Here they are at their 4 month check up waiting for Ms. Rachel to come in. Tripp was obviously super excited. They are no longer on preemie growth charts because they are over the 100th percentile on the preemie charts, so all of the percentiles that I mention in this post will be on a normal, full term baby growth chart!
We took their 4 month pictures the day before they turned 4 months since I knew that was going to be a busy day with their check ups. They started out in a great mood but then I took too long taking Emily's pictures so they all got mad. Nobody would smile!
Emily
Emily weighs 14 pounds 9 ounces (75th percentile) and is 23.25 inches long (25th percentile). Emily is our stubborn baby right now. I was telling Mark I don't know where she got that from. He said, "Really? You have no idea?" So maybe she gets it from me... But oh my goodness this little girl! When she's happy she's SO happy, but when she's mad, she makes sure that everyone knows about it. Her screams get louder and louder until you attend to whatever problem she might be having. A lot of times the problem is that she's tired. She doesn't take very long naps and once she wakes up from her naps, even though her eyes are heavy, she won't go back to sleep, so she cries until she passes out on a toy or something. She is getting better everyday. Emily does seem to be very interested in doing more things. A lot of times she seems bored laying on the floor so now we have exersaucers for each of them and she loves it! She reaches out and moves the toys and tries to touch everything! She is so smart and her hand-eye coordination is getting better everyday. She is also starting to be really funny. She laughs and it's just so cute! She has these giant cheeks and her smile is adorable! When she smiles she reminds me of Thumper from Bambi because her cheeks are so big and she sometimes has this shy smile. She eats the most. She eats 6 ounces when she wakes up and then 5 ounces every 3 hours after that. For about 2 weeks she would wake up sometime between 3 and 5 am to eat. I would feed her and put her back to sleep but it was just weird that she went from sleeping 11 hours to waking up after 7 hours. Luckily it seems to have just been a phase because she hasn't done it in about a week.
Emily as Taylor Swift
Mark said, "Double horizontal stripes are in right now."
This one makes me laugh :) It's like she's saying "pretty please?"
Ready to eat
Grandpa came to visit
Hanging out with cousin Taylor
Zooey Deschanel hair
Playing with Aunt Alaina
Ready for a walk
Helping me with chores while brother and sister napped
I turned her away from the tv so she wouldn't look at it, but she almost rolled over trying to see it. I had to turn it off!
She didn't want to take a picture...
Holding on to the butterfly :)
Passed out in her exersaucer because she refused to nap during nap time
Passed out sitting up
She loves Family Feud
Wearing her peacoat that Aunt Amber got her
Ella
Ella weighs 14 pounds, 1 ounce (just above the 50th percentile) and is 23 inches long (10th percentile). She is really moody these days. There are times when she is her old smiley self making funny faces and other times when she just looks at all of us like we are the lamest people she's ever met. Mark calls her Curmudgeon from the muppets. She doesn't enjoy bath time at all! She screams so loud that her whole body turns red and her arms go straight out to the side. Her scream is really high pitched and hard to listen to. Most of her baths are very quick because of her screaming. There are times when she doesn't cry in the bath, but she just glares at you. She is becoming very curious about everything. She reaches out and grabs toys and just stares at everything. She finally figured out the TV and won't look away from it. She has also become very clingy lately. She always wants to be held! She talks the most out of the babies. She rolled from her back to her belly on January 9, but hasn't done it since. Her eyes have been a very dark blue lately. She is eating a lot more. She eats 5 ounces when she wakes up and then 4 ounces every 3 hours after that. Overall she is still a really good baby!
If Ella is awake in her crib she is usually smiling. Sometimes she looks right into the camera and smiles. It's pretty creepy!
So pretty...
Such a hard life...
Laying on Edward
Ella and Grandpa
Ready for our walk
She reached up and grabbed this butterfly and then got so excited! You can see on the side that Tripp was pretty excited too!
When Emily was in the secondary napping area and Ella started to cry, I had to improvise and quickly make a third napping area. Ella stared up at my ceiling for about 15 minutes before she fell asleep. Of course I peeked into the room every 5 minutes to make sure she hadn't moved.
Proud to be an American
Ella loves her peacoat from Aunt Amber!
Tripp
This little chunker weighs 15 pounds 1 ounce (just above 50th percentile) and is 24 inches long (25th percentile). Tripp likes to flirt. He flirts with everyone. It's so cute because he gives you these eyes and opens his mouth into this wide smile. He is still a cuddly boy and is starting to like playing in his exersaucer or on the activity gym with his sisters. We call him Turd Bucket because he acts like a little turd and cries a lot. I'm not sure where "bucket" came from, it was a Mark thing and it was pretty catchy, so that's what we call him. We had to increase his Zantac because he gained so much weight and we had to put him on soy formula like Emily to help with his spitting up. He is doing really great now and hardly ever spits up. The soy was causing him really bad constipation at the beginning and he would scream so loud as he was having a bowel movement but it got better once we gave him prune juice a few times. He's doing fine with that now but you can tell he doesn't like the taste of the soy. We are working on different ways to fix that! He eats 5 ounces at every feeding, so he doesn't eat the most, but he still eats a lot! He also reaches out and grabs toys. He is very ticklish and he laughs more than the girls. There are times when we take off his shirt to change him and he giggles the whole time because he's so ticklish. It's very cute! When he gets excited he opens his whole mouth like he's shocked but he's laughing. He's just a funny little boy! He is the best sleeper and when he's tired he falls asleep wherever he is, just like I used to!
See? He just passed out in the middle of playing. It's so funny!
All dressed up for New Year's Eve
Superman
Seriously Handsome
A romper with a hood!
The picture on the left is one that I took when the babies were 1 month old. Tripp was about as long as Mark's forearm, and the 2nd picture is him at 3 1/2 months. He's grown so much in just 2 1/2 months!
Matching fishing shirts
With cousin Taylor
I found a hair app for him, too :)
Tripp? Or Conan O'Brien?
Pushing buttons to make his exersaucer light up
His exersaucer is higher than the girls' so he gets to play with the toys that hang from the toy bar on theirs. I don't know why he's so serious here, but he is swinging the toy on the right from side to side.
I let him have a turn riding in the carrier for our walk. Bad idea. My back was hurting SO bad after that walk!
I decided about 2 weeks ago to pull out the Baby Bullet and try to make some rice cereal. It was so easy and made a huge pot full, so I froze it. Since I had some made, I let them try it. The pediatrician said they need to learn how to use a spoon, which I thought was odd but it turns out, babies have no clue how to use a spoon! It was pretty funny watching them try to figure it out. Emily was already crying so I thought maybe it would calm her down. Wrong. She didn't stop screaming. I went on to Tripp next. He had no clue what was happening. He kept spitting it out and we would have to scoop it into his mouth. It was a huge mess! Then it was Ella's turn. She was the best with the spoon! She spit some out but not all of it. She was the only one who didn't try to suck on the spoon. I was very proud of her! Then we tried Emily again and she continued to scream. We gave them more a few nights later and it went the same except Emily didn't scream, she just spit it out the whole time. We will start giving them rice cereal every few days until they get better at eating with a spoon and then we will give it to them more often.
Synchronized naps
I have been working on syncing up their naps during the day. I read a book while I was pregnant about sleep training multiples but I didn't remember anything I'd read. I don't remember a lot of things! So when the babies started to get really fussy every single day around the same times, I decided to re-read it. It turns out letting them pass out in a bouncer in the living room wasn't a good idea. They weren't getting good naps so by the end of the day they were very fussy. I've started swaddling them and putting them in their cribs, just like at night, at some point after each feeding and it seems to be working. It was rough for the first week or so but they are starting to get the hang of it. We still have some days when one of them gets off schedule, but overall it's going well. They are happier now and seem well rested throughout the day. I had to reach out to a fellow triplet mom to help with naps and to get some encouragement. Just like all of the other times, she was a huge help! She even sent me a copy of her triplets' daily schedule from when they were 8 months old. It was basically the same schedule that we have our babies on so that made me feel a lot better! These last few days they have been great nappers and all sleeping at the same times. It's amazing!!!
Cloth diapers
We have been using cloth diapers on the babies during the day and I LOVE it! We are saving so much money on diapers. They look so cute in their cloth diapers and don't seem to mind them. The only thing I don't like about the cloth diapers is that I have 2 different brands. I have BumGenius and Kawaii Baby diapers. I've realized that BumGenius diapers have to have BumGenius liners in them or they leak and Kawaii Baby diapers have to have Kawaii Baby liners. If I had known, I would've gotten only BumGenius diapers because those are the best. They don't leak very often and they have a very simple snapping system. For now, the 2 brands work fine. They leak occasionally but we just change their clothes and go on with the day!
We got them all dressed on New Year's Eve just to sit around the house and go to sleep at 9
The girls
Mark decided to lay under the activity gym with Tripp and Emily
So happy waiting for their turn to get dressed after they woke up
The girlies again
All 3 under Tripp's activity gym. The girls have their own, but Tripp's is the only one with lights, so they all like his best.
My sister Alaina got them these bibs :)
Emily, Tripp and Edward
Ella and Tripp like laying on Emily
Mark was so excited when he realized he could hold all 3 babies at the same time!
The babies wearing their "My First Christmas" bibs sent from Zia Gracie all the way in Italy!
Ella
Emily
Tripp
Ella got to be on the top of the baby pile
Mark with Edward and the babies. Emily wasn't happy about it!
I was taking out all of the girls' 6 month clothes and found these awesome hats!
Tripp always grabs onto the girls' clothes if they are in his reach. The girls don't like it.
Watching Elmo
Sometimes we do tummy time like this and they stare at each other. It's very cute.
Romper day
Tripp passes out under the activity gym a lot. Ella wanted me to move him so she could be right under the lights. She loves being alone on this thing. She talks to the lights!
The day the new exersaucers came in. The girls had no idea what to do with them!
They LOVE Ellen!
Ready to go to their 4 month check ups!
The girls watching Minnie Mouse
Wearing their warm pajamas since it's been so cold!
They have sunglasses for when we go for walks. They would scream when the sun got in their eyes and the shade things on their car seats don't cover them all the way.
Emily
Ella
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