Merry Christmas!

Luke, Zach and Eli say "Merry Christmas dudes!"

I hope you all had a Christmas full of joy and peace! I felt that way this year, and know that I'm blessed to have had that experience. Many more times it has a been a stressful, anxious time, but this year - totally fun! We had John's Mom, Stepdad and Gram come up for Christmas Eve, and we all went to church together. This was the boys' first time in the main, "big" church, and of course they did great! They weren't as impressed with all of the singing and lights as I thought they would be, but they kept themselves (and us!) occupied during the service.

After church, we came home and had a prime rib feast, and then went for a walk in our neighborhood. This is something so special, and I have never seen anything like it in all of the different places I've lived. Everyone puts out luminaries (which are put together and sold as kits by the neighborhood) on Christmas Eve. That alone is beautiful, and most of the homes around us are decorated with really great Christmas lights. So you take a nice walk, see the lights, one neighbor even has a high-powered telescope you can look through. Then there is a street that is blocked off and people bring cookies, they have hot chocolate and coffee, and Santa is there in one of the driveways! All of the boys had their turn on Santa's lap. This was the first time for Luke and Eli, second for Zach. Their expressions speak for themselves!

Zach: This is my second time, and I still don't like

this dude!

Eli: What are you doing with that hand, mister?

Luke: Seriously, get me out of here!

The boys were pretty tired by this point, so we read them the Christmas story, put them to sleep and helped Santa work his magic! The boys (and everyone else) were so excited Christmas morning to see all of their new toys, books and clothes. They didn't tear into wrapping paper yet - I think that will be next year. But they did explore every inch of new addition to "kidland"! It was super-cool, and I highly recommend spending Christmas with any triplet toddlers you might be acquainted with! Here are some pictures of the amigos enjoying their second Christmas!

Luke, Eli and Zach in their new bouncy

Luke, did you grow a tail?

Zach was born ready to play the xylophone

And Eli may never put the guitar down again

Eli sitting on the racetrack - great idea!

Luke loving life

Doesn't this remind you of A Christmas Story??

Farewell Summer

The Last Hurrah! We went to visit John's family in Tucson earlier in November, and we got to swim one last time. Eli is on left with Erica, John's cousin, then Jay has Zach and I've got Luke

A stroller ride and half an hour later, this is the result of all that swimming! Zach is on the left and Eli on the right.

Again, as usual, I'm apologizing for not getting on here enough, but you'll forgive me when you hear why I'm so late (one of the reasons, as least). Last week we all had a wicked stomach virus - ewwww! So gross! It's really bad enough to have a stomach bug on your own, but also three little guys - it was almost over my gross-out threshold. Once again, Luke was the harbinger and started getting sick one day, then we all fell like dominoes within the next couple of days. We are all better now though, and the sunny side is it made me appreciate my kids' sweet dispositions, as opposed to what happened last week!

Other big things that have been happening around here... Zach took his first steps! It was on Thanksgiving, and really cool. We were all hanging out after a nice dinner, and he was just lounging up against the couch. He looked at me sitting a few feet away, and just walked over to me! He has been walking a lot holding a hand, but never on his own yet. Luke and Eli are jetting around - the head-knocks on the floor are way down as they've passed the "drunken sailor" stage, as Uncle Rob would say!

Thanksgiving was also special because it was the first time we sat down to eat as a family. We always feed the boys by themselves, because it's so much easier. That night, we pulled them up to the big table in their booster seats and we feasted together! Eli wasn't that into it, so he and I were up and down, but it was really nice and very special to me. I felt a new kinship with my Grandma, who would so much rather serve her family than eat. I never understood that until now. The boys keep teaching me!

Speaking of learning new things, Eli can now open all of the doors in the house, and is always on the lookout for a possible escape route. Since I stopped reading "how to" baby books, I'm not sure, but I think this is a little early for this. I mean, a couple of months ago they were barely able to push up on their knees, and now Eli's plotting a break out? So now we need to do a second round of babyproofing. It's all worth it! I just hope we can stay ahead of these boys!

That's about it around here! I'm sure I'll write more around Christmas, so for now, wishing everyone a very happy Christmas!

Luke: Is this dude really sitting on me?

Eli: Oh, just laugh it off!


Zach: Time to move on fellas