I love 8 pm! and Pics

Don't get me wrong...I LOVE that I am a full-time SAHM (stay-at-home-mom). And I LOVE my girls with all of my heart, but after a long day of naps not going well, spit-ups, throw-ups, fussiness and just an overall not so great day, 8 o'clock is music to my ears. Since Christy came to put us on the right track, our girls go down for bedtime somewhere between 7:15 and 8:00 pm. So that is the time of night when I get to relax for more than a few minutes and spend some quality time with Brent and enjoy the silence :). Addison and Reagan are sleeping through the entire night at 3 months adjusted age and Baylee had a few setbacks so I am still getting up once, sometimes twice a night to feed her...but she will get there in her own time.

Something I also LOVE is seeing the smiling faces of my girls when I go in to get them up each morning. It brings tears to my eyes each time they look at me and smile so big because they know, "There's my mommy!"

Speaking of waking the girls up in the morning, Saturday morning Brent went in to get the girls feeding started for me so we could get on the road to McKinney early for CJ's birthday party and this is what he found...

Sweet sleeping Addie with both arms out of her swaddle and over her head :)

And speaking of CJ's 4th birthday party, Brent and I had toyed with the idea for a few weeks on if we were going to be able to go and take the girls with us. A few days before the party I decided I really wanted to go, not so much that CJ would necessarily miss us if we weren't there, but that we would miss being there for him.
We woke up at 5:30 am Saturday morning to pack the car and get ready to get the girls up at 6:30 am. The ride up to McKinney went great, not much screaming. :) But it seems that the girls still can't handle large crowds of people and screaming kids...who can, right? :) So we spent the majority of our time at The Millers' house in the master bedroom where the girls had set up camp. We had a great time seeing our nephews and the rest of my family but the ride back to Waco was, in a word, dreadful. I remembered in those moments why we don't travel with the girls much. I told Brent I guess it takes me about a month to forget how bad it is and then it all comes back rather quickly as we are on the interstate with three screaming babies.

Birthday Boy, CJ, dressed as Darth Vadar and Mark Robert dressed as Chubaka checkin out their cousins while they eat

The girls' Aunt Missy holding Reagan
Pop talking to Addie

We had the greatest time with the boys while we were in McKinney...I'm sad we didn't get a picture of cutie pie Peyton, but here are some that we did get while we were there.

When the party was almost over, Grammy and Missy were cleaning up the leftover cake and pizza while the older kids played on the bounce house outside. Marky was walkin' around in his diaper, minding his own business, when he came upon the kitchen table where someone had left a plate FULL of leftover cake just sitting there. Brent watched this event unfold right before his eyes. Marky, noticing the cake was unguarded, pulled over a kitchen chair, climbed on top, threw both arms out to the air and prepared to dive head first into those pieces of cake. At the last second Grammy snatched the plate from Marky and his plan to eat himself into oblivion was thwarted once again.

Marky, sans costume, cleaning up the kitchen table for his Mommy

Uncle Brent and CJ with one of his new favorite toys

Here are just a few pics from the past week or so.

Baylee all dressed and ready to go to her follow-up ENT appointment

Baylee loving her Exersaucer
Addie Bear smiling at Mommy

Reagan Baby - Such a cutie!

Here are some pictures of the girls before bathtime one night. They got these adorable, handmade robes from Grammy and Pop's neighbor, Charlotte, in Gunter.

Baylee's robe from the back

Baylee in her robe before bathtime :)

Addie in her robe from the back

Addie before bathtime

Reagan before bathtime, smiling at Daddy

Reagan's robe from the back

We LOVE CJ!

Our lovie, CJ, turns 4 years old tomorrow! He is our first born nephew and we love him very much. Such a sweet, funny, adorable boy!

CJ, your Uncle Brent, Aunt Shell and cousins Addie, Reagan and Baylee LOVE you very much!

Here are some of our favorite pics of Clark Miller, Jr.

We LOVE Being 5 Months Old!

Our living room is an obstacle course of baby toys, playmats, jumpers and one jungle themed Exersaucer and we love it! :)
The girls will be 5 months old tomorrow and they are doing great!
Here is a little update on each of our sweet babies!

Reagan Riley

Reagan remains our middle of the road baby. She is pretty easy going most of the time and doesn't get too upset about many things. She loves her monkey toy and she loves to smile and laugh at us as long as she isn't too tired. She is sleeping all the way through the night - 12 hours - (Thank you, Lord!) and loves, loves, loves her Daddy. She will smile and giggle mostly for him. She loves checking out her sisters faces and will smile really big when they smile at her. She also likes her Exersaucer and Bumbo seat, but doesn't like to be left in them for too terribly long. Reagan weighs around 15 lbs. and has the bluest eyes and the most hair out of our trio.

Reagan in her Exersaucer

Reagan laughing in her Bumbo seat
Up close of my gorgeous girl

Reagan getting her baby massage

Baylee Brynn

Baylee remains to be our challenging little one. She is exactly like her Daddy in that she is strong-willed and like me in that she is slightly temperamental. :) She has not quite mastered sleeping through the night mainly due to a few setbacks. She had a little cold a few weeks ago and after she got over that she had surgery on her tongue, both of which can affect sleep. But she has made definite progress since her surgery last week. The nights after her surgery she was waking every two hours, then every three hours the beginning of this week, and last night she only woke twice and was only fed once. So we expect her to catch up with her sisters in the coming weeks. Baylee LOVES her Exersaucer! She jumps and plays and laughs at the toys for a very long time during her playtime. She also LOVES to watch tv. I know, I know...what a horrible mother, Michelle, letting your 5 month old watch tv. I hardly ever have the tv on during the daytime these days except for the afternoon talk shows, "Ellen" and "Oprah". :) The girls afternoon waketime just happens to be during the Ellen show and Baylee LOVES Ellen. She will laugh and jump when she sees people dancing and she just gazes at the tv in awe. She also had a great time watching "Man vs. Wild" with her Daddy the other day when she was particularly upset about something. Brent propped her up in his lap and she sat there to finish the show with him in absolute silence. Baylee is our morning baby, always smiling and extremely happy to see you. Baylee has caught up to her sisters in weight and is also around 15 lbs.

Baylee checking out the toys on her Exersaucer

Baylee watching Ellen :)

Baylee getting her baby massage

Baylee watching Man vs. Wild with her Daddy

Addison Ann

Sweet Addie. Addie has been our first to sleep through the night, our first to roll over and it only makes sense because she is our first born. Addie loves to "talk" and she LOVES her playmat with the toys hanging over her. She grabs at toys and has started to put her fingers in her mouth and explore her face with her hands. Addie is VERY easy going, takes a lot for her to let out a major howl of a scream and she is sleeping 12 hours each night. Addie also loves her ducky paci from Grammy. She doesn't like her Bumbo seat or the Exersaucer much, I think she gets frustrated because they are too restricting. I think she is ready to get up and GO! but just hasn't quite gotten there yet. Addie and Reagan are looking more identical every day and they seem to edge each other out in weight every time we have a doctor's appointment.

Addie Bear close up

Addie with her ducky paci

Addie Bear playing during her awake time

Sweet, sweet Addie

Happy 5 month birthday, sweet babies! You fill us with joy each and every day. We are so excited about what the rest of your 1st year holds for all of us.

We LOVE Our Girls!!!

In the celebration of February, all of my posts in February will be about the things we LOVE the most...and this goes a little without saying, but we LOVE OUR GIRLS!!!
Last night after the girls were in bed, I did what I usually do. I sat down with Brent to watch a little tv and got on the computer to check e-mail, Facebook and tripletconnection (an online triplet family forum where I can connect with other mom's and dad's of triplets and share experiences and seek advice from other families in our shoes).
I saw a post from a mom of triplets asking for prayers for a family of triplet boys in Florida that was close to losing one of their trio. They, like us, had a set of identical twins and a fraternal triplet in their bunch. And their twin set, like ours, was born with some twin-to-twin transfusion. That basically means that one twin was receiving the majority or all of the blood and nutrients from the placenta and the other twin was not receiving enough. All ultrasounds prior to our delivery showed healthy trips, but when Reagan and Addison were delivered it was apparent that Addison was receiving all of the blood and Reagan was not. Addie was bright pink, almost red in color and Reagan was pale and needed a blood transfusion immediately. To this day, I know that it was by the grace of God that my water broke and the girls were delivered early so that Reagan could get the help she needed outside of the womb.
This family in Florida delivered their triplets at 28 weeks in the middle of July 2009 due to the twin-to-twin transfusion. One of the twins never left the NICU due to the complications from the twin-to-twin transfusion...he spent 6 and 1/2 months, his entire life, in the NICU. He passed away Saturday evening in his mother's arms.
I think every day how blessed we are to have three happy, healthy little girls...but this family's story hit me like a ton of bricks. We are SO LUCKY that the girls thrived in the NICU and were able to bring them home after 19 days (Baylee) and 24 days (Reagan and Addison). We are SO LUCKY they currently don't have any major health issues due to being born prematurely and Reagan is doing just great even though she was low on blood when she was born.
I was crying about their story all night. I could almost feel the pain that mother must be going through and I couldn't help but imagine how completely torn to shreds I would be if we had lost our sweet Reagan.

Sweet Reagan Baby in her bumble bee pjs

Mom, I know you are crying right now but dry your eyes as this post gets a little more upbeat. (love you)

The girls are doing SO GREAT with their sleep training! Reagan and Addison are sleeping ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE NIGHT! *Hallelujah Dance*

Baylee is close but with having her tongue clipped last week she is still progressing and trying to get there. But hey, 2 outta 3 ain't bad!

Baylee Boo in her ladybug pjs

The girls are also just happy little babies! They laugh and giggle...mostly at their Daddy. Last night my heart was just bursting watching Addie squeal and giggle at her Daddy over and over again while they played and laughed before bedtime. Precious, precious babies.

Addie Bear in her ducky pjs

They haven't quite mastered the smile-on-cue-for-pictures thing, but hey, we'll get there.

L-O-V-E to you all!

We LOVE Christy!!!

It isn't February yet, but it's close enough! And since February is the "love" month, I thought I would do a month of posts about the things we L-O-V-E. :)

So for my first post, I will shout it from the rooftops, we LOVE Christy!

Christy with Reagan, Addison and Baylee

I've been telling everyone for weeks that Christy was coming back and she is here! We love having her here, not only do Brent and I get full nights of sleep (Hooray!) but the girls progress and progress in their sleep training.

Addison

Addison and Reagan slept 12 hours last night and Baylee woke up a few times due to the huge thunderstorm we had. Christy said Baylee would jump and start crying each time a huge clap of thunder would hit and it was LOUD last night. So if it hadn't been for that, Baylee would have slept great as well.

Christy playing with Reagan, Baylee and Addison

This week Christy and I are working to move the girls to a 3 hour rotating schedule starting around 7 or 8 am. I would like to get the girls up at 8 am each day so their bedtime would then be 8 pm. An 8 pm bedtime gives Brent more time in the evenings to spend with his girls after work, but so far, the girls love the 7 o'clock hour. They average getting up around 7 or 7:15 am each morning, which is fine, we are rolling with it. Eventually, they will be old enough to stay awake longer and spend the entire evening around dinner time with their Daddy. :)

So, for those interested, our new schedule goes a little something like this:

7:00 am - Wake to Feed, playtime

8:30 am - Nap

10:00 am - Wake to Feed, playtime

11:30 am -Nap

1:00 pm - Wake to Feed, playtime

2:30 pm - Nap

4:00 pm - Wake to Feed

5:30 pm - Nap

6:30 or 7:00 pm - Wake, bedtime routine

7:30 or 8:00 pm- Bedtime

If they wake up at 8 am any morning, we just push their schedule back an hour and give them a short catnap around dinner time so Brent and I can eat dinner when they get tired and need a nap.

We are also working on getting the girls to self-soothe with their fingers instead of a pacifier.

Reagan

We have tried unswaddling them for a few naps, and thus far, haven't been too successful with this. We think the girls just really like to be swaddled up tight and it helps them stay asleep. Having both arms out of the swaddle for naps just allows them more opportunities to smack themselves in the face and wake up WAILING haha! So, we are going to do some more intense training on that next week.

Christy with the crew :)

Baylee is doing AWESOME with her new, improved tongue. She is already using a #2 nipple on all of her bottles as are Reagan and Addison. She has a white stripe under her tongue where they cut and you can tell that it is healing very well.

Baylee - half smile :)

She is happy and loves sticking out her tongue and making all kinds of "la" and "luh" sounds. :) We are still dosing her with some Tylenol because she seems to get bothered by her tongue before naps, we think because it is still sore. But she is really doing great with it and much better than we expected.

We also love it when Christy is here because Brent and I get to do things we hardly ever get to do. Last night we went to dinner together! It was POURING outside, but we figured we could make it to the door of the restaurant without an umbrella. Here is what Brent looked like when we finally got inside...HAHA! SOAKED! Those aren't shadows on his shirt, that is a bib of rain. :) And tonight, we are happily going to a movie together...AT THE THEATRE! I know...the little things get me all excited these days!

L-O-V-E to you all and Happy Birthday to my awesome sister and SUPERMOM, Missy!

The Frenulumectomy

Medical Jargon
Diagnosis: Ankyloglossia (tongue tied)
Procedure: Incision of the Lingual Frenulum

Layman's terms:
Excessive attachment of tongue to bottom of the mouth.

Baylee Before Surgery

Baylee had her tongue clipped this morning. I really was expecting the worst and so far, I'm pleased to say that hasn't really been the case!

Last night, I fed Baylee a dream feed at 11 pm just to keep her happy and sleeping through the night. I wasn't allowed to feed her anything except pedialyte or juice between midnight and 3:15 am, so at 3:00am I gave her 50% pedialyte and 50% water mixed just to hold her over this morning. She did great all night and started to wake up right around the time I needed to get her dressed to get in the car.

We arrived at the surgery center at 6:15 am this morning and Baylee was overall in good spirits and not fussing too much. We went into pre-op where they took her vitals and discussed the procedure with us. For this procedure, they give the child a little anesthesia through a mask over their nose and mouth and no IV is needed. They also use a local anesthetic to numb the area they are going to cut.

In pre-op, Baylee started to get a little antsy so I kept thinking they needed to get this over with or we were going to have one SCREAMING baby on our hands. Right about the time I thought Baylee was going to let loose and let me have it, the nurse came to take her back for the procedure. I stood there and watched her take Baylee away, a happy and smiling baby...*tear*. I didn't actually start crying until we got into our little waiting room. All those motherly thoughts swarming through my head and freaking me out about all the things that probably wouldn't but could go wrong.

It wasn't 5 minutes later when the doctor came in and told us it was over and she was back in recovery. :) She did great and he wants to see us in 10 days to check on her, but overall everything should be just fine.

When we got back to where Baylee was recovering, Brent and I sat next to her bed to wait for her to wake up from the anesthesia. She looked so sweet covered in her pink blanket from Aunt Missy and she was sucking on her paci under her oxygen mask. It didn't take her long to come out of it and when she did I grabbed her up and rocked her and she didn't cry at all! She just looked at us like, "Where the heck am I?" I gave her a bottle and she went to town on it but still seemed a little woozy.


We were home with her by 8:30 am. I gave her some more to eat when we got home and she gladly took all of it and I put her straight to bed after a little cuddling and saying hello to her sisters. She hasn't napped as well as she usually does and I suspect it is because the local anesthetic under her tongue is wearing off and she is starting to feel a little soreness or pain. I gave her some Tylenol after a few bouts of heavy crying and she peacefully went back to sleep. Such a sweet, sweet baby Baylee is. All of the nurses were just ooo-ing and ahhh-ing over her and asking us all about the triplets.

Baylee After Surgery

(sadly, this is the best "after" shot I could get...Baylee wasn't in the mood for photos :))

Speaking of the triplets! The girls are doing just fantastic! Brent and I weighed them last night with our at-home scale and Baylee weighs 14.6 lbs. and Addison and Reagan both weigh 14.10 lbs!!! Our big girls!!!

Reagan Riley, Baylee Brynn and Addison Ann

Christy will be here today to help me for the rest of the week and also get the girls down to 0 feeds each night and on a 3 hour rotating schedule. We can't wait to see her!

Also, we are the featured family on Christy's website this week, so go check out all of the pictures of the girls on the pages to her website at http://www.sweetbabydreams.net/.

Love to you all!