Anna: 3 Months

August 22, 2013; Anna, you are THREE months old.

I can't believe how fast time is going in your life already! I am trying to cherish every moment with you...since without a doubt you are my last little one. On one hand I am still SO happy you have completed our family, I think I have just come to terms with the fact that I will always want more babies.....and then....you wake up, and remind me, that I am in fact insane.

I took these photos a few days before you were three months old, while your sisters and your Daddy ran around at the park. I captured your sweet smiles while listening to the laughter of your big sisters in the background. I can't wait for you to run with them...all five of you.

You still have the best baby smell. I never get old of that smell.

Your eyes are still blue.

Your hair is light brown with some red in it. Much lighter than Emily and Natalee, but maybe around the same color as Maddy and Claire.

You have beautiful skin.

You are wearing size 2 diaper.

You are wearing some Newborn clothes, but mostly 0-3, 3 months and even a few small 6 month outfits. 

You are probably about 11-12 lbs, and are really growing fast now!

This month your cousin Ally was born.

You have been to the park many times.

You love your swing.

You sleep on your belly all night long.

You are almost rolling over from your tummy to your back.

You grab your toys and bring them to your mouth to suck on.

You love sucking on your fists and fingers.

You love watching your mobile.

You are only a fan of your car seat when the car is moving.

You are drinking 4-6 ounces of Similac Sensitive or expressed breast milk every 4 hours during the day.

You are a MUCH happier baby on formula!!!

I love to dress you up and put bows in your hair, as I do with all your sisters.

Speaking of your sisters, they love to give you kisses and help me burp you.

You have extreme fussy times, but honestly the formula has made a HUGE improvement in your overall happiness!

You have one major poop each day. 

You get a bath every other night and you are now in your bath, instead of the sink.

You love the bath and would probably love it if I let you stay in longer than I do.

You have started cooing and talking to us and I just love listening to you!

You can hold your head up so well now. Such an improvement in just a few weeks!

I carry you a lot in the baby k'tan and you love it. And I love the work out it gives me!

I still think you look like Maddy and Claire, but you definitely have some of Natalee's features too. I don't think you look anything like Emily.

You are very active. You love to kick your legs and move your arms all over.

You love to watch TV, especially if the room is very dark.

This month I moved you into your crib from your pack-n-play bassinet, still in our room though.

You can scoot yourself all the way across the crib, on your belly, in your sleep sack. You are very strong! However, you do not like when you hit your head on the crib rails because you can't scoot any farther.

You smile all of the time now. I am anxiously awaiting that first laugh!

I still call you Anna, Annabelle, and Anna-Kate. I probably call you Annabelle the most. Daddy calls you peanut a lot. And of course your sisters call you "baby" and "Baby Anna".

Your schedule goes like this:

2am: Bottle 5-6 ounces

9am: Wake-up, Bottle 5-6 ounces

Play/Swing

10:30-11am: Nap

12:45pm: Bottle 5-6 ounces

1-5pm: Nap

5pm: Bottle 5-6 ounces

Play/Swing/We go for walks almost everyday after dinner.

Bath

8pm: Bottle 5-6 ounces

Bedtime

You are such a blessing to our family! We love you so much, our littlest girl!

I'm an Aunt!

I am so excited to announce that Tim and I became an Aunt and Uncle on Wednesday, August 14th. Our new niece was born at 10:40am in New Mexico! 

Alexandra Elizabeth

7lbs 1oz

18.5 inches long

We are so excited for Megan and Julian! My girls have their first cousin and I am so happy to have another little girls in the family. (That's 7 girls in 2.5 years on Tim's side of the family!!)

Proud Daddy and his little girl!!!!

I hate that I have to wait until December to meet Ally but we are sending lots of love from here in Maryland!!!!!!

I think her and Emily look a lot alike:

Emily

Emily at two days old

Ally

Anna: You are TWO Months!

(I know, I know....she's already over three months old...going to post that one tomorrow, I promise! I'm behind!)

Today is Monday, July 22, 2013. Anna, you are TWO months old!

You were weighed on July 8th, and you weighed 9lbs 6oz! Totally blew my mind, you still look like such a peanut! You gained 39 ounces in 33 days, so you are doing great with your eating! On July 23rd, you weighed 10lbs 2oz (25th%) and were also in the 25th% for height. You also got your first set of shots that day and you have had a slight fever and not much appetite since then. :(

You eat 4-5 ounces every 3.5-4 hours. I really am trying to stretch you to the four hour mark, but sometimes I just can't. I know you are still little yet, so we will keep working on this. 

You are still on all breast milk. I gave you four ounces of Similac Sensitive a few nights ago to see if it would make you less fussy and help you sleep, but it didn't. By the second bottle, you wouldn't drink it at all. UPDATE: You have improved on this and are now getting formula at night and breast milk during the day (because no matter what, you still seem fussier on breast milk and tend to throw up so much more!).

You sick your bottle down in 10 minutes for Daddy and take forever with me....like I have all the time in the world. You are very smart, my love.

I am giving you 2ml of mylanta about 3-4 times per day to help with acid reflux, and it seems to be working well, along with gas drops. I swear none of my children have been as gassy as you.

You can be a very fussy and demanding baby. I don't think you got the memo that you are baby #5 in this house!

You are wearing size 1 diapers and are about to go to size 2 as soon as we use the size 1's up.

You are wearing Newborn clothes and some 0-3, and 3 month clothing. You are almost out of all your newborn clothing and we are sending most of them to your new cousin, Ally, who is due very soon. :)

You have become very aware of me. You won't let me put you down or leave your site for more than a few minutes or you start screaming. It's exhausting, but I know you will get through it. You are my fifth child, after all.

You have found the fish on your mobile above your swing and you love them and I love watching you stare at them with your big blue eyes.

You have had some long patches of sleep at night, going from about 8pm to 3am, but mostly you are up every 4-6 hours at night, and sometimes you whine in between feedings and it drives me crazy. Those are the nights when Mommy gets NO sleep and then functioning all day with your four sisters and you, gets extremely tiring. You are a very light sleeper, need your binki and very attached to the vibrate setting right now. Opps!

You love your binki.

You get a bath every other night, and you love it. You can be so fussy and then as soon as I put you in the sink, you quiet down and love it.

You have just started smiling. You smile so much more at your Daddy than me.  :( Do you know I carried you for 37 weeks and gave birth to you and feed you around the clock every day and night???

Your sisters are obsessed with you. They love helping me with you in any way and I am so appreciative of the help, even if it is from three two-year-olds. They love to say, "baby cryin" and "shhhh, baby seepin" while putting their finger over their mouth. It's so cute. Claire also says "baby bottle mommy's milk". Very smart girls, I must say.

You love the vibrate settings now and I am trying not to make you become dependent on it.

You are very bright-eyed and love looking all around at your surroundings when you are awake.

You love to suck on your fingers and fists.

We call you Anna, Annabelle, Anna-Kate, Anna-poo, monkey-moo-moo, and Rah-Rah (because when you scream it sounds like a dinosaurs screaming "rahhhhh").

You are still sleeping in our room, but please be assured, if we had more space, you would so be in your own room!

You still have the sweetest little light fuzz on your head for hair and it's a very light brown.

Your eyes are blue.

You are really starting to kick your legs and bat your arms. 

You have started cooing and "talking", especially when someone is smiling at you!

You stare at me all the time! If you don't see me, you scream!

As of July 26th, you are sleeping on your belly. You did great and slept from 10:30pm to 4am! All of your sisters have always done much better on their bellies for sleep and I was waiting for you to be able to also. You turn your head great from side to side and we have been practicing lots.

Here are some photos from the last month:

One of our special NICU nurses gave us this outfit and it's one of my favorites!

The Liebster Award!

This post has taken me FOREVER to write...I literally have been working on it for two weeks and I am SO glad to finally be done with it!!

This past week I was nominated by two other triplet Mommas for the Liebster Award. So sweet of both of them! Thank you to The Farrell 5 and And Triplets Make 8.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Liebster Award, it is a fun way for smaller bloggers (under 200 followers) to be recognized for their contribution they make to the blogosphere.

The rules are:

• Thank the Liebster Blog presenter who nominated you and link back to their blog.
• Post 11 facts about yourself by answering the 11 questions you were asked and create 11 questions for your nominees.
• Nominate 11 blogs who you feel deserve to be noticed and leave a comment on their blog letting them know that they have been chosen.
• Display the Liebster Award logo.
• No tag backs - you cannot tag back someone who nominated you.

Since I was nominated twice within the same week, I am going to answer both sets of questions, make 11 questions, and then nominate 11 blogs to answer those questions.

So here are the first set of questions that I was asked from The Farrell 5:

1. If you could re-live one day in your life so far, what day would that be? Phew, that's a hard one. It would honestly be a toss up between a few days; our wedding day (for obvious reasons), Christmas Day 2010 (the first day I held each of the triplets), Emily's birth (it was a glorious VBAC and I would love to re-live that again!) and the day I graduated with my Master's Degree.

2. What is your greatest accomplishment?  I would have said my Master's Degree. That got smushed when I became pregnant with triplets. It was an accomplishment just to get pregnant. And then carry triplets to 32w2d's, that was awesome! And then to get pregnant on our own twice, that was super awesome. So after all that, I would say taking care of five little girls under 2.5 years old by myself, day to day, is quite an accomplishment, that few experience and I am proud of it!!

3. What is your favorite meal? Anything Italian. Or pretty much any seafood. Normal seafood, I'm not talking squid and nasty stuff like that.

4. What is your favorite book? Another hard one. I would say most of the Nicolas Sparks books. I couldn't pick one, I love them all. I also own every single one of them.

5. If you were to change careers, what would you do? I don't think I could pick one. I would love to be a NICU Nurse. Or a police officer. Or anything in criminal justice. Or an adoption counselor. With my social work degree, I chose to specialize in mental health because I love finding out why people are the way they are and what brought them to where they are (whether that be homelessness, mental health, criminal activity, ect.). It's just very fascinating to me. The more severe the mental health, the more fascinating to me...I know I am weird. I LOVE 48 Hours and anything on Dateline ID for this reason. Murder mysteries, kidnappings...I love it all.

6. What kind of jobs have you had? I started babysitting at 13 years old and did that all through high school. I nannied all through undergrad and most of grad school. I worked at my mom's day care center. I worked at Best Buy for a half of year (I was on the only girl with sixteen guys in the Home Theater dept ;)). I was the first person in my undergrad social work class to get a social work job, before graduation at a place called Interfaith Works. Loved my job at Interfaith Works, but during my last year of grad school, I had to quit to focus on school, my internship and getting pregnant! I had 3 internships through school, one at the county's Pre-Release Center (a place where inmates begin to re-enter into the community), then I was at Child Welfare Services (it was okay, but I hated my boss with a passion) and then my last year I was at our county jail, which was my favorite job I've ever had. I had the BEST boss, who became a good friend, and she was an amazing social worker who taught me so much. In fact, I jut received an email that she was leaving her position this month and if I wasn't at home with five little kids right now, I would do almost anything to get her job! It kinda breaks my heart that I can't!

7. What is the best thing about where you live? I think the best thing about where we live (about 40 minutes to the northwest of DC) is that you can be down on the National Mall in 40 minutes or you can be white water rafting in the Appalachian Mountains within a few minutes too. You can be a the White House or Kennedy Center or go play in mud and hike, and we live right in between both. The beach is 3 hours away too, which I can't imagine not living somewhere where there is no beach!

8. Tell us something about you that most people don't know. Hmm, I HATE wire hangers. My mom and my sister always said they were going to come over and take all my plastic hangers and switch them with wire. *shivers* Also, the hangers that I hang the girls clothes on, like three matching outfits, have to have matching color hangers too. I cannot have a white hanger and two pink hangers for three matching outfits...I couldn't sleep if that happened! ;)

9. What is your favorite thing about being a mom? Just the simple everyday stuff. Yes, it's mundane. Yes, it's hard. Yes, I have lots of bad days. Yes, I'm busy and some days I kinda complain about it.And yes, I am far from a perfect mom and my children, household are both far from perfect. But really at the end of the day there is no where I rather be than at home with my family. My little girls mean the most to me than anything in this world. Sometimes I just can't believe that this is MY life. God surely blessed me.

10. What is your favorite age (of kids)? I love when each of my babies are first born. That first month is just the best! The smell of them. The little noises. The little fists, stretches, when they are all bunched up. Oh, what is better?! But then when the start smiling and laughing, that is great too. And when they say "mama" for the first time or "I love you mama", what could be better than that? When they come running to YOU. Only want THEIR Momma! That's great too! And when they can TELL you what they want/need...it's like the heaven's are calling. Finally able to TELL you what they need/want! I swear it is so much easier that Claire can TELL me with real words what she wants/needs!

11. What is your favorite baby or kid product? Hmm, another hard one. Maybe the Baby K'tan. I can get things done that way, hands mostly free. Especially since having Anna. She is such a fussy baby and loves to be held. I wear the Baby K'tan at least once a day. Next I would say the Radian car seats that the triplets have. It made us be able to put three in a row which is a life saver. Also, the coo choo wagon. It's the simple things that make life a little easier when you have multiples. Oh, and a sound machine is a must for babies, I think.

And here are the questions I was asked from And Triplets Make 8:

1. What is your favorite type of shoe? That's totally simple; the flip flop.

2. What's one goal you have for yourself in the next five years? To potty-train my children. And get really good at sewing so I can make lots of little dresses and other things.

3.What type of candy is your favorite? Reese's pb cups. And cold, right out of the fridge is best.

4. What is your favorite season? I can't pick one. I like something about them all. Really. Winter is great because I LOVE snow and I love to ski. Also Christmas, and my birthday are in the winter. Spring is blah, but it's fun look finally look forward to warm weather, but other than that it's my least favorite season. Summer is nice because you don't have to load the kids with layers of clothes and jackets. Less to bring and less to carry. Love the beach and putting my toes in the sand. I love fall though the most I guess. The food, the holidays, all the festivals, probably number one favorite season.

5. What do you do in your free time? What's that?

6. Why did you start blogging? I started blogging in college, in grad school, I believe. I was so bored sitting in one of my classes and I can remember sitting and reading a few blogs. I think about that girl who started blogging and it's so different from the woman I am today. I was so naive and just wanted to vent. I wanted to know what others were doing to get pregnant. Why I wasn't getting pregnant. It was a way for me to connect with other people struggling with infertility. I found so many encouraging blogs and met some wonderful women, and families that I still have contact with, both in the blogosphere and in real life. People have found my blog from all over the world. I have had random people come up to me in the strangest of places and say they read my blog. I absolutely love when that happens! :) It really makes me day! I am so glad I started blogging because I had no idea that my journey would take me from infertility to five little girls in 2.5 years! I love that our family that doesn't live near us can read our adventures and see photos of the girls growing. I love that I am creating a meaningful memory book for my girls. They can look back and read why I did something a certain way, know my feelings and God forbid anything ever happens to me, they could really "know" their Momma by reading our blog.

7.What 3 words describe you best? Geeze, this was hard, I hate talking about me. Caring, organized, persistent. 

8. Are you allergic to anything? Yup, sulfa/sulfur products, latex and rubber.

9. What did you want to be when you were little? Ironically, how weird is this...all I ever wanted to be was a NICU Nurse. For as long as I can remember. And the reason I am not a NICU nurse is because I failed Chemistry twice. Well, actually failed it once, and withdrew the second time. But social work is my true passion for sure.

10. What is your favorite TV show to date? Oh my, there is no way I can pick one. I watch a lot of TV and DVR a lot of shows to watch in the middle of the night while feeding Anna and while the girls are napping. Let's see, I'll name a few: Survivor (never missed an episode ever, since I was 14), CSI (only the original), Revenge, Big Brother, The Bachelor/Bachelorette, The Little Couple, Life Below Zero, Dance Moms, Sister Wives, Breaking Amish, Extreme Weight Loss, Biggest Loser, I'm Having Their Baby, Pretty Wicked Moms, Housewives of OC and New York, Giuliana and Bill, The Kardashians (I just make fun of them the whole time!), Dateline, 48 Hours, Brooklyn DA, 20/20, Duck Dynasty, Swamp People, Smash...I'm sure there are even more!

11. What is an interesting fact about you? I can hula-hoop really well and have won many contests over the years.

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These are my questions for my nominations:

1. What is your favorite vacation spot?
2. Tell us about your children's names and what made you chose the name you did.
3. Are you planning on having anymore children?
4. Do you prefer your nails painted?
5. What's your biggest pet peeve?
6. Tell us about you best friend.
7. If you could be any animal, what you would you be and why?
8. What's your favorite way to spend a Saturday with your hubby?
9. What was your first car?
10. If you could live anywhere, were would it be?
11. What's your least favorite food?

And here are my nominations:

1. l + k + e
2. The Isham's
3. 30 Fingers, 30 Toes
4. The Burton Family
5. Born in our Hearts
6. Twins, Plus One
7. The Life of the Georges
8. Happy Wills Family
9. The Koob Triplets
10. Refrigerator Memories
11. Alexander Triplets 

A Day at the Park!

The girls are loving the park these days and we try to go a few times a week, if not at least once or twice to let them run out some energy! I swear it makes them so much more manageable when we are at home; they eat better, sleep better and don't get frustrated nearly as quickly with one another!

Last Wednesday, I put them in their bathing-suits and piggy-tails...my heart could barely contain the cuteness! We met our friends and INT teachers/therapists there and had a blast playing with bubbles, water, hula-hoops (you better believe this Momma showed off her skills!) and of course all that the park offers! (Every day since then, Claire asks for "two-tails" and points to her hair!)

Anna also loves going to the park because she gets extra love from all the wonder teachers/therapists! She is so spoiled and gets so much attention!

The INT playgroup has been such a blessing to me, yet for another year. It's so nice to talk with other adults, have the kids be safe and play and not have to be so overwhelmed to take all five kids by myself! Our play group takes a break for August since lots of people are on vacation and it's normally super hot and humid here in MD, but starts back up in the fall. We will surely miss our friends but hopefully be able to catch up with everyone in a month!