Quick Note

We got word today from our attorney that we have a final adoption hearing for the boys on Nov. 14th at 11:00 am!!! We fully expect this to not change and to go smoothly through. Please pray!

Starting to move...

Practicing their skydiving positioning

At the Angels in Adoption Gala at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center

The boys are 8 months old now. They are up to around 18-19 pounds. The boys do not stay in one place anymore, though they are not crawling, or sitting up yet. They have figured out how to get from one end of the room to the other. They purposefully pivot around (as you might see a spinner on a child's game). The also roll around frequently and with ease. They are frequently on their hands and knees now, rocking back and forth though and even scooting around a bit in that position.

For those who haven't heard, we had quite the adventure last week. Back in August, I was around the house, minding my and the boys' business, and the phone rang. I answered it and the person on the other end of the line said he was Jim DeMint (a US Senator from our state of South Carolina). I was quite taken aback, not sure what to think, but he went on to say we were selected as an "Angel in Adoption" for South Carolina. Now I'm thinking, what is this? I was so caught off guard, I was almost suspicious of the call. But after I got off the phone, a friend of ours who knows the Senator called me to explain that he had nominated us and we were selected by the Senator. So what that means is each member of the Senate and House gets to select one couple, person, or organization from his home state or district to recognize in Washington for their unusual, special, or extraordinary work in adoption. I guess we qualify as unusual, at least!

So last week we drove up to DC. On Monday we attended a reception which was to be a White House Lawn Celebration. Unfortunately, the President of Ghana decided to show up the same day for a state visit, so we ended up in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door for a reception instead. Tuesday, we had an award ceremony in the morning. Later, we broke up into groups (ours had 4 couples) and met with three congressional staffers from different states to share our experiences with adoption and what could be different/better in the law. That evening we attended a gala program with a nice dinner. (Jeff thought the food should have been better at $350 a plate. We got in free...) One of Senator DeMint's staffers accompanied us for the evening. Among those present, and speaking, was Senator Clinton. Wednesday morning, for me at least, was the highlight of our trip. We had the opportunity to sit down with Senator DeMint in his office and share more details of our adoption story and situation. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Washington. By the way, no, we did not take the kids with us. Many thanks to the friends and family who took a "shift" of babysitting the kids for us while we were in Washington.

The boys are now eating solids twice a day: cereal with formula at breakfast and veggies at dinner at 4 pm. They steadily got better across the board this week. They ate green beans Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I started on sweet potatoes Thursday and will continue until tomorrow. We have to stick with something new for a few days just to be sure there's no reactions to those foods. The boys absolutely love sweet potatoes, and "advanced" very quickly in their cereal feeding skills when we started on those yesterday. I have learned how easy it is to make my own baby food, with a few pointers from my sister. Thanks Liz! This has been a real budget saver. Can you imagine jars of baby food for three!?! According to Liz, she made her own baby food for a 1/3 of the cost of jars. I would love to teach anyone to do this...it is sooo simple!

One more thing...I communicated with our attorney's office last week and we are nearing the final stages before we can go to court to finalize the adoptions. We have to wait a month after the legal notice finishes in the paper this week. So we are eligible to go to court any time after October 26th!!! It's just a matter of time, waiting to get a hearing with the very busy Anderson county family court!!!

Pictures of the kids from August are here.

Pictures from our trip to Washington are here.

Seven Months...

Noah tries to eat Chris




Can you find Noah amongst all the babies in this picture?


Seven months...yes another month has passed in the two weeks since I last posted. Ha Ha :) The boys are exactly seven months though now. The last few weeks have been a bit nutty, but this week has been somewhat quieter.

After some consultation with my sister Liz, she decided to bring baby Noah down to what was then the sick house (all six of us with colds!). And yes, before the week was out, Noah had a runny nose. From what I hear he took it home to his Daddy too. Sorry, Brett. Liz learned that yes there really are three. It's one thing to see pictures, but its a whole new thing to actually see all three of them together. We took some outings together. Yes, me, Liz, and 5 children, 4 of whom are under the age of 1. It was quite a sight at Chic-Fil-A, Publix, and Lowe's (not all in the same outing). Liz quickly decided that she hated the attention that triplets gather being out in public.

We all enjoyed Noah's company. I think Jeff is looking forward to when the boys are mobile like Noah is now. Mary heard the word share more times last week than she had heard it in her entire short three years of life.

Six Months Old!!!

Before I get to the nitty gritty, I've got to say I'm so thankful for my happy boys. They are such content babies, I don't know what to do when I'm in the nursery with a fussy baby!

Well, yesterday the boys had their six month checkup (about 2 weeks after the date). They're doing fantastic, as usual. Nathan weighs 16 lb 11 oz (2 oz short of his 9 month old cousin Noah!), Chris weighs 15 1b 11 oz and Daniel weighs 16 lb 1 oz. That puts Chris in the 20%, Dan 25%, and Nate 35% But they all are off the charts (0%) in the height percentiles at between 24 and 24 1/2 inches.

The boys all started rolling from back to tummy this week on Sunday. They refuse to sleep on their backs now...I put them down, and by morning all three have migrated to their tummies.

Oh, and Poor Daniel...the pediatrician wants him to be seen about possible inguinal hernias...similar to his brothers'. One good thing this time around is that he's old enough his surgery, if necessary, will be 100% outpatient. We'll see if this happens...

We just barely started cereal in the last few weeks. Chris and Dan are doing the best. Nathan likes to "slobber" it back out. :) Needless to say, I haven't tried it this past week at all since I've been in Greenville every day.

I am glad to have 32 hours of CPE for the year behind me...I just have one more 8 hour course scheduled in November.

We can't wait to see Aunt Liz and Baby Noah this weekend. We can only hope we (all 6 of us!) are healthy and over our colds by the time we are supposed to pick them up this weekend on Sunday.

We have posted new pictures for July here

Miscellaneous

This was so funny, I had to post it. Yesterday (Tuesday) Mary asked about going to church and I said we would go tomorrow (Wednesday). Well this morning, she announced that tomorrow was over, and asked about going to church. She is so smart!!!

Also, unless sister helped, Chris rolled over onto his tummy this morning for the first time, and was the first of the trio to do this. No surprise, he seems the most agile.

Last week (on the 14th) we started feeding the boys cereal. Chris and Daniel are keeping most of it in their mouth. Nathan is slobbering a lot out...

From stepping on the scale, with and without baby, I think the boys weigh about 16 pounds now, each. They are doing fantastic. I'm looking forward to the official numbers at the pediatrician's office, the end of next week. Sometime over the weekend I will be able to pick up my sister and nephew from her in-laws in Greenville, to spend the first week of August before she returns to California. :)

Before that though, I will need to get through 4 days of CPE in Greenville. I've got sitters arranged for each day, all wonderful trustworthy people...but I'm still not anticipating leaving the boys, or sitting in a classroom four days straight. However, it's better than the alternatives of giving up my CPA licence or doing home based study a couple hours every day (while the kids sleep) for several weeks.

Updates and News

"You've got yer hands full!" We hear this everywhere.

Mary reading to the boys

It is not possible to get three boys to smile at the same time!

Helping Daddy assemble a tricycle for big sister

Poor kid! Big sister has been busy.

Happy Birthday!

Life is relatively day to day normal busy these days. Although nothing extremely "exciting" is going on, that is not a bad thing.

We almost had a court date (would have been last week) to finalize the boys' adoption. We were hoping to get in before the end of June, related to the timing of Jeff's employee adoption assistance from Clemson. That became impossible because of the back log of the Anderson County family court. The day after we got our court date scheduled, it became apparent that there was one additional paperwork detail that would prevent that date from being feasible. We have been told we may be able to finalize the adoptions in August...we will see. We anticipate the finalization, however, there is a blessing in not being able to finalize the adoptions yet...

I have had a surprising, but great blessing this month. As my free formula from the manufacturers was running out, we were anticipating the need to start purchasing formula. On a whim, and partly due to the fact the boys are on Medicaid (because of their technical status as foster children), I called up our local WIC office. Sure enough, Medicaid recipients automatically qualify for WIC!! So, until the boys' adoption finalizes in court, we will qualify for WIC. We also anticipate our pediatrician taking the boys off the high calorie (read high dollar) formula at their six month check up the beginning of August. The WIC appointment took about 2 1/2 hours. We met with two different nurses as well as a nutritionist. The boys were weighed and measured (they were up to 13-7, 13-13, and 14-4). I especially thought the discussion with the nutritionist was quite valuable (especially with regard to the timing of starting baby cereal).

We were encouraged at the last visit with the doctor to start cereal soon. But, based on the boys prematurity, and their excellent weight gain, and good sleep, (not to mention the extra effort of spoon feeding)...I have yet to begin that journey. Probably before too long, we'll give it a try, as the boys are almost 6 months old now!

At times, I've noticed Chris especially (and possibly the other two) sucking his thumb. The boys all love to giggle and smile. Just the other day, Mary got into a giggling contest with one of the boys. They have also begun to notice each other and at times, just stare at each other. We recently pulled a Jumperoo down from the attic, and all the boys seem to have figured it out (although Nathan I think has to work a little harder to hold up his head--he being our chunk!) We also have a walker which will be more useful in coming months (their feet don't reach the floor on it yet!). However, Mary has enjoyed pushing her brothers around--yes, already! :)

Finally, even though this is a triplet blog, I need to mention the boys' sister...Mary is a big girl now. She turned 3 on "Juwy ferd"...translated July 3. :) Mary very much enjoyed her "swimming party". She had over 5 boys from the 2-3 Sunday school class at church (she's the only girl), along with her cousin Emily and the kids all enjoyed the octopus sprinkler, slip n slide and wading pool.

We are beginning what appears to be shaping up to be a busy month with friends coming over, a couple trips up to Greenville, and four days of CPE for Rebecca (and babysitters for all four days). At least I can get most of my 40 hours knocked out at one time. The highlight though, will be a visit from Aunt Liz and Cousin Noah at the beginning of August!!!

More pictures and videos from June are posted here.

5%, 12%, 20%

Chris

Daniel

Nathan

Wow Wow Wow! That was everyone's assessment at the pediatrician's check up visit last week. The boys are doing great. They are starting to catch up to their peers at their actual age!!! The above percentiles refer to the boys' ACTUAL percentiles for weight compared to all their peers born on time in January. Chris weighed 12 lb 8 oz, Dan weighed 12 lb 13 oz, and Nate weighed 13 lb 4 oz. They are getting to be such chunks! I started moving up the boys bedtime this week to feeding them at 8pm, then bed. The boys took to it great. That means one less bottle per day (now at 4, where we will remain the rest of the year). Nathan just compensated by requesting 7 1/2 ounces at one time last night! The other two are already starting to pick up some steam as well, eating nearly the same amount of formula per day as before. All three are somewhat consistently eating about 6 ounces at a time. The other feeding excitement to come is spoon feeding. The pediatrician wants us to start on time based on the boys actual age with cereal and a few veggies over the next few months. The boys are now just shy of 5 months old.

The boys have all rolled over at least once now. Recently, we had Chris and Daniel in a seeming roll-a-thon. We would set them on their tummies and they'd both flip, then we'd set them back and the process would continue to repeat. The boys are smiling constantly, and I occasionally hear something that almost sounds like a giggle!

The boys' hernia surgery results look great as well. The fevers left them about the time we went home from the hospital and did not return. The post-op checkup showed the surgery results to be perfect. And, the boys are all off the apnea monitors (we discarded those a few weeks ago). More recently, Mary picked up a cold somewhere a few weeks ago, that just seemed to drag. The night of the boys' check up and immunizations, all were running fevers, but Daniel's was 103...and he had a runny nose. So the next day, Saturday I got him in to the doctor again, and he was diagnosed with an ear infection. Since Mary's symptoms were hanging on, I took her in Monday morning, and she had a sinus infection. At least we know what's up and have everyone on antibiotics now.

Life is starting to settle in and slow down a bit. We have returned to our monthly Rook game tournaments, and are teetering on the edge of starting to build a new home to accommodate our growing family.

We have posted pictures and videos from May here