Happy Easter/ Happy April!

The kids have fun playing on the back porch in their cars (looks like there was a pile up on the road here)

One of their friends from school had a birthday party at Pump It Up - a huge place with nothing but big inflatable jumpies. We walked in and Ella went running off with another mom right away and jumped right in. Helen sat on a bench and refused to take her shoes off. Alex would go in only if I went with him. Helen finally warmed up and at one point, I was climbing a 10 foot inflatable ladder with two kids climbing above me and one on my hip. Then we all got to go down this very high inflatable slide together! What fun! (not really, but I had to put on a brave face because Alex and Helen were not sure whether to laugh or cry)

Ella jumping at the bottom of the slide

Ella and Alex eating ice cream

Helen eating her cake

Easter was an adventure this year. They kind of got the concept of the Easter Bunny and Easter baskets. I tried to use it as much as I could to bribe good behavior out of them. After church on Sunday morning, we tried to get a picture on the front steps. It was chaos. Here are a few of the about 50 pictures we took trying to get one where they were all looking and all smiling. It never happened.

Alex's face pretty much sums out how they felt about these pictures

At least they are looking, but not smiling (and yes, I had a great time shopping for the girls' dresses! They even had matching hats and purses but I was not organized enough to get those in the pictures)

Two out of three smiling

An attempt at a family picture

Grandma and Helen

After pictures, we got to go inside, change, and look for our Easter baskets. Only when they found their baskets did they truly appreciate Easter :) It was so fun watching their faces and seeing how excited they were about all the goodies in their baskets. Alex dove right into his chocolate bunny pop

Ella is negotiating with Daddy about how much candy he will open for her

Helen has her bunny pop

Helen has to take everything out and organize it first

Bedtime with Daddy - of course we have to play horsey!

Daddy and Helen playing on the floor (you may notice that Helen's pajamas are on backwards. That's because if we don't put the zipper in the back, then she takes them off along with her diaper and tries to sleep naked. So, for the time being, pajamas go on backwards)

Ella is too cool with her new sunglasses

A few days after Easter, I was in the other room talking to our nanny Heather. I thought Alex was in the office looking at the pictures that come up on the screen saver. However, he had actually crawled up on the dining room table and was raiding mommy and daddy's Easter basket. Here is what I saw when I walked in. Always be very worried about a quiet child.

This month was daddy's birthday so of course we had to bake him a cake. And of course daddy would want Dora, Elmo, and Scooby on his cake along with lots of sprinkles.

Helen with crazy hair eating birthday cake

Ella eating birthday cake

Ella and Helen ride the bike together (I regretted my decision to give the girls bangs and now we are going through the painful process of growing out their hair)

Heather is back as our nanny and Baby Hunter gets to come with her every day. Here's Baby Hunter

Helen is Baby Hunter's second mommy. She loves holding him and helping to take care of him.

Alex wearing Daddy's hat

Another birthday party for a school friend

At one of our trips to the doctor, I tried to entertain the kids by taking pictures. Ella manages to pull it together enough to ham it up for the camera

Before spring break, the kids had a spring party at school. Here are Alex and Helen enjoying some snacks at the party.

Alex finds some eggs during the Easter egg hunt (he had to make some room in his basket for the eggs because he could not leave home without at least 5 cars in his basket)

Helen decided to just start eating the sprinkles directly out of the bowl. She was interested in anything else other than the sprinkles at the party.

Ella made shaker eggs by filling plastic eggs with birdseed and putting stickers on them. I think we left with about 10 of these eggs.

Ella got some play time in

In April we headed down to St. Petersburg for a family wedding. Here is Helen in the car on the way down.

Alex is tired of being the car (the DVDs came on shortly after this)

Ella in the car

Daddy and Ella at the wedding

The wedding was on the beach so we brought sand toys for the kids to play with during the ceremony. Here's Alex and Ella.

Mommy and Helen at the wedding

After the wedding, Helen got to run around on the beach

At the end of April, Ella and I went to Indiana for my best friend's daughter's birthday party. Several people asked me how I decided which one should go. Last year, I went on a trip and just brought Helen - so she already had her trip. Alex is still a creature of habit and I thought that being away from home for a few days is not something he would necessarily enjoy until he was older. So that left Ella. The next trip is Alex's though. We had a great time and it was SO EASY having only one child. People who complain about how hard it is to have one child have no idea how easy they have it. Here's a picture of Ella asleep in the car on the way home to the airport.

We went to the park in Indiana, and Ella loved playing on the big bee.

We went downtown one day and Ella got a smoothie.

Then Ella saw the big ice cream cone and we had to get her picture with it.

By the time the birthday party rolled around, Ella was tired and ready to go home. We had to do some walks outside to get her through. Several times during the trip, she looked at me and said, "It's not Helen's trip, it's my trip. It's not Alex's trip, it's my trip." It was so nice getting to give just one kid my undivided attention. And I will admit that I did spoil her on the trip. When we got home, she ran into her room and saw Helen and said, "My Helen! My Helen!" Now when Alex hears an airplane fly overhead, he says "Mommy no go on airplane." The morning after we got home, the kids decided to celebrate their reunion in the morning before I went in their room by stripping off their pajamas and diapers, crawling up on the changing table, and smearing lotion and diaper cream all over themselves and their hair. I was speechless when I walked in but they were so clearly enjoying themselves that they did not care. The morning celebrations became such a problem that we had to move Alex to another room. So far, everyone is getting more sleep now!

Lt. Col. Cauley

In March, Cecil finally got promoted to Lt. Col.! We are so proud of him. Here are pictures from his promotion ceremony. Ella is loving all of the excitement.

After the ceremony, it was time to drag some sticker covered little girls home.

Cecil's grandmother was able to come, and the kids loved getting to see her.

"Hey, you look just like me!"

All of our family that came

Our nanny Heather and her husband Kevin (who is in the Navy) came. Here is Kevin with their son Hunter.

Helen and I say hi to Grandmother

Mischevious Alex

Adorable Ella

Cecil and his boss, General Tyre

Lt. Col. Cauley giving his speech

We look very serious here so I think this is the part where they are reading the official proclamation that he is now a Lt. Col.

During the ceremony, I tried to keep the kids quiet with lots of books and stickers. Kendal is holding Helen. Kendal is one of my law students who also has nanny experience. She filled in for Heather for about 5 months while Heather was on maternity leave.

Here we are changing his rank from major to lt. col.

This is General Burnett changing Cecil's rank. General Burnett is the leader of the entire National Guard for Florida and is one of the people that Cecil works for.

Leaning in for the congratulatory kiss

General Tyre and General Nelson change the rank on shirt

Cecil was even thoughtful enough to give me flowers on his promotion day

Alex playing with stickers and cars

Ella eating her snacks

Mommy and Alex

Miss Heather helping Helen get her shoe on

"Will someone pick me up?"

Grandma to the Rescue!

In early March, there was a couple of days where all of us were sick. The kids picked up some bug and spread it to each other and to Cecil and me. When it got really bad, I took all the kids to the doctor and found out they all had some bad gunk. They all got put on antibiotics and two had to have breathing treatments for their coughing. Earlier that day, I had gone to the doctor and been put on antibiotics and ordered "to rest and stay in bed for a few days." Apparently she did not see the part in my chart where it said I had 2 year old triplets. I felt awful. It was the kind of crawl under your bed and not move for several days awful. But I could not ignore my three sick kids. And did I mention that Cecil was out of town for several days?? At this point, I have no voice left and I cannot stop coughing. My breaking point was when I was heading home from the pediatrician and I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up our 5 new prescriptions. They said the prescriptions were not ready yet and to come back in an hour. Well, it was already 5:30 and in an hour, these kids were going to be in bed and I had no way of getting back there to pick up any prescriptions. So I did what anyone would do - I called my mommy as I was sobbing. I don't remember much of that conversation except that she said she was on her way. My mom flew down the next day and spent the week with us and nursed us all back to health. I don't know what I would have done without her. She managed to not get sick either! We were all so sick that I ended up pulling my rib muscles from coughing so hard and the kids all ended up with ear infections a few weeks later. That was another fun visit to the doctor - three double ear infections and two eye infections - but at least I was not sick too that time! Anyway, here is a picture of Grandma sitting with Helen while she gets her breathing treatment.

Cooking at the counter - licking the brownie bowl - the best part!

Chocolate face Helen

Alex loves the licking the bowl part

Ella likes hanging out and getting her turn at the bowl

Another adventure in March was the discovery that the kids could climb out of their cribs. After several nights of threats did not work and I would walk in on little ones running free in the morning, we decided it was inevitable that we would be dragged into the next phrase of toddlerhood. I wept for my dream of them being in their cribs until they were 10. So we decided to take the sides off of their cribs and see how that goes. Here's Ella supervising Daddy as he reconfigures the cribs.

Ella

Alex playing with his cars in the bonus room

Brushing the leaves off of the front porch

Helen

Ella

Ella is cooking in her kitchen

Alex being shy

The terrific three on the back porch