Spending time with our Great Grandparents..............

We slept in our beds all night......................

These smiling faces slept in their cribs all night for the first time. They had been sleeping in bassinets up until now. Evan went down with relative ease. Ethan was a bit more challenging. I would rock him to sleep and then lay him down and instantly awake. Finally I just laid him down and left him. He fussed for awhile, about 20 minutes but later gave up and went to sleep. He turned himself in the bed as you can see. Olivia still gets up through the night occasionally so she will remain in the bassinet until she can sleep completely through the night.

Ethan cannot decide if he likes the cereal or his hand better. He really made it a challenge to feed him.

Saturday morning with the gang.............

Saturday morning with the gang. The boys don't like to help with the laundry. Olivia didn't mind. We enjoy these mornings when we can all hang out together.

Cereal for the boys.................

The trio went for their four month check-up on Tuesday this week, they are all doing really good according to Dr. Freshwater. Evan is 13 lb 7 oz, Ethan 13 lb 6 oz, and Olivia is 10 lb 1 oz. He gave us the OK to start the boys with rice cereal. He wants us to wait for Olivia for a little bit longer. He said they are actually catching up to a normal full term baby quite well. As you can tell from the above picture, Evan absolutely loved the cereal. Ethan did well too, but not as messy with it surprisingly. We don't go back for two months.

After the appointment Tuesday, we went with the trio to Max and Erma's for dinner. They did really well on our 3rd trip to a restaurant. They slept for the most part. The boys were awake for a little while, but slept the majority of the time. We naturally got stared at. A fact of life that we are going to have to get used to. Someone told me we should get T-shirts printed that say, YES! They are triplets, YES! We wanted them, and YES! We can tell them apart. The last is funny to me since we have two boys and a girl.

The kids are getting so long. They are moving to larger size clothes merely for the length. There is only an inch between them all with Ethan being the longest followed by Evan and finally Olivia.

Gloria (Nicole's Grandma) is doing very well with the babies in the day time. They have worked out a nice time schedule for themselves.

On an odd note for all the dads that have to do the dishes at their house, invest in the Dawn Power Brush. It is an absolute lifesaver. Takes all the work on. We received one as a gift and I don't know how I did dishes before without it. It doesn't make doing the dishes fun, but it sure does make it a whole lot easier. And with the triplets, we can always use items that make life easier for us.

Nicole pointed out to me that I sometimes repeat myself in my postings. I forget what I posted the last time and realize now that I occasionally re post the same thing. New things are always going on but sometimes with all that is going on it gets difficult to keep everything straight all of the time.

Update on Ethan crossing his eyes, Dr. Rosenthal said, "that is a good thing as long as he doesn't hold them that way for a long time or they stay that way." He also said, "Ethan has realized he has two eyes and that he is more developed."

The video is of Evan and how he has found his thumb. They are all learning and exploring the world around them so much. The other night I read from Mother Goose to the boys (Olivia was sleeping) for quite awhile. They just sat for the longest time listening to me read the stories to them. After some time it was time to fuss. That ended the reading session.

New puppets for us.......................

We were visited by all of our grandparents this week. We really enjoyed seeing them. Our special friends got us these wonderful puppets. We really enjoy playing with them.

Olivia sometimes sounds like a little kitty. This has earned her the nickname Miss Kitty. She was really making noise this morning, but of course once you get the camera ready it turned to tears.

Update...............

The babies received their synagis shots this week. Olivia cried like never before. Nicole said you would have thought someone had cut her little arm off. She also had her eye check-up, continual improvement. She goes back in a month for another check.

The trio were visited by both sets of their grandparents this week. They really enjoyed seeing them. Will get some new pics up of them tomorrow or Sunday.

The latest and greatest..................

Tomorrow the trio gets their last synagis injections. These are the shots that help protect against RSV. The next day Olivia gets her eyes checked again. On Friday the Help Me Grow people return for another visit. They are really keeping us busy and they are not even in any extracurricular activities yet.

When Olivia gets her eyes checked again, we are going to ask Dr. Rosenthal about Ethan crossing his eyes quite a bit. He crosses them very frequently and it has become a little worrisome. Next week they go for their four month check up with Dr. Freshwater. We are really anxious to see how much they are weighing now. Evan is like our little butterball turkey. They all are gaining weight but Evan seems much heavier. They are continuing to do new things on a daily basis. In the last few weeks they have realized they can put their hands in their mouths. Just tonight we were on the floor playing on the mat and they were absolutely infatuated with the mirror on top. All three of them were studying that mirror trying to figure it out. I have read several books to them and Ethan will just sit and soak it all in. The boys are sleeping through the nights almost every night. Olivia sleeps halfway through. She is not taking as much formula as the boys and I don't think it can sustain her for that long of a period.

Each day when I get home from work I wonder what new things they have figured out today. I told Nicole just tonight that I cannot wait when they can put their little arms around us and give a little hug. Nicole and I really cannot complain about our babies, they have been good. We didn't have to deal with colic. There were several nights we both thought how are we going to get through this, but we made it. I always love when people ask how we do it with three babies. My response to them is how do you do it with one. You do it! We have no choice but to do it, they rely on us for their needs. I just cannot understand the logic of some people. It doesn't make sense. Yeah there is one more of them than us, but we come up with creative ways of dealing with them.

It is getting late and there is always something to do around the Camper household, will have more pics or update soon.

Happy Valentine's Day......................

Day off with the kids.....................

We got to spend the day with the kids on Wednesday due to the snow. The trio was very excited when we told them we got to stay home. See pics above. We had a good time.

Mom wouldn't let us go outside to enjoy the snow, we could only watch from inside. Next year we are definitely going out into the snow.

Weekend Winter pics..........................

Snow storm................

Ohio was hammered Friday and Saturday with a snow storm. We didn't realize that we didn't have enough formula to make it through the day on Saturday. This forced me to brave the elements to go to Kroger and get some formula. It took awhile for me to clean the drive out, but I made it to the store and back with no problems.

The boys and I spent the rest of the day in bed. Nicole and Olivia spent the day on the couch all day. We all got to catch up on our sleep today. It was really nice to just relax and catch up on sleep. We need more snow days so we can spend the day bonding like today.

More photos....................

You have all been wondering................

You probably have all been wondering what is going on with those Camper's, we are still hanging in there. The babies are getting a lot bigger and are now requiring more time. They are no longer sleeping most of the days away. Each and every day they are becoming more alert to their environment. The boys hanging out together.

Sleeping before going to church. The boys sweaters were a little small, but they had to wear them at least once.


Olivia is telling everyone hello.

Ethan and Olivia are over this picture thing.

We have had a lot going on these past two weeks, for starters the kids asked for the car keys and when we said no, they decided to break our garage door and swing like monkeys in our closet and break the shelves down. No, they didn't really ask for the keys to the car, but the other two things did happen. The garage door and the closet decided to have mishaps on the same exact day. Luckily the garage man fixed the garage door, but the closet was up to me. I just finished it tonight and it looks really good. Fresh coat of paint and brand new shelving.

The babies are doing really well. Ethan is now off the apnea monitor. He was discontinued last Monday. They were really impressed with how well he is doing. Olivia continues to get her eyes examined to watch for changes. They are still improving and she shows no signs of needing any additional treatment. Evan is still hanging in there, besides his reflux issues, we have not had any real problems with him. We hope to continue that streak. As I said earlier, they are really becoming alert to their environment. They are beginning to interact more with us and developing their motor skills.

Because they were premature we qualified for the Help me Grow program with the State of Ohio, it is a program that monitors them developmentally. They will measure them in certain categories to make sure they are not falling behind, if we find they need help in a certain area we are set-up with the necessary folks to help us. It is a no cost program to us directly. Obviously it is probably tax payer funded, but I think it is a good program to monitor little premature babies for developmental issues that they may have.

Nicole I believe is happy to be back to work most days. I think she finds it to be a nice release to have adult conversations with people and not just have 3 little ones looking at you. She is working nearly forty hours every week and we are trying to find our groove with that. What I mean by that is we had a nice balance with work loads around the house to get our chores done. Now with both of us working 40 hours every week, it has become a little more trying to balance work and home. I know that we will get it. Sooner than later would be nice.

I apologize to everyone about my lapse of weeks in an update. Like I said there has been a lot to deal with. I am the bookkeeper for our church and our desktop computer crashed, which had all my records on it. This caused me to spend several days over the past two weeks scrambling to get things done in time for our annual business meeting. With a little help I managed to make it. I will try to be more astute in getting updates and photos up on the blog. Hopefully we don't have any more mishaps coming our way anytime soon.

I look forward to everyone's comments on how big the babies are getting.