Alexa

This is my sweet little sunshine, Alexa, enjoying her stroller time at Seaworld in San Diego earlier this month.

Alana

We have been tremendously blessed with 3 incredibly happy, smiley babies! Alana is, definitely, know for her sweet smile and I think we captured quite a few of her best ones here.

Matching Shirts

The top 2 pictures were taken earlier this month and I was excited because not only do I have a husband to dress (which I have been enjoying doing for over 4 years now), but now I have a son to dress, as well. So, I had a little fun and bought then both almost matching shirts. I think they look pretty cute!
The last 3 pictures were taken on the San Diego trip during one of their many mealtimes. They are always excited to eat!

Small Group

Eric & I started a small group that meets at our house a few months back. Its been such a blessing to be a part of. When we meet, the kids are usually sleeping. However, we decided to have a BBQ and have the kids around. Luke & Courtney have become good friends of ours and they have twin boys who are 2 months younger than ours. So, we decided to get a picture of the whole group, including the 5 kids. Great fun!

We love to be "FREE"

The kids have decided that their favorite thing is to run around with just their diapers on after dinner and just before putting on their PJ's. I am sure that they would prefer to be even more "free" and run around without their diapers, but I have to admit that I am a bit paranoid about "accidents", so, rarely, are they without their diapers.

It's pretty cute, though. They seem to like to run around in a pack. If one of them discovers something new, they start "chirping" and the other two will stop what they are doing and come follow the other one. It's quite amusing!

Josiah's 1st Haircut

We've been contemplating for awhile now about cutting Josiah's hair. When mentioning it to friends and family, we definitely got mixed reviews. The best was from Eric's sister, Renee. She said, "No! You can't cut his hair! That's his identity...he's like Sampson!" I thought that one was pretty funny. However, as time passed by and we started seeing less and less of his ears and he started looking more and more shaggy, we decided to just bite the bullet and do it. We were on our way home from Santa Barbara and we stopped in Paso Robles for some lunch and a little stroll so the kids could get out of the car for awhile. We walked passed a store called "Kids Cuts" and all they did was cut kids hair. So, we wondered in and inquired about getting a haircut for Josiah. They were so kid oriented and kid friendly that we couldn't pass it up. They let Josiah sit on Eric's lap and had a singing ELMO to entertain Josiah while she was cutting his hair. They even had a little play area for the girls to wander around in. All in all, it was a great pit stop and they did a great job on Joe's hair. He looks so grown up! We didn't get a great "after" photo but it really does look better. :)

San Diego Road Trip

No, we haven't disappeared off the face of the planet. We have been out of town and enjoying the summer. Eric's parents organized a family trip to Oceanside, CA (near San Diego) this last week. Eric & I decided to be brave and drive down with the kids. We left at 6am and didn't arrive until 7pm. That's 13 hours of traveling! And the bottom line is that we have the best kids ever! They were amazing! They totally went with the flow and didn't have any real meltdowns until we hit a bunch of traffic about an hour away...and then who could blame them...I was ready to have a meltdown myself. They were such troopers, we did their feedings at a Starbucks, an In N Out and in the car.

We had lots of fun hanging out with the family. We went to the beach, Legoland, and Sea World. When we left San Diego area, we decided to stop in Santa Barbara for a couple of nights with just myself, Eric and the kids. We visited a few of our friends that live down there. It was a great way to end the trip with some downtime with just us. Having 3 one year olds is a whole lotta work, that's for sure...but, it is also a lot of fun! And now that we know they are such great travelers we feel like we have a bit more freedom! Yeah!

When I say that we had Eric's whole immediate family, I mean the "whole" family, including Kobe. He's the family dog who has been around longer than any of the in-laws. This was the first time the kids have spent much time with a dog so it was pretty funny to watch. The first day, Kobe barked and Josiah started crying. Within a few hours, though, they all started warming up to each other and were all good friends by the end of the weekend. That's Alana playing with Kobe in the second picture.

We also got some cute pictures of the kids falling asleep in someone's arms. Being at a theme park two days in a row was quite stimulating for the kids, but when they get tired...they get tired! That's Josiah sleeping in Grandpa's arms at Legoland and Alexa sleeping in Uncle Jose's arms at Sea World.

We also stopped by Eric's cousin's house in LA on our way down. That's Eric's cousin's kids Joe and Cara holding all 3 of the kiddos in the last picture. They were quite entertaining to the kids and it ended up being a great "pit stop".

All in all, it was a super fun week away and it went by way too fast!

Just the four of us

A couple of weekends ago, we went to a party and the house where we were at had closets with full length mirrors. We brought the girls into the bedroom to change them and they were fascinated with the mirrors!

Table for five

There are the big things like rolling over or crawling and then there are the little things that are honestly more meaningful. This weekend, we accomplished a few little things. Saturday morning, the kids ate banana pancakes for the first time. We have slowly been adding items into their diet and I was pretty excited about giving them some pancakes as it is a Jardine tradition to wake up slow on Saturday and have some banana pancakes with butterscotch chips mixed in.

We had no plans at 9am which is a surefire way to have some excitement come into the day. We decided to go up to the REI in Corte Madera to look at some yakima rack systems. After feeding the kids the pancakes at the house, Rebecca and I decided that we would grab something for our own lunch on our way. Normally, this means In n Out or Chipotle. As we pulled up to the REI we talked about getting fast food or takeout food from a nicer restaurant.

After a bit of consideration, we decided to take the risk and attempt to take our kids out to eat at a sit down restaurant. Our poor waiter didn't know quite how to respond. We asked him to bring some extra spoons, of course these spoons were not to feed the kids but to serve as entertainment. The kids can't get enough of bang and sucking on spoons. Luckily, the service was fast and we were halfway done with our meal by the time the last spoon dropped to the ground. Overall, it was a major milestone. We are by no means ready to go out to dinner but it was really exciting to ask for a table for five.

Tech kids

Our kids will quickly be moving past us as they become more technologically inclined. They love to skype video chat with my parents. Alexa was caught updating her status a few days ago. They grow up so fast.

Bath Robes

Shortly after the kids were born, we received these really cute bath robes for them. They were way too big at the time, but we were finally able to put them in them the other day after their baths. It looks like they like them!

More Birthday Fun

Yesterday was the kids 1st birthday party (Sniff! Sniff!) I can't believe they are already a year old. Time sure does fly when you're having fun! The funniest part of the day was when we brought the kids into the living room where their gifts were, they all 3 immediately crawled under the table to get to them and started unwrapping one of the gifts. It was pretty funny since they've just learned how to open presents in the last few days (and it wasn't time to open presents yet). I guess that's something we've learned as parents of triplets is to "go with the flow" at times. Even if it's not the official time to do something, I guess it's okay to let them have some fun (although many of you who know me, know that I am very organized and structured person which makes it challenging to "go with the flow" at times. I think maybe giving me triplets is God's sense of humor and telling me to "lighten up" a bit!) :) Anyway, the party was lots of fun! They still could care less about the cupcakes...go figure! Oh well ! I am sure next year they'll be all over them. I guess I should enjoy their lack of interest in sweets while it lasts...

That's Alana with Daddy (fourth picture) and Alexa standing at the coffee table (third picture).

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY SWEET BABIES!!!

Happy, Happy Birthday to my 3 amazing babies! We have spent the day remembering back on a year ago. We were so scared, so terrified! Our 3 precious babies were born so early and were so little and fragile (read the "Birth Story" blog post for more details). It is such a miracle that they are 100% healthy today! It truly is a blessing that they are all doing so amazingly well. They are trying, desperately, to catch up to their 'birth" age. I think, about a month ago, they got tired of being referred to by their "adjusted" age that they decided to close the gap and catch up. They are all 3 pulling up and standing like 3 little monkeys! They disperse in 3 different direction when we let them down. It's pretty crazy!

Yesterday, was their actual birthday and we decided to take a trip to the SF Kaiser NICU where the kids were born and spent 9 and 11 weeks. We got to know the doctors and nurses so well that we wanted to show them how amazing the kids are doing. We lucked out and quite a few of our doctors and nurses that we knew were there. It was fun to show off the kids! It was also a surprise to run into my "high-risk" pregnancy doctor. Both Eric & I became really close to him through all the scary parts of the pregnancy, delivery, and post-delivery. So, it was a special treat to see him and for him to see the kids.

We gave the kids a cupcake (banana muffin) with frosting on it for their birthday. All 3 of their reactions were very different. Josiah doesn't like anything new the first time he tries it, so his response was to just stare at it. He didn't really care. Alana got excited when we put it on her tray, but then looked at it suspiciously. She didn't want to touch it and, definitely, didn't want the frosting on her fingers. (She is truly my child! I hate my fingers dirty or sticky.) Alexa surprised us the most by literally diving in. She immediately put both her hands on it and started finger painting with the frosting. She had frosting in her hair, eyebrows, eyelashes...pretty much everywhere! None of them really cared much about eating it, though.

Eric's parents, aka "Grandma" & "Grandpa" Jardine, got the kids a bunch of really cool birthday presents. One of them was an all-terrain radio flyer wagon. When Eric's dad arrived this morning he put the wagon together and they took the kids for a walk this afternoon. Eric and I were on our way home when we turned the corner and saw Grandma & Grandpa pulling the kids in their new wagon. It truly was one of the cutest things I have ever seen! I made Eric stop the car so that I could jump out and go see them! I love my sweet babies! :)