Little People

I know most of you will think of the toys little people when you see the title of this post but I am thinking of how fast my trio is turning into little people. It is amazing to watch them grow and change right before my eyes.
Tonight when Jon got them home from Grandma's house here is what he heard A say from the living room: "OH MY GOSH, YOU MADE A REALLY BIG MESS AND YOU BETTER START PICKING IT UP NOW" The reason this is in all caps is because she said this very slowly and dramatically. At least she said Gosh and not GOD!
Tonight we called Aunt L and so K wanted to get on the phone. He then proceeded to start walking around the living room as he was speaking and then he would stop look up at the ceiling like he was thinking really hard and then answer the questions they were asking. TOO FUNNY!
E likes to pretend that she is like mommy. The other day she came downstairs with a pair of my flip flops. She insisted that I help her put them. Her little toes looked so uncomfortable. I had to take a picture. She walked around like this for a good half hour!

Dumbster Diving

I have been crazy busy this week getting all of our old toys and clothes priced for the multiples sale this Saturday. I have already had two triplet moms that have two girls and boy over to buy our clothes. So far I have sold 2/3 of our stuff and I have made $183. I still have two bins of clothes and about 4 boxes of toys, shoes, socks, hats, and tights to sell. It provides me great satisfaction to sell all of our old stuff. I like getting the big check of money and I like seeing the stuff go to other families that can use it.
However, it is a lot of work to get everything priced and ready to sell. All of the clothes have to be on hangers and my problem is that I am always running out of hangers. Yesterday at MOPS we created 63 gift bags for new moms that were in need. There were a few hangers left on the table so I asked if I could have them. One of the moms said that if I was really in need there were some in the garbage can. So I took the lid off the can and began digging. As a result I ended up with a whole bag full of hangers! I was very proud and when I got home I told Jon about my find. He responded to me like this "Great, so we have hit a new low and now you are into dumpster diving"! He laughed the whole way back to his office. I just shook my head. I was thrilled about the hangers!!!
I will let you know the results of the sale once I get them. Last spring I made close to $500! I hope to do about the same this time!

Triplet Cats & Dogs?

Tonight the children turned into Cats and Dogs. They decided to eat their bed time snack like animals! Goof Balls!

E's Day at the MOA

Today it was E's turn to go to the Mall with just Jon and I. She really enjoyed all of the attention and she got to go on a ton of rides. Once again, it amazed me how her little personality changed once she had our full attention. After the mall we headed home and picked up McDonald's for lunch. She ate all of her chicken nuggets and wanted more. She also took a 2.5 hour nap today. Amazing what they will do with no distractions.

Here are some pics of the day:

100th Post

This is my 100th post and there is a tradition in the blogsphere that when you reach your 100th post you are supposed to list 100 things about you. I know most of you prefer to read about the kids so feel free to skip over this and visit the archives. Here is my attempt:

1. My name is Nicole
2. This is the number of children I always planned to have
3. This is the number of children I have
4. Most of my friends call me Nik or Niki
5. I have blue eyes
6. My hubby Jon has brown eyes
7. All of my children have blue eyes
8. I am half French, ¼ Irish, ¼ Norwegian
9. I am a cat person
10. I have two cats:
11. Toby and
12. Dexter
13. Dexter sleeps on my head most nights
14. Growing up we had cats
15. There names were: Tigger I
16. Tigger II
17. Oreo
18. Patches
19. Cleo
20. I like to exercise
21. I get up early most mornings to fit exercise in my day
22. My first attempt at joining the Cheerleader Squad in H.S. failed
23. My second attempt was successful
24. My first job was at a concession stand
25. I burned my leg (2nd degree burns) on the hot dog cooker
26. My Second job was at the local pool as a locker room attendant
27. I like to play softball
28. 2nd base is my favorite position
29. I met my husband at a bar
30. He was wearing cowboy boots
31. I dislike cowboy boots
32. He has not wore them since
33. I love to be spoiled
34. Jon spoils me
35. Bluetooth is my new best friend
36. My youth group leader in High School is now my new best triplet mommy friend
37. It is hard for me to sit still
38. I am a doer
39. I have often been called and overachiever
40. I dislike school
41. I went as far as obtaining a Master’s degree
42. Starting to plan for PhD (just kidding Ronnie)
43. I like to sing
44. I have sung at one wedding
45. and one funeral
46. My kids and I sing all the time in the car
47. We all take turns singing individually
48. If I had more time I would join the church choir
49. I color my hair
50. If I did not I would have lots of grey
51. One of my best friends cuts my hair
52. I have at least 4 very best friends
53. I like to camp
54. We have a big tent but have yet to take the kids
55. This summer might be our first camping trip as a family
56. Kids who can’t share make me crazy
57. Parents that don’t encourage their children to share make me even more crazy
58. I can be a spitfire
59. Especially after a drink
60. I really like red wine
61. I am sensitive
62. but very forgiving
63. sometimes too forgiving
64. I hate confrontation
65. I avoid it at all costs
66. I would love to be pregnant one more time with just one baby to experience it “normally”
67. I do not want to go through the early baby stages again
68. I like to travel
69. I have had my gall bladder out
70. and my appendix
71. I have done laser eye surgery
72. I highly recommend this surgery
73. I love to watch television series on DVD
74. Right now I am watching the Gilmore Girls
75. When I have time
76. I like Black Cherry Diet Coke over ice
77. I like Peanut Butter
78. Often eating it right off of a spoon
79. I like to see a good movie the kind that you don’t want to end
80. I love listening to the Harry Potter books on CD
81. I Love Pillows!
82. I hold the record for the most pillows used by a pregnant person at the Hospital (18)
83. Gifts is my love language
84. I love to give gifts
85. I like to get gifts
86. My husband hates to give or get gifts
87. I like the internet, email, and blogging
88. I can’t remember what life was like before email
89. Pizza is my favorite casual food
90. Blue Cheese Crusted Filet Mignon is my favorite fancy food
91. I don’t mind doing laundry
92. I hate cleaning house
93. Dusting is my least favorite activity
94. I love tootsie rolls
95. I gave up chocolate for lent
96. I confess that I cheated simply as I forgot I gave it up
97. My true love in life is my best friend Jon
98. and my three beautiful children
99. A, E & K
100. And God for giving me such a wonderful family and circle of friends.

I can’t believe that I got through that list. If you are still with me I hope you enjoyed this bio about “ME”!

Moons & Bananas

Tonight when Daddy picked up the kids from Grandma's house he told me that when they went outside to get in the van they were all looking at the moon together. Once he got all of them strapped in the van he was driving away and A said "I see the moon daddy and it looks like a banana"!

Bed Full of Snuggle Buggers!

This morning the kids got up early again (6 AM)! The girls wanted to climb in bed with me so we were all snuggling. It was a lot of fun to just wake up and snuggle with my girls. We all took turns being in the middle. A wanted the middle at all times! I just laughed at this because if you talked to my girlfriends they would tell you that when we had sleep overs I ALWAYS had to be in the middle.

New Sport: Balloon Racing

The kids had a blast last night at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Grandma had a great big bouquet of balloons left over from her St. Patricks Day party and the kids LOVED them. The started a game with them where one of them would grab all of the balloons and run and the other two would race behind screaming "I'm gonna get you" over and over again. They had their Uncle T laughing so hard I thought he was going to wet his pants. It was really fun!

For the moms!

Someone forwarded this to me and I thought is was BLOG worthy. This is a great reminder for me to SLOW down and smell the roses (triplets) even if at times they stink! I hope this touches someone else like it did me.

Written by Anna Quindlen

If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they
ever existed; The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the black
button eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll; The placid baby with the yellow
ringlets and the high piping voice; The sturdy toddler with the lower lip that
curled into an apostrophe above her chin.

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief.
I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two
taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same
books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their
opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh
until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who
want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the
bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all
by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber
ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely
discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now.
Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling
rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all
grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are,they
are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the
pages dust would rise like memories.

What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations --what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, untilfinally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived,babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing.

Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the, "Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame." The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be.

The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.

That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were......

Cribs Again?

Tonight the girls crawled into their baby's pack n plays! They said "This is our new cribs mommy"!
Bed time has been hard around here the last few days with out binkers. I hope that it will start to get easier again soon! It is wearing me out!
Now that I think about it maybe going back to cribs wouldn't be such a bad idea!!! As you can see from this picture, E might have a sore neck the next morning but bed time would be smoother! Just kidding!

New Sport: Puddle Jumping

Yesterday, was a beautiful, almost spring, day here. It was close to 60 and a lot of this snow was melting. The kids all wanted to go outside so we put their boots on them and took them out. The first attraction (and last) was a great BIG puddle of water. They had so much fun running, jumping, and stomping, in this water.

I am sure the neighbors thought we were nuts as the neighbor kids were out with hats, snow pants, mittens, etc.. on and here are kids are running through water with just vests, no hats, no snow pants. At one point E fell down on her butt and sat in the puddle of water.
They had a blast doing this. We had to practically drag them back in the house due to fear they would get to cold and then sick.

We striped them down right on the front porch and then took them in and put jammies on them. As you can see from the pictures...they LOVED it.

Building Snowmen

Today we decided to go out and build snowmen! Daddy started with one big snowman and then we made three little snowmen. It was a lot of fun. We had rocks for the eyes, sticks for the arms and mouth, and carrots for the nose.
Aimee was concerned about eating the carrots! She wanted to have the carrots when we were out. The funny part about that is that she is our picky eater so she won't even touch carrots if we were at the table. Of course she proved me wrong when she went inside and asked for carrots again and sat down and ate them!

We all had a lot of fun out in the snow making snowmen. Uncle Tony showed up and taught the kids how to have a snowball fight. Then they continued to throw snow balls at Uncle Tony and Daddy!

Kendrick did not want to go outside in the first place but I made him put his boots on and he was the one who wanted to keep making more and more snowmen. As you can tell he really enjoyed being outside in the snow.
Ella was not so interested in making snowmen but she loved laying down in the snow and making snow angels.
Overall, we all had a great time. Sadly, today when we stopped by Grandma's house our snow family had melted down to near nothing. The kids were sad but I had warned them that they would not last long.

They all took turns hugging and kissing the snowmen before we went inside to have dinner. What family fun it was for all of us!

Transition # 2 Complete

My amazing, resilent, strong, outstanding, beautiful children decided yesterday (after much prompting) that the babies needed their binkers! So Grandma removed the pacifier from their dogs and ducks and asked them which baby they would like them to go to. Ella sent hers to baby Sarah, Aimee sent hers to baby Sandy, and Kendrick sent his to baby Thomas! They put them in an envelope and mailed them to the babies. At nap time yesterday they were over at Grandmas house and they asked Grandma if the mail man had come. Grandma told them that mail man came and the binkers went to the babies. They went down just fine for their nap.
Last night at bed time it did not go as smooth and it took them 2 plus hours to fall asleep but some of that could be contributed to the time change this weekend.
Ella had the hardest time with it but she seems fine today!
The binkers are gone! It is amazing to me how emotional this was for me! My mom had a big conversation with me about how I need to look at this as a good transition for them not a bad one. Once she said that to me it just clicked! I am so proud of my kids for being so brave, not to mention giving! They gave one of their favorite things (binkers) to the babies simply because we told them that the babies needed them!
I am definetly very proud of my kids tonight!

Toddler Conversations

My mom called me at work this morning to tell me this happened:

K and E wanted A to crawl up on the bed to watch the Wiggles with them. She knew what they wanted so she decided to go get E's doll and strut around in front of them as to say I am not going to do what you ask.
E stands up on the bed and shakes her finger at A and says "A you put that doll back in the bed right now she needs her sleep"!
A put the doll back and crawled up on the bed!

Tonight we picked Daddy up at the airport and the kids were all really excited to see him. When he opened the back door to say hi to them A exclaimed "Daddy you want to come in here with us?"

Last weekend the girls had a sleep over at Sue's house. Sue got A to sit on the potty chair for her after she had her drink water, juice, and milk. A sat there for a little while and then she started to go potty. A exclaimed "IT'S WORKING"!

Sue also told me that when they were sitting down to have lunch She walked over to the refrigerator and grabbed a can of Diet Pepsi. When she got back to the table and opened up the can E said "hey Sue, you having a beer?"

Wiggles Dancing

I am happy to announce that the WIGGLES are back in the Erickson Household! That is right folks, all three of the kids are in LOVE with the Wiggles again! Thank God we have a lot of Wiggles DVD's and we also have Tivo so we can record the Wiggles since they are on at 6 AM and we are not up at that time!


This morning as I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes I watched something amazing unfold. A and E started to dance just like the Wiggles! It was so cute to watch them twist, turn, clap, jump, and move just like the Wiggles.
The fun continued tonight at Grandma and Grandpa's house as they wanted to show Grandpa how they dance just like the Wiggles. They entertained us for over an hour dancing and belly laughing to the Wiggles.














K was playing a game where he would go lay on the couch tonight and pretend to snore so someone had to go wake him up (with kisses) then he would laugh and do it again and again. >


These kids are getting so darn big. I am having a lot of fun right now. God truly has blessed my life!

Guitars

E has a new love for Guitars! When we were in Bismarck there was a Barbie Toy Guitar there that she loved to play with. This guitar would play a few popular songs including one by Britney Spears! We had to put the guitar away a few times just to get a break from it. This past weekend we went to a play date with some friends and they had a play guitar at there house! E carried it around the whole time we were there. I think I need to add a guitar to her birthday wish list! Who knows maybe I have a musician on my hands!
Here are some more pics from our visit to Bismarck a few weeks ago!

Strawberries

So on Sunday when K was at the grocery store with Grandma he pointed out Strawberries and told her that he LOVES them! What? Jon and I are not huge strawberry fans so this really confused me. Where did her learn to LOVE strawberries? I figure it must be daycare. Anyway, this morning at breakfast, he ate most of the BIG bowl of strawberries. I guess I better start buying some strawberries!!!

Snow saves the day!

We are having a major snow day here! I was supposed to go to work today but since we did not have a lot going on in the office I decided to stay home as we have been getting more and more snow all day long. I am not sure how much snow we have but it is a lot and it is so pretty!

The kids were really good today and seemed to enjoy a day at home with no agenda. They played well together and they kept busy all day long!

Tonight while I was getting dinner ready Daddy offered to take the kids outside. K had no interest so he stayed in to watch the Wiggles but the girls could not wait to get outside and play in the snow. They really had a good time with Daddy.


Here is what I accomplished today:
Striped, Washed, and Remade all of the beds
Made enough pancakes to feed the kids for a week
Called Fisher Price about my broken monitor
Washed two more loads of laundry (Washed, Dried, and put away)
Got caught up on email
Made, ate, and cleaned up Lunch for everyone including Daddy
Organized & Priced clothes from last summer for the upcoming Multiples sale
Watched three episodes of Gilmore Girls (Kids were napping)
Cleaned up the basement a little
Made, ate, and cleaned up dinner
Organized Toys
and last but not least...blogged!
It's a good thing they practiced their snow angels inside yesterday!