Tonight's 2:30 AM project

I got Ashley 4 or 5 little things and I needed to get just a few things for the boys because it is NOT how much you spend it is how many presents you get at this age.

Anyway, my friend Dana let me get out by myself for an 1 1/2 hours. She was impressed at how much I got done in that time. I ran to Game Stop to get Aussie's main present. I went to Hobby Lobby to buy paint for Mason's costume. I went to Goodwill and found shoes for Mason's costume. Then I went to thrift store to try and find anything little for the boys. I scored for Mason! I found Bakugan cards for 99 cents. And I found a plain red hat. And I turned the plain red hat into an Ash Ketchum hat. Ash Ketchum is one of the Pokemon trainers. Mason likes to pretend he is Ash when they play Pokemon. So I know he will love this.

And now I have 24 hours to come up with a couple presents for Aussie. Do you have any ideas?

Super Bunny

I am so sleepy. Why do I do this to myself?

Greg is really good about not waking me up in the morning. Except he does wake me up when he gets to work and calls me. He makes sure to tell me what time it is and that the kids are probably hungry. I don't think he realizes that they CAN and WILL get cereal for themselves when they are hungry.

This weekend we are having a costume birthday party for the kids. Aussie designed an outfit for his bunny and asked me if I could make it. I'm pleased about how it turned out. When I first started making it I wasn't sure what it was going to look like. Aussie's little picture is drawn very well and I just didn't know if I could do it.

The pants especially were troublesome. And I told Aussie, I just don't know if I can make this look good and like your picture. And he said, I have faith in you Mom. I think you will do a great job.

So I introduce to you Super Kara...

That's a W on the shirt and belt buckle. I'm assuming it stands for Webkinz.

So instead of doing ANYTHING that I needed to do today, that is what I did.

I think my boys have reverted back to being 3 year olds. This morning they gave 3 of their stuffed animals swirlies (That's when you dunk someone's head into the toilet.) And no one admits to peeing on the toilet seat. This would be the second day in a row for that one. At least today I noticed it before I sat down. Then one of them accidentally used MY toothbrush instead of his own. What will I do with these boys?

The Actual Birthday Day

1o:34AM 10:35AM
Still 10:35AM

10:38 AM

For their birthday I let them pick 2 Webkinz. I got a FABULOUS deal on a bunch of them. I decided to get everyone who attends their birthday party one. Here is a picture of Mason playing Webkinz. He chose the ground hog and a brown dog. Aussie chose a gray cat and brown dog. And Ashley chose an elephant and a white poodle. Ashley wanted to go to McDonald's for their birthday. I actually think her friend wanted to go and put Ashley up to it, but anyway about it we went to McDonald's for lunch. McDonald's has Littlest Pet Shop animals in their happy meals and they all got a really cute one it's the Armadillo.

Then after McDonald's I took my kids to see the movie Marmaduke. It was cute. We went to the $1.50 theatre. And on Tuesdays they have $1 popcorn and $1 drinks. So I let them each get popcorn and a drink.

I had to run a couple of errands, but since it was 1. Kid's night at Chick Fil A 2. The kid's birthday and 3. The only way the kids would get to see Greg today we met Greg at Chick Fil A and had dinner.

Mason really REALLY wanted to make a cake with me today. So when we got home after Skype calling my parents Mason made a cake. He did a super job! He read all the instructions. All I did was put it in and take it out of the oven. It was done around 10:00PM and it was beautiful, except when I turned it over to get it out, the cake fell apart in to several pieces. It turned out to be a crumb cake. But it tasted good and we celebrated!

Tomorrow we plan to see another movie- Surf's Up! This is one of the free summer movies. We've seen this before, but it should still be fun.

I'm super duper tired! I went to bed after 2AM last night (by the way that is when the girls seemed to settle down.) But then the phone rang early this morning and woke me up.

It's been a fun day, but I'm ready for bed.

Happy 8th Birthday kiddos

8 years ago today my beautiful babies were born.

Ashley Summer 10:34 AM

Gregory Mason II 10:35 AM

Austin Michael 10:38

Ashley had a friend over and they stayed up really late! It sounded as though they settled down around 2 AM, but this morning they told us they stayed up all night long. At midnight all of the kids were having a party. I sang Happy Birthday to my trio.
Greg came home and crashed the party. He said, "Happy Birthday now go to bed". The boys went to bed and the girls as you can see from above stayed up giggling in bed.

Eight Years ago today- July 26

Eight years ago today I was scared out of my mind. The next day I would go early into the hospital to have my trio. I had so many feelings! My body hurt. I could barely move from one room to the next. I could no longer get dressed by myself. These white pants were the only pants that fit me for at least the last month. If I had to go to the bathroom I had to have help getting off the toilet. I always preferred to be upstairs so that I could go to the bathroom by myself. There was a counter on one side and a window sill on the other that I could pull myself up. But the last week was extremely hard and it was too hard to make it up the stairs. I slept in a recliner.

The anesthesiologist called late that evening to prepare me for what he was going to do. That frightened me even more. I stopped him and said I couldn't listen anymore and that I was going to hand the phone over to my husband. He said, "No you HAVE to listen." I said OK and just cried as he finished telling me what had to be done.

I barely slept that night. I was ready for the babies to be out, but I was not ready at all for how they were going to get out.

I had had a pretty good pregnancy. I barely felt sick. I did at times but nothing too bad. The doctor wanted me to get to 34 weeks. I've always said that I made it to that, but actually it was 33 weeks and 5 days. (The actual number of weeks and days is apparently important to other triplet Moms.) I went in to the doctor the Thursday before and I had my bags packed for my hospital stay. I said, I want these babies out NOW! She was working on the weekend so she agreed to do it on Saturday (2 days earlier). I said, OK.

prettying up my blog

If you are reading from your phone or generated email, take a minute to actually go look at my blog. I've spent some time prettying it up. www.tripletsrajoy.blogspot.com

The Zoo Crew

One of my friends from church invited us to go to the zoo today. Her daughter, Bethany bonded right away with Ashley. The kids always enjoy going into the unseen world, which is filled with snakes, turtles, bats, fish and spiders. It's not my favorite part of the zoo. But I certainly don't mind going in there because it is air conditioned. Now one thing I do enjoy is looking at the beautiful birds. Some of them let me get pretty close to them.

Another one of my favorite places in our Nashville zoo is the Bamboo trail. I am fascinated with bamboo. I think it is so beautiful. I know that it is strong so I let my kids hang like monkeys from it. After I took several pictures, I saw a sign that asked people not to play with the bamboo and to stay on the trail. That's a bummer because I really like watching them climb in it.

One day I waited in line at the membership desk a terribly long time. The zoo worker was very patient with the foreign guy he was speaking with trying to explain why he couldn't have 2 families on one zoo card. But the guy had a hard time understanding. Anyway, the zoo worker gave me a bag full of coins to ride the carousel for free for having to wait so long. It was an awesome deal for me. Each ride costs $2. There is no way I would pay that much to go on the carousel. So I spread it out and let them go on the carousel every now and then.

The tigers were not in their caged area today. There were men working in there. But I had always been fascinated with watching the tigers that I never noticed this beautiful waterfall.

One of the funny things that happened today, was my friend said, "Hey kids come look there's a man in this cage." I grabbed my camera and pretended to take a picture. I yelled down to the men, "smile." I think they got a little kick out it, but one said, "No, no, come back later and we will be dressed as tigers."

It was an extremely hot day! In the 100s. There is a heat advisory warning out right now. We actually tried to go early enough that it wouldn't get so hot. But even at 9AM it was hot. But by the afternoon it was REALLY hot. So the kids ran through this water sprinkler. Actually it is a play snake that spits water.

And here are some of the animals we did see:

I think zebras are so beautiful.

I fell in love with this red panda. Usually when we come they are curled up in a tree. But this one was right there for me to take a picture.

a porcupine

The ostriches are usually way out in the field. Again this was another animal who decided to cooperate with my picture taking.

An eland

Many of the animals were hiding this morning, but the ones that were not were right there posing for us. I love this leopard.

And then to end on a pretty big red flower. I thought maybe this was a hibiscus, but I'm not sure. The ones I saw around the zoo were on trees and I don't know if they grow on trees or not.

Bell Buckle

A couple of weekends ago we went to a Shakespeare play in Bell Buckle, Tn. I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to go. I have never liked Shakespeare, I thought all of his plays ended with everyone dying. But the one we saw was a comedy. So I was pleasantly surprised. It was still difficult for me to understand. I was amused that the actors spoke hillbilly Shakespeare. And I was doubly amused by the dog who licked his privates, which got the audience to snicker. When the actor noticed the audience snickering he looked down and cracked up and then put his hat down to try to hide the act.

But we left early in the day so that we could get to the show in plenty of time. We thought we would eat out nearby. So we headed to get some dinner and found that there is only ONE place to eat in the whole town. I'm not kidding you. So we waited for a LONG time, maybe even over an hour, to get in to this Bell Buckle Cafe. The lemonade was worth the wait, but I can't say I liked what I ordered and I was so excited about it. I ordered a chicken salad on a croissant. But the chicken salad was FULL of celery, mayonaisey and mustardy. BLECH! The homemade pizza the boys got was really yummy though. I did get a piece of that.

But while we waited we looked around the town. And thankfully it was beautiful and I think I got a few good pictures.

We didn't stay on the tracks for long, because it was a working railroad.

We went into one of the antique stores that was still open and
Ashley tried on a few hats.

It was a pretty little town. I'm glad I got to see it.

Now I can say I've seen Bell Buckle and I never need to go back.