Dog Sale

Selling dog food is Harper's new favorite thing. We no longer have dogs, but our neighbors do. Harper is scared of Abby the dog, but for some reason he loves to pet every single dog in the neighborhood. Luckily we live in a very family friendly neighborhood because if you walk by our house, Harper and friends will ask to pet your dog. I was embarrassed by this, but now I just smile and wave. I am officially that mom who lets her kid talk to strangers.

Harper and girl buddy Lauren sit at the end of her driveway and sell dog food. It's the cool thing to do, apparently this replaces lemonade stands!

Reading Recovery

Once a teacher, always a teacher. I have taught second and third grade, but nothing is sweeter than teacher Harper. Lately, he has showed an interest in reading. I always struggled with reading comprehension as a child and never really enjoyed reading. The funny thing is I am a reading specialist! Very ironic, since I am not particularly a reader. I have started to enjoy it more as I get older, but it is a rather new activity. However I love teaching reading. Harper and I have been making books using pictures. He has a "Harper can.." book and we recently made an ABC book. He loves using all of my reading trinkets and I love making reading fun. Here are a few pictures of him reading with his magic finger.

Practicing pointing at the first letter

9 months old

Say whhhaaaaat? Nine months old! Yikes, my babies will be ONE in three short months. This month has been a month of changes. I always get confused when I write the monthly post, because on January 14th they turned 9 months, but everything I am writing is what they did when they were eight months old. Does this confuse anyone else? I need to get past this...Anyways. The boys have turned into little active munchkins and are each becoming very independent. I do most things in alphabetical order, just to have a sense of order and to not play favorites....because there are no favorites...(I get asked, "Which one is your favorite ALL the time.") So I am going to start with Hudson for this post.

Hudson, Huddy, Chubs, Gordito, Princess Hudson (ha!) has the prettiest blue eyes. I hope they stay that color forever, so beautiful in person. He is just so sweet and has the cutest blonde curl on the left side of his head. We have started calling him, Princess Hudson, as a joke because he is the first to complain. He knows what he wants and he will fuss until he is just perfect and all of his special requests are met.

Hudson is also good with his hands. Our little engineer thoroughly inspects everything he picks up. He will take his paci out of his mouth over and over, and he still has no teeth. He will pick up one toy and play contently with it for 30 minutes. He has learned to to wave bye bye, SO precious! He opens and closes his fists and gets so excited!

At eating times he is especially picky. He will spit out his food if the temperature, texture, and taste is not spot on! He is the biggest out of our trio, but he is not the best eater. I think he might just have a slow metabolism! At nap time, he is always the first to fall asleep. He sleeps on his side and looks so big in his bed. He has been rocking on all fours the entire month. Hud started officially crawling on the day he turned 9 months.  The boys interact a lot and now they are starting to take each others toys and pacis, but Hudson's favorite tactic is to pull their hair when they get close! We love our Huddy!

Playing with the big kids on a rainy day

Rub a dub, dub

Chief

Here I come

Hogan, Hog-dog, Hoagie, is our crazy kiddo. I always said he would be our active guy. Well as it turns out he is just that. He crawls (fast), pulls up, reaches up to be held, stands in his crib, dances and loves to jump. He is so active that sometimes he wears himself out......

He bounced himself to sleep

He also keeps mama on in toes. I am usually able to let the trio play in the living room while I prepare meals with no worry. Hogan usually crawls to different toys, but has never really ventured out into the house....well those days are over. He is on the loose, it is time for baby gates..read that hubby? Time to put up those gates! He will hold on to anything and pull up. We lowered his crib this month and removed the fireplace tools from the living room. We did not baby proof our house with Harper, but I think with 3 little guys we would be crazy not to. Hogan also conquered holding his bottle this month. Wow, what a difference that can make at meal times. The others have started this new trick, but he is by far the best at holding it the entire time. Hogan loves to eat, we usually have to cut him off. He is a bottomless pit! He will eat anything and everything I put in front of him. This month we tried a few solids like avocado, banana pieces, and puffs. YUM! Hogan is super ticklish and will always give you the biggest grin if you play with him. He loves attention, but does not seek it out. I guess that is because he loves being mobile.

And last but not least is Hampton, Hampy, Hamp-TON, Hammy-town. This happy little guy has a mouth full of teeth. He has 3 teeth with the 4th on its' way in. He is our talker, he can babble and squeal all day long. He doesn't move, but he is going to be a ladies man with all the things he has to say.  Hampton LOVES to be snuggled. If I leave the room, he cries, no one else cares but sweet Hampton. He watches my every move and wants all my attention when I am around. A true mama's boy. He likes toys, but he would prefer to watch Praise baby or be in someones lap.  One of his favorite past times is jumping in the jumperoo, but only if mama is in sight. He giggles as he bounces up and down vigorously! Hampton is our spitty guy although he has gotten much better now that he is eating solids. While the others were still sleeping one afternoon I gave Hampton a whole banana. I thought it would feel good on his gums. I had no idea that he would eat the ENTIRE banana in about 10 minutes! And I really did not expect him to be able to finish a bottle after that. Well I was wrong, a whole banana and 8 ounces of milk. Yikes! He doesn't spend too much time on his tummy because he usually spits up. Hopefully he will start crawling this month...and stop being spitty with the introduction to solids.

Happy 9 months sweet guys.

Stats:
Hampton-
   weight- 20lbs 10.5 oz
   height- 27 in
   head- 18.25 in

Hogan-
   weight-21lbs 4 oz
   height- 27.25 in
   head- 18 in

Hudson-
  weight- 22lbs 2 oz
  height- 28 in
  head- 18 in

Santa Babies

I am slowly getting around to posting about Christmas. Here are a few pictures of my Santa Babies. Anyone else buy the Santa Diapers? Brilliant Idea, I think they are hilarious. We even scared a few babysitters with them, they thought there was a problem when they immediately saw red during a diaper change!

I love their expressions....

Two Peas in a Pod

My best friend, Rachel, came into town for the Christmas holidays. I hate that we live so far away, but we cherish the times we are together. Our kids are 8 months apart. I will never forget when she called to tell me she was pregnant with AnnMarie. I was rocking my sweet one month old. I was so excited that we were going to begin motherhood together. As little girls we always spoke as if we'd live right down the street and raise our families together. Unfortunately, we live 400 miles apart, but our kids love each other despite the distance. Harper got to play with Annie for a little while they were in town. He told us that he was going to marry her! I wouldn't mind...

Alamo Bowl

Baylor had its' best football season this year. I am not going to pretend to know all the records that were broken, but trust me it was a record breaking season. My husband is slightly obsessed with all things Baylor, and even changed his name to Cam Heathcott III in honor of Robert Griffin III. RGIII won the Heisman, a huge feat for Baylor. So it was only natural that we go to the Fiesta Bowl in San Antonio. My parents were sick, Cam's parents were going to the game so that meant the entire fam was going to San Antonio..... We arranged for two Seniors to go with us so we would have babysitters. I had high hopes of this being a little mini vacation. Ha!
We had reserved three cribs for our rooms so that we would have extra room in our car. I called the hotel to confirm everything and we were set to go.  When we got to our room there were no cribs. We called guest services, and they said they were on there way up to our room. We waited and waited..no beds. It was nap time, my babies were getting fussy....so mama was getting frustrated. We called again, same story, then AGAIN!! Once again we were told they were in route. By this point our cab had arrived and it was time to go to the game. I was such a mess, seriously considered staying at the hotel. I felt so bad leaving 2 high schoolers with 3 fussy babies and 2 four year olds who had not been fed. We had ordered pizza an hour before and it had not arrived. Ugh!

When we got to the game, we called the girls to check on the kids and they STILL had NO beds. I was hot, so Cam called the hotel and they told us they were OUT of beds. What?? Why hadn't anyone told us this 4 hours ago? You don't spontaneous travel with triplets. So, the first half of the game was a blur, I was just feeling so sorry for our babysitters. They handled it like champs. They requested extra sheets and towels to make beds out of dresser drawers! Such a good idea. Unfortunately, our kids thought it was fun and decided to party all night long. The big boys were great and loved staying in a hotel room together.

Exhibit A

When we got back from the game at 2am, we requested beds once again. So at 3:30am, we get a knock at the door and 1 bed was delivered? Seriously?? The babies woke up at 6am probably because they were sleeping on the floor in drawers!! So much for a vacation or any sleep. We spent the morning complaining to the front desk and that got us one more bed at 8:30 pm. What?? I do not recommend the Crowne Plaza on the Riverwalk.!!

The hotel had one redeeming quality

Okay, maybe 2 good qualities...free popcorn

The rest of the day I consumed lots of coffee and shopped at the San Marcos outlet mall. The boys all went to Cabelas and spent the day arguing about who had a bigger gun. Cooper received a pellet gun, and Harper a bb gun for Christmas. They are so into hunting right now. That night we went to Rosario's for some yummy Mexican food.  I was forced to try something besides fajitas because they weren't even offered on the menu. This place did not disappoint, kind of made up for the lousy time we were having at the hotel.

National Anthem, and Lee Greenwood sang!! My fav

We forgot swimsuits...

This picture cracks me up, the girls took them to the hot tub!

Hey ladies

Finally having a good time!

John Mark and Alli

Cooper, with "straight hair"

Good morning

Hampton, the happy traveler

And Baylor won the game!! Winning!