crazy amounts for a kid haircut, we wandered over to Craig’s barber again and asked for a trim. Middle of the day in the middle of the work week is apparently a good time, and all three went at the same time; that and no one wanted to go first! They all sat very still, with Harper and Emerie making their normal goofy faces at us, and Reagan’s bangs were trimmed to be a bit more acceptable. A set of identical twins actually cut two of them, which was very random and spurred some conversation. I also realized their super blonde, baby hair is already down to the bottom trimmed area, and the majority of their hair is now a darker blonde, which makes me a little sad but I’ll survive 🙂

Somehow we are already entering into the next clothing size, even though we transitioned into size six in early winter. Considering all three were wearing size 4/5 shorts all last summer is a bit crazy considering the 6/7 pairs I tried on them this week are super tight. They are growing so fast!! As I began to sort through clothing to sell and donate, which is quite the process in this household (what can I say, I only have kids once so I will enjoy fun clothes!), I could hear all three playing doctor in their room. As I paused to listen to the conversation, I realized it was even more specific; they were playing triplet pregnancy. Emerie was the doctor and Harper apparently having the babies. Doctor Emerie burst in the bedroom door to consult Nurse Reagan and her patient, as Harper announced oh the babies are coming! Oh wait, actually only one! Is it just my kids, or do other kids pretend they have more than one cooking in there? Pretty funny.

The tiny humans are greatly improving their cooking skills. One day while Mom and Dad went to the office, everyone practiced their baking skills and produced chocolate and powdered sugar covered donuts. How many of these were eaten that afternoon? That’s a great question that I probably don’t want to know the answer to; much flour was likely consumed as well. I’m happy to see my three little bakers love to cook and try goodies, since this is definitely in their DNA on both sides! From the moment Sue gets off the airplane, everyone starts requesting homemade donuts, that will certainly be a good childhood memory for them as they age into adulthood.

Cooking with Grandma
Reagan Jean
Harper & Em hard at work

If I had to pick a few favorite moments from this week, watching the girls clean under the grandma regime is definitely near the top of the list. Grandma Sue organized all the toys in the house, helping me decide what to donate to prepare for incoming birthday presents, and now that the girls are elementary age, this means they participate. If we are being honest, I believe Reagan enjoys the organization and de-cluttering; Harper and Emerie are often more excited at finding lost toys and vanishing to play with them. The kids cleaned the playroom and helped put everything go in its correct home, organized their bedroom doll kingdom and stuffed animal repository, climbed under the bed to vacuum and got down on all fours to scrub the floor. At one point I heard Harper exclaim I am NOT going under that disgusting bed, with her normal level of indignation, and Emerie and Reagan did the dirty work (literally!). If this wasn’t enough, an (intentional) chocolate milk explosion from a couple days prior meant all four were exiled to scrub the doll spa set in the bathtub. The sour smelling, chocolate milk residue was pretty gross, and I found it by putting my hand in the mushiness of their floor rug, which hasn’t recovered yet. The girls definitely find creative stories to play, but were warned that any more chocolate milk events will equal those toys going into the trashcan. And for the record, no triplets were harmed in the making of a clean house (that might be disputable from Harper)!

Scrub a dub-dub, three triplets in the tub!

It’s not just that all three participate and help clean up our household and will begrudgingly give up toys to donate; it’s more listening to them from another room as the activity occurs. The banter between the four is completely hilarious, even better when you add Craig into the mix. The girls’ reaction to the discovery of something gross, or being reminded cleaning isn’t supposed to be fun, or when one pops out to ask for scrubbing rags with an eye roll; it’s all pretty funny. Watching everyone on hands and knees, scrubbing their dirty floor….that’s pretty priceless.

Spring break wasn’t only cooking and chores- some fun was also shoved into the latter half of the week. Craig booked a pre-birthday trip down to Seward and luckily the weather cooperated and the road through the pass was pretty clear for winter time. My little ladies made the drive down and back with no screen time, fully entertained with coloring, snacking, listening to music and playing with a few toys. It helped that Emerie napped most of the way back and Reagan part of it. Harper was happy to keep those eyelids open and catch Craig snacking on any candy, so she could participate 🙂

Checking out a jellyfish
Dinner coloring
A parent picture!

The quietness of a town like Seward in the winter is a welcomed break from Anchorage. The weather was perfect, still winds and about 35 degrees, just warm enough to leave the snow gear in the house and explore the beach in coats and boots. We arrived when the tide was coming in, but early enough to spend an hour beach coming and looking for shells. The girls liked seeing all the (dead) jellyfish on the beach; Reagan was picking them up and throwing them back into the water after the first few spottings. Harper and Emerie were NOT enthused.

A couple harbor seals played out in the water as we walked down the opposite direction as the tide recessed. With Harper’s love of seals, and the fact that wildlife always pops out and says hello during our Seward visits, makes it one of the girls’ favorite spots. The open restaurant wasn’t our normal summer stop at the harbor, where we could keep an eye out for the wild animals, but clearly the girls were hungry, because all three scarfed down a whole cheeseburger and french fries. It was a relaxing afternoon and evening and other than the never-going-to-sleep shenanigans, everything went down without a hitch.

Craig & I with almost six year olds!

And with that, spring break is over and the birthday preparations are a go for next week!

❤

Finally a New Bedtime Routine!

Another small life shift for our everyday household, that really only impacts me and Craig at this point, is the new and improved bedtime routine. Since the girls were getting out of cribs and into toddler beds, for more than three years, every single night either Craig or I have sat in the comfy sofa chair in their bedroom after lights out and until everyone fell asleep. We both had different music playlists and rotated through song requests until the snoozing began; sometimes when they were smaller it involved quiet singing as well. For at least two of those years, every time I sat we listened to Let It Go (Frozen) for Emerie, Cover Me in Sunshine (Pink) for Reagan, Toward the Sun (Rihanna) for Harper and other random movie soundtracks as we watched them (Aladdin, Little Mermaid, Spirit, Trolls, My Little Pony, Tangled Adventures, Frozen, Sing, etc.). As they grew this involved arguments on whose song should play first and whose played last resulting in it being the worst thing in the world in that moment. Another hit was Craig playing Katie Perry’s Daisies.

This bedtime routine started when Reagan discovered how to climb out of her crib, even with the mattress dropped to the floor, and lasted through the transition to toddler beds and into big girl bunk beds around a year ago. While I will say this definitely impacted our ability to decompress together in the evenings, it did provide quiet time once all three fell asleep and became a routine that I really enjoyed. It also gave Craig and I a little space to ourselves at the end of every busy day; something that rarely happens during the day with young kids. It created an hour or two of calm at night, but also closeness to the girls and that was my favorite part. We sat and watch a show on an iPad, listening to music through headphones or I would write a blog about the day, enjoying the stillness and peace, since it’s a pretty rare thing. I even came to enjoy this part of my day and feeling close to everyone without the anxiety and loudness and chaos that is the life of a triplet parent, while knowing they were safe and happy and not a care in the world while cuddled into their beds with their stuffies. It’s hard to explain but I actually miss it a bit!

Of course, we started sitting this habit to keep everyone in bed and from running about and refusing to settle (which occurred frequently similarly to all kids at night!) and making nighttime routine take forever,. The bigger issue after its establishment was we couldn’t figure out how to stop doing it. The girls freaked out without our presence and that turned into tired meltdowns, so we’d cave and come back in, continuing the habit well after age five and unsuccessful on how to remove ourselves from the equation. I will also note that most of my fellow parent friends do many household chores and things after the kids go to bed; this is not how we’ve handled it the past few years, from the time of sleepless nights and getting up more than a handful of times per night, for months on end. In fact, I can easily say Craig and I are a well oiled machine when it comes to cooking, cleaning, laundry, tidying up, and maintaining order in our house, and do the majority of these things while everyone is up and active. The biggest difference now compared to years past is it is easier now that the girls are bigger. Busy chore time during the day also equals quiet post bedtime hours in the evening to mentally and physically recoup from everything, and not needing to squeeze in more chores after going strong for 14+ hours. I continue to enjoy this routine now!

And now -drum roll please- we are no longer confined to the kid room at night! By about Christmas time we managed to convince everyone that Mom and Dad are just in the next bedroom, with some strong convincing and argumentative five-year-olds on the subject, and that sisters are close by so no one is really alone. Clearly having their own rooms would be too much of an issues, since their complaints are often that they don’t want to be alone…you know…with 2 sisters still in the room. The combination of the amazing Tonie music and stories player, a white noise machine for after the music stops, and a multi-colored star projector do the trick. I should also mention we are on our THIRD star projector…because it’s used every day, travels around the house, and does not like to be drowned in water (shocking really :)). Unless everyone ran really hard that day and burned the energy, then the new routine takes longer to hear three resting kiddos, but it’s drastically improved over the past two months and the longing faces and tired eyes don’t demand our presence as often now. Everyone does not immediately calm down and often fight or argue with each other (amidst stuffed animals throwing, stealing, and unplanned music changes) about something from that day, or someone has to use the bathroom or get out of bed a million times to try to play. But all things that all parents deal with now; I can’t imagine trying to manage that when they were two or three. So we are making good progress and we are almost there, thankfully!!

I should also add the parents are getting MUCH more sleep than in the past five years, with more nights sans kiddo between us than nights with someone there. Everyone rotates through different reasons for standing at my bedside until my subconscious jolts awake, whether it’s a bad dream, not feeling well, or went to the bathroom and won’t go back to their bed. Reagan most consistently comes to our bed from a bad dream -or she just wants to snuggle- while Emerie will get up and go back to her bed nine times out of ten, and anytime Harper wanders over to my bedside, I almost think it’s Reagan until the next morning. Emerie insists that Craig’s snore mask (CPAP) is loud and I think that is part of her reasoning to always climb back to her bed; she also likes to be cuddled in her blanks with all her things. And even with kiddos coming and going, it is still huge-huge-huge progress on the sleep front for us. And ridiculously, after years of wanting to get a solid night of uninterrupted sleep or not wanting to sit while they were not ready to go to sleep yet, my mom brain actually misses the need for snuggles and butt patting to go back to sleep. It nearly misses the need to lay on the floor and pat one kid’s butt while rubbing the back of the one next to them, which is not the easiest. Mom brain is ridiculous, I tell you.

And now we are right around the corner to age six!!

It’s a Heart-Knock Life

Life over the past month continues to stay very busy! I started writing small notes to myself of the latest with the girls, knowing I will forget what lovely life tidbits to include as I muse about our daily life. Since I last wrote a blog, 10 new Bluey episodes were released in the United States. This is clearly a worthy milestone to mention, since we marathoned them like an adult would for a new season of their own show, and within a few days the girls were already asking for episodes by name. No, we don’t watch television allll the time and yes, we love that the episodes are only a few minutes long and share good, family values.

It took me a couple rewatches to realize one game in our house emerged from a new episode. One night the girls were running wild -literally, as kids do in January in the winter- and circling the living room over and over again, full on running and screaming. Occasionally one would plop down on the ground randomly and pause a moment, until another caught up and yelled flush! and imitated the flushing of a toilet, and said still child would jump up and return to a sprint. I watched this occur for a few minutes and finally asked what they were playing. All three responded with we are playing toilet tag! and explained when someone stopped, you had to flush them to bring them back in the game. Like what? I’m not sure if I’m impressed at the creativity, or mortified, but now it is a standard kid game in our household. Toilet tag. Yep.

We are now in the age of toy cleanup that all three now understand cleaning up does not mean shoving everything under the bed, or in one toy bin, but to try to put things away correctly. I should probably credit Grandma Sue for this transition, and it’s noticeable when we ask them to put things away where they go. I will often randomly fine one cleaning up a room (never all three at once), looking for a reward treat of course, and putting doll accessories or barbies or stuffed animals in the correct bins. Score!! Now, if we can only convince these kids to change their clothes and put anything removed in a laundry bin or by the washer, instead of everywhere. Baby steps!

School continues to go smoothly and all three claim to enjoy it, likely due to the love for their teacher and seeing her each day. I now respond to being called Miss Tawni in the afternoons, especially from Harper, and wonder how many times a day the three actually call her name. It must be about in the millions. Take a look at the picture above. Being mom makes me biased, but I am seriously impressed at how well and creatively all three copied those pictures. Is it just me and this is normal five year old drawing? I am pretty sure all three are already better than I am at drawing. Look at the enhanced detail on Reagan’s cup, or the fingers on Emerie’s hand, or Harper’s color coordinated bear. I can’t help but be impressed!

In January Craig and I took all three to a mid-year reading assessment at our home-school (it’s in addition to their normal daytime curriculum). Each kiddo went back with the teacher for the same assessment, and all three were evaluated right where they should be. She noted everyone understands the difference between the letter name and the sound of a letter, which is the first step toward reading comprehension. All three are still stumped on combined letter sounds creating words, but she assured us they seem close to getting it. We’ve tried a few different ways to explain the concept and so far the light bulb for all three hasn’t clicked on quite yet. I believe Reagan will be the first to catch on; not sure who will be second! By the end of the kindergarten year, I’m betting all three will have it down and we will be working through level one reading books.

Kindergarten class
Some of the girls
Frozen Yogurt!

In January we continued to practice counting by fives and counting to 100. You can see their brains trying to figure out what comes next in the sequence after a 9 (like 39 to 40), and improvement continues. The end of January also prompted the 100 Days in school party, occurring on January 31st, and I swear the girls were more excited the night before than for Christmas. It took forever to calm them down at bedtime, and everyone happily put on their matching t-shirts (with friends) and let me do fancy hair for the occasion. We counted down the last few days until this milestone- or should I say we counted UP- and everyone excitedly yelled it was day 100 the moment eyes opened that morning. When asked their favorite part of the day, because I know several activities were planned, they all answered the same: the fruit loop necklaces! We might have to make some of those at home one of these days. We finished their fun filled day with a trip to frozen yogurt to commemorate, and I can’t believe everyone is so grown up!

Everyone received mid-year report cards in January, with great marks and then need to practice reading and comprehension more, which Craig and I both agree we need to commit more time to at home in the evenings. I hope all three grow up to love books and reading; so far Emerie seems most inclined to grab a book and hang out by herself while looking through pages. Harper prefers stories relating to princesses or ballerinas and asks someone to read to her on those; Reagan loves to carry books around and add notes and drawings in them, rotating through her favorite book each week or so.

As we all wait for spring to arrive, we maintain indoor entertainment through tons of birthday parties (not an exaggeration!); swimming at the nearby YMCA or Alaska Club, build days, hitting up the indoor climbing playground at a local rec center or running at the jump park, and other at-home activities like kid yoga, makeup and hair styling, playing with dolls or legos, making paper crafts and coloring, and can’t forget toilet tag (haha). The girls discovered yoga at school and asked to watch kid videos everyday one week. I came downstairs to find all three actively participating in the activity, yelling Mom we are exercising! They are surprisingly limber and thrilled to check out different yoga themes (Frozen was a particular favorite, not surprisingly!).

Build days continue to be a fun activity, some kits harder than others. We really like that Lowe’s provides stickers instead of paint, although I’m guessing the girls prefer the Home Depot mess because it’s more fun. They are all getting better at hitting nails and I am getting better at building some of the sets…otherwise I just copy however Craig builds it! I often find the girls at home during quiet times, playing salon with their dolls or each other, making a huge makeuppy mess but haven’t fun while doing it. Harper’s doll Babela continue to look like she’s had a rough night and quite the hangover, and then about 20 hair clips to seal the deal. Reagan finally named her doll Moriah, and constantly reminds me she has a name and is beautiful. During much of these events I will find Emerie in the bathroom, giving her doll or stuffed animal a bath, rather than adding to their makeup. Such girlie girls!

After a handful of swimming birthday parties in the past few weeks, one party highlight is certainly the Taylor Swift themed one, which was about as girly as possible and all three were thrilled. Is that Craig in a pink cowgirl hat? Why yes it is, and he definitely bedazzled those hats for the girls while at the party. I found him hanging out upstairs, bedazzling them with TS music in the background and the kids running around, having fun. He’s definitely a girl dad!

In addition to the usual birthday shenanigans, the crafts were on point. Everyone bedazzled a microphone (yes, they were working and charged…it wasn’t loud in there at all…), Emerie opting for all black while Reagan snagged a teal and Harper a light pink. The girls also added gems to their sunglasses and humored me for a couple cute shots. It was quite the afternoon!

And lastly, since this blog is getting a bit long, I have to mention all the Valentine’s day fun. This time last year we were down in Juneau working and harassing family, and I’m really glad this year we stayed for the girls to participate in their school activities. One day after school everyone wrote out their own Valentine’s Day cards; something I did quickly the night before last year! Some grumbling occurred until we got in the groove; overall they did great writing all classmates names and their own. I overbought options, since last year valentines sold out well before the holiday and couldn’t be found, with Reagan selecting Trolls (Band Together), Emerie choosing Frozen over the Bluey option, and Harper claiming Peppa Pig. I always enjoy watching them to a school type activity at home, such as writing classmates names down, and seeing how they react. Emerie struggled a bit fitting the letters into the small cards, writing bottom to top to finish names, but was able to get over that frustration and actually finished first! Harper and Reagan continued fighting over the pen used to cross completely names off the list; Harper also demanded to only use a yellow marker for all the writing, and Reagan took her time writing out the names. Somehow we made it through and were done by the time Craig came home from work!

Before school on V-Day
Making valentines
Cuties after dance class

Excluding the winter season we are currently in, it feels though time is passing really quickly and my babies are growing up quickly before my eyes. The girls are growing like weeds and I’m internally struggling a bit at how big and independent they are becoming- it really goes by quick! Life has gotten a lot easier for sure, and we can fit so many more activities and outings into a single day, but I certainly have my moments of missing my little tiny humans. I am learning to enjoy them spreading their wings and learning new things.

Cheers to winter…for a little bit longer! ❤