Farmer's Market

Today we took the kids into Blacksburg to visit the Farmer's Market. They liked looking around at the booths, and enjoyed getting outside the house in the morning. The girls liked being able to ride together in their new double jogging stroller. They then drank their bottles, and stopped in a local chocolate shop before heading home. Arthur, especially, loved the sights and smells of the chocolate store. Both he (and his mom) had to be dragged out the door to go home.

Raking Leaves

As the weather has been in the high 60's all week, we've been taking the triplets outside for a few hours in the afternoon in order to start spring cleaning. Since the triplets had occupied our time last fall, there were still mounds of leaves left to be raked up. We decided that this was the time to finally clean up the leaves, as there were daffodils and tulips struggling to see daylight. Betty decided to do her share as well.

Talking Up a Storm

After a relatively quiet past few weeks (except for an overly loquacious Betty), the triplets have started again on constant babbling. Coraline has now picked up the motorboat sound Arthur loved a while back - lots of spitty B's. Betty continues constantly narrating all aspects of her life (including during meals), and Arthur is working on twisting his tongue sideways in anticipation of learning some tribal language.

One interesting thing is that it seems as if each of the three are working on different sets of syllables. Arthur keeps repeating "Mamamamama," Betty is focused on "Nanananana," and I've heard Coraline occasionally work on "Dadadada." Obviously, there are now three happy grownups in the house. Each time the triplets hit upon a set of syllables that makes a word, it stops Erin and me in our tracks, and we glance at each other to make sure we heard what we thought we heard. While we know it will still be quite a while before these words are used in context, it is nice to know they are in the triplets' repetoire.

Spring Forward

Daylight Savings Time resumes this weekend, and we are eager for our clocks to spring forward an hour. You see, the triplets have been waking up around 6am, instead of their scheduled 7am wakeup. Perhaps the change in time will fix this. Until then, I have been taking the loud ones out of their cribs and into our bed, in an effort to keep them calm (and prolong my rest) until at least 6:30. For the past few days, this meant that Arthur and Coraline were in bed together, but this morning, Betty woke up early as well. While in bed together, they calmly hold each other's hands, pat each other's faces, or plot on how to steal Arthur's pacifier (the other morning Coraline deftly plucked it from his mouth, and shoved it into hers).

We've also noticed that the girls' hair has grown longer, and because they have baths right before bed, they now wake up with bed hair. Once we stop laughing, we'll try to figure out a solution to this.

Pear Lollipops

Today we put some peeled pear slices into these mesh, hand-held lollipop containers we got at a garage sale a while back. They were a huge hit! We had tried apple slices earlier, to no avail. But the pears were soft and juicy enough to hold the kids' attention for quite a while. Betty, though, decided she was having too much fun in her excersaucer, and chose not to have this snack. But for Coraline and Arthur, this was great fun. They quickly realized that besides chewing on the pear, they could chew on the plastic handle (Arthur liked rubbing it back and forth across his sore gums), and that the juice made their bibs and burp clothes quite tasty. Between the two of them, they finished off half of a pear. Hopefully Betty will join in next time.

Spring Cleaning

With temperatures reaching 70 degrees today, and the threat of high winds tomorrow, we decided to take everyone outside to rake up the leaves in the backyard. The kids liked being outside in the sun, and were fascinated by the sounds we were making with the rakes. Arthur, especially, enjoyed riding in the Ergo while I cleaned up the yard. We also found out that their sun hats did not fit, so we had to make do with the hats that did fit...

7 Months

Today Great-Aunt Lois flew in to meet the triplets for the first time. Since she came from a state that still has shoulder-height mounds of snow, we celebrated the great weather here by taking everyone for a walk on the Huckleberry Trail. The kids all enjoyed the hike, and were fascinated by all the bikes and dogs that passed us by.