Pics!!!

Here's some pics from NJ! We are having so much fun here...we love it!!!!!!!!!

Gobble Gobble Gobble

Happy Turkey Day! We're headed out in the morning for our very 1st road trip. Wish us luck! It'll be our 1st time staying away from home except for when we stay at Grandma Lucco's house. Mommy & daddy say the hotel is going to be very nice and it has a pool so hopefully we get to go swimming and meet some nice people! We'll tell you all about it when we get back.
Love,
Hannah, Hailey & Emily

Hannah's boo boo pic

Trip to the ER

Here's the story on the 365 blog. Too much to post twice!
http://365daysinourshoes.blogspot.com/

All better

We are all better now. No more ear infections.

I'm all better now.

Emily

You guessed it...she didn't want to be left out of the sick mess they've all created. Up all night, threw up on me twice and now just hanging out waiting to go to the doctor.

Hannah

She has her very 1st ear infection (yes...just one day after Hailey - we had to bring Hannah to the doctor for the same sypmtoms). :-(

Hailey

She has her 1st ear infection. :-(

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Happy Birthday Cousin Christina! We love you and miss you so very much!!!!

Update on the trio

Ok - so Hannah woke up with the runny nose that Emily has been sporting the past few days. BUT - they slept through the night last night. I'm sure Hailey won't be too far behind on the cold wagon but hopefully it's JUST a cold and nothing else. The girls didn't get their H1N1 vaccines but they did get the seasonal flu vaccine. I'm hoping the doctors office has the H1N1 in this week. We held off on the vaccine last visit but now we've changed our minds (after doing more research)...and now they're out of the vaccine...lol.

We have the appt with the head surgeon on Friday for Emily and Hailey. Pete and I really haven't talked about it much. I think we're both pretty nervous about the whole thing. So much going on lately and this appt just crept up on us out of nowhere. We want to go away for Thanksgiving - but we might be sticking around nursing some post op children. We'll see.

Emily is talking more and more these days. She isn't 'using' her words - but she's repeating EVERYTHING! When I found out someone stole all 6 of our pumpkins (even the one's that they decorated with stickers and had their names on them in beautiful calligraphy thanks to Kristin) I said 'I'm so mad!' And Emily says 'Uh oh, Mama mad, uh oh'. It's cute. But really - I wasn't happy about the whole pumpkins being stolen. Grrrrrr. Punk kids. We even handed out candy on Halloween! We found the pumpkins...smashed to smithereens along with everyone else's pumpkins in the neighborhood. For some reason I'm finding it hard to move on from this...but I'll keep trying.

They can all JUMP off the ground! I'm proud of this...I don't know why but I am. Also - Pete bought them some flash cards last week and they're really getting good at identifying the pictures on the cards. We ask if they can find something and they sort through all of the cards and find it.

It's hard to know where they should be scholastically(?) and what they should/shouldn't be able to do. We only have the 3 of them and they're not in school/daycare. So we do a lot of reading and sometimes I feel like they're way more advanced in some areas and way behind in others. So we're working on the areas that we think they're behind.

Do we worry about anything specifically? Probably not. If I had to blurt out only one thing I worry about in excess it would be their health. They get a cold and I turn into the worst worrying mama ever. Do they have a fever? A rash? A cough? Is Hannah going to get croup again? Will Emily ever lapse back into her apnea episodes from a lowered immune system while she's sick? Will Hailey stop eating and lose weight (which she already can't afford to do!)? But I think this is all 'normal'. Every mom worries. Every mom wants the best for their kids and doesn't want to see them miserable. At least that's the way it works in our house anyway!

Oh and for the record...they ALL have daddy wrapped around their tiny little fingers.
Every. Single. One.

They're still in cribs and we've decided to keep them in their cribs until they figure out that it would be pretty easy for them to just climb out. Once they do that...we'll put their crib mattresses on the floor and take everything out of their room except bedding. They can have a field day at bed time - eventually they'll fall asleep right?

Their car seats are still rear facing. They can climb up into their seats by themselves so it's a game now - they get in the van and they get into whatever seat they want. They like to switch it up so lately they've all been in different seats. We can't turn Hannah and Hailey around yet because they're not yet 20lbs. Now the new recommendation is to keep them rear facing until they're 4 years old. We'll see how that goes...

We haven't started potty training yet. I think we'll buy them some potty seats for xmas and start orienting them to the idea gradually.

I guess that's it for now...(are you even still reading this long post?).

Pics

Here are some pics with the family. Things are going well - but Emily has a cold right now. We're hoping this isn't the beginning of a messy few weeks with 3 sick kids. I feel like we just got over having them all sick!

Halloween Lunch

THIS is what a true Halloween lunch should look like! Mac n cheese with 'worms', mummy dogs, bread bones, banana ghost (covered in peanut butter), pumpkin rice crispy treats and ghosts juice with pumpkin silverware!!!!!!! I have the best brother in the world. Truely.

Edited to add: KRISTIN MADE LUNCH TODAY!!! I have the best brothers' girlfriend in the world. Truely. ;-)

Pray for Stellan

Stellan and his family need our prayers once again. He's back in SVT and in the hospital. Hasn't been a good night for the little guy or for MckMama either. Stellan is GOING to be 1 tomorrow. Let's all pray for him to be eating yummy birthday cake with his family!!!!!!
http://www.mycharmingkids.net/

Kristin

Secrets

Hailey Rose and Kaleigh Rose sharing secrets....

18 month well baby

But at 2o months. Lol...we said it would be late! The girls are doing very well. They're growing...although Hailey and Hannah are still peanuts and not quite on the growth chart. The important thing is that they're healthy.

We held off on the MMR and Varicella vaccines again. Still not ready. They did get the seasonal flu shot (not the H1N1). And I was prepared! I knew that they would cry and the last thing I wanted to see what their little lip pouting while looking at ME as if I was the one that hurt them. So a couple weeks ago Pete and I introduced........the DUM DUM POP! Oh yeah - it's the best thing in the world when you're 20 months old. So we got them hooked and then right after they got stuck (the tears were coming in waves) we unwrapped the pops and it was complete silence. Instantly. Then you heard the 'mmmmmmm' out of all of them. They hold their pop out to me and say 'POP POP!' and then stick it back in their mouth. Hehe...it worked like charm baby. They even said 'bye bye' to the doctor as we left.

Emily has a 'bump' on her head that needs to be removed. I'll get more technical terminology once we see the surgeon. We'll be seeing him the 1st week of November.

Hailey has a skin tag on her neck...or at least that's what we've always thought it was (the doctors told us that when she was born). But now the pediatrician is concerned that it may be a sinus that never closed? Not sure...so we're bringing her to see the same surgeon on the same day Emily goes. Emily has seen this doctor once before - this will really just be a follow up for me to get more information before she goes in for surgery.

If Hailey ends up needing surgery - I'm going to see if they can remove the nevus sebaceous that's on her head. She's been seen for it and the doctor said she'll need to have it removed before she starts school. Lots of 'we'll see' going on though. We won't be jumping into anything too quickly.

The girls vocab is still eh. They KNOW how to say words. They're just refusing to use them.

We bought them playdough, baby dolls, baby doll strollers, a baby doll pack-n-play and finger paint. They needed some revamping of new toys. And they LOVE their baby dolls and strollers. They are the proudest little mama's I've ever seen.

Oh - they're not sick anymore either. Lol...I've just been too busy to post anything of interest these past few weeks! Emily still has a rash but it's going away slowly.

We have a lot of pics that we haven't posted so I'll try to post them with a bit of background info on them this week. (I'll TRY). ;-)

For this post - just the pics of their new babies...and a pic of my babies.

Breakfast on Fun Friday with Uncle Joey & Kristin

Hmmmm

I have been complaining a lot in the past week. The girls have been sick and they've been up at night. And it just seems that when they're sick - it lasts for so long. I think a cold should last for maybe a few days but theirs last for weeks. Literally. Weeks. Emily still has a rash from head to toe. Hailey has no voice really (and she hasn't been 'screaming' at night so it's not from that). So Pete and I have been walking zombies the past few days because really - 6 hours of sleep isn't enough. And when it's not even 6 consecutive hours - it makes it worse. We've been short with the girls, short with each other, probably short with co-workers and friends as well. Things in the house just haven't been getting done. I have 6 (yes that's SIX) loads of clean laundry in my room waiting to be put away. At least it's clean right? Anyway - the point of all of this is here...http://visbalfamily.blogspot.com/. I jumped over to the MckMamma blog today for a little pick me up and I saw this blog on her twitter acct. She simply asked to 'pray for Hailey'. So I hopped on over to check it out *(love the name!). Ugh. What is wrong with me? Really? This is certainly God's way of knocking me off my soap box.
Michelle

Sick

We're sick. Runny noses, coughs and one with a very bad rash from head to toe.

Pics

Here are pics from our visit to Jen's house!

Weekend

Ahhhh...time just gets by me these days. I haven't been updating the girls blog as often as I'd like but things are busy. We keep them busy. That's why we're...well...busy. Friday I took the day off thinking that Pete had the day off and Little Brother would be here with Kristin. Thinking. That's where I went wrong. Pete took only 1/2 the day off and needed to wait for someone to come look at a then broken, now fixed, baseboard heater. And once Little Brother found out I was going to be home...he went to work himself. So as not to waste a perfectly beautiful day with 3 perfectly beautiful babies...I packed them up and off we went. We drove to my cousin Jen's house to visit with her and her 2 boys (well one of them was in school but we stayed for a while so we were able to visit with him when he got home). The girls had so much fun with Christopher...my cousins 2 y/o little boy. And they ALL GOT ALONG. We went for a walk at one point and the girls saw cows for the very 1st time! But they didn't care. They were more interested in the dirt road and flowers. LOL

Saturday was raining all day. But we managed to get the girls out to breakfast with Lucy, Alex & Brianna before heading home for a nap. Then up and out to go play at MyGym (it was a free open house) and then a quick visit to Titi Rosemary at CVS (which is right next door to MyGym) and then grocery shopping. We finished all of this just in time to get home, eat dinner, take baths, brush teeth, read books and hit the hay!

Sunday we went to Church then up to MA to visit with more family. We had dinner at meme's with Gramps, Kate & Kaleigh, Jen & Christopher and of course...Meme! The kids all played outside on the play scape and except for one little 'mishap' with Hailey...everyone got along. Hailey thought the slide belonged to her and only her so when another little girl tried to go down Hailey literally screamed at her in some baby babble kind of way. I simply told Hailey to 'be nice!' before the little girl went down the slide at which point she said to me "that girl's crazy" and walked away. Poor thing...all she wanted to do was play and Hailey just thought she was the Queen of the play ground. Lord help me.

Ok - of course you want pics...and of course I have them (hundreds of them...literally!). Be patient...I'll try to get them up as the week progresses!

RSV - click the button!

Maureen left a comment about this site - it's great. More info on RSV. Education is key!!!!

Link to the RSV pics

I can't seem to find a way to get the pics on the site (I'm at work and don't have time to figure it out). But here's a link to a GREAT post about it with pics. She says it perfectly!!!!
http://www.justmommies.com/blog/2009/09/the-rsv-blog-post/

RSV

Yes - it's that time. RSV season is from October - April. And once again - as 'mom' I have to be vigilant about hand washing and sending people away if they're sick. I'm going to try to post some pictures of what the girls lungs look like. Remember - they were born at a mere 31 weeks and 5 days. That's a full 8 weeks premature. If you're sick - please stay home. When you visit - you will have to wash your hands (no worries...soap and a timer will be available to you!) lol. No kissing the babies!!!! They love to kiss - but germs people...GERMS! Have sick kids? Stay home please. You'll be a carrier of those germs and that's the one thing we certainly don't like to share. Please don't be offended if we decline an invitation or if we ask you not to visit. The last place I want to spend the winter season is in the PICU - Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. This is exactly where the girls will end up if they contract RSV. And I'll tell you this much - I read too many blogs last year about babies who never made it home. Our goal is to keep the girls healthy and happy. S0 please understand!!!!

New Blog

Pete and I are writing a new blog...but no worries - the girls will still have this one! We all know the reason you come is to see the girls!!! The new blog is here http://365daysinourshoes.blogspot.com/