Catching Up

We have caught the winter bug here at the Fox Den. The girls battled colds for about 3 weeks and Ian caught a cold/sinus infection in the process. Things were improving around Thanksgiving and I was grateful that I did not get sick. I guess that I must have been bragging too loud, because now I have been battling Bronchitis, a sinus infection and a recent diagnosis of asthma going on three weeks. At least it hasn't recycled. Now we are just trying to keep a head of the holiday chaos. We will be venturing to Minnesota this weekend to celebrate Christmas with my family, then be back in Iowa to celebrate with Ian's side and with the girls on Christmas. They have already received a few presents and are still working on figuring out how to tear the gifts open while Ian and I race to pick up the paper so that they don't put it in their mouth.

Here's a synopsis of what's been happening here at the FOX DEN:

Collectively the girls love having their individual time with mommy and daddy to be tickled and played with, especially if that involves us chasing after them.  They are proficient at crawling up the steps.  Our newest bedtime ritual is to brush our teeth, which they absolutely LOVE, even if they don't always chew on the right end. 

Abby-is now walking...mostly like a drunken sailor but it improves so much everyday. Her daily mission at this point in time, is to see how many times she can 1. Empty the toy box, 2. trample over her sisters and 3. Check out the dogs next door. She LOVES bread, so we are working on saying words instead of pointing at what we want. She does well and it is so cute trying to watch her form and say the B.  Make sure to check out her video.

As I was saying earlier.....

Stella-now has 4 teeth. BIG TIME into throwing full body temper tantrums. The more we hit our head on the floor, the better it seems. She loves to walk with the assistance of someone holding her hands all the while chanting "walk". She is also my imitator, especially when it comes down to making noises with her mouth.   She enjoys giving kisses and spinning around in circles getting herself dizzy....

Sometimes it's "walk" while other times it sounds as though she is imitating Fozzie Bear "walka walka" (without the bad jokes or tomato tossing).

Zoe-Also has 4 teeth and loves to walk with the assistance of someone holding her hands. She too chants "walk" and will throw a fit when you stop walking with her. Her other favorite word is "mine" and she can wiggle her nose on command. She is also following in Abby's tradition of dancing along with ANY type of music.

As you can see, I don't even have to ask her to do it any more...all we have to do is say her name.

Here's a few new photos from the last few weeks as well.  Thanks for checking in.  Happy Holidays from the FOX DEN!!

Believe it or not, this is really how the girls conversate with each other. Either that, or they are telling each other like it is, using baby swear tones that mom's not quite familiar with.

Brushing our teeth, with a little visual instruction from daddy (bottom left corner)

Brushing our teeth....as we feel it needs to be done!

Watching the neighbor's puppies play and giving them a taste of their own medicine....baby barking style.

Stella

Abby's dinner do..courtesy of dinner and daddy.

Zoe

Here we are in our fluffy winter jackets.

Here we are in our winter attire. This is Zoe letting Jenna (my friend who gave the coats to the girls last Christmas...whom we also refer to as "Auntie Jenna") know how much she too, loves pink fluffy coats, just like her.

As you can see, Ian is quite happy with his role in this photo op. Unfortunately we don't have an individual shot of Stella...she was having an attitude.

Abba and Daddy

Here's a couple new pictures that I've fallen for. The one above obviously is Abby and I. Pretty good picture for once. Abby looks beautiful as usual.



This picture is Zozo and I. Another cute picture.

Crash up derby with Abby

Here's Abby and her reckless abandon for all things safe while navigating her walker. If you watch--she'll even dance for you at the end of it. :)

Dancing Queen

So, after some checking...we CAN upload videos on here. Man, are you guys in trouble. Above is Ms. Abba our "Dancing Queen"--doing "her thing". Enjoy....pretty fun stuff. We'll add more as we can.

First Haircuts

Ian and I took the girls to get thier first haircuts yesterday. We really could have used 2 more people-one to hold a baby and another to take pictures. Stella and Abby got thier hair cut by stylists who had thier chairs next to each other while Zoe was several chairs down...so it was entertain babies...snip...snip...pass the camera. I monitored Stella and Abby, while Ian took Zoe. I thought that I would start with a few "before" pictures:

Zoe. The girl that needed her hair cut the worst.

Stella..she runs a close 2nd.

Abby. Could use a trim.

I started off holding Abby, because I knew that she wouldn't sit still for anything and I was wright. She was sticking her neck out, pointing, bouncing and finally standing. Somehow, the gal was able to trim a few hairs. Good thing that we didn't need anything fancy! As I mentioned before, nobody was able to take photos, so I attempted to do so myself...and I share them with you now:




I thought that Stella, being the social butterfly that she is, would do okay having someone else hold her during her cut while I attempted to wrangle Abby in the seat across from her. Stella was doing fine until they starting cutting the back of her hair..then it tickled too much and she kept scrunching her shoulders. She got mad and started to cry and one of the head people at the salon came over and indicated that we should maybe postpone the cut because they didn't want to traumatize Stella. However, half of her hair had been somewhat trimmed already. So once Abby finished, I took Stella and we finished the cut with no problems. Here's a few pics the trauma:


As I mentioned, Zoe was with Ian, so getting these photos was a lot of effort..( I had to remind him a couple of times to take them). Little Ms. Independent, sat by herself on the booster and had the little cape put around her neck. The stylist gave her her first sucker to make the haircut a little less traumatic. As you can see, she totally dug this.

AND NOW.....THE MOMENT YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR.....THE FINAL RESULTS:





I know. Does it really look like Zoe even got a haircut? Stella, on the other hand, as the cut progressed -they cut off all of her curls :( -I couldn't believe how much more her and Zoe looked alike...then the cut was over and that's when I realized that Stella's hair was butched and that she looked like a boy (and confirmed what I knew all along, she especially, has Ian's hairline the worst). I was bummed (about the haircut, not having Ian's hairline, because I knew this already-she might be bummed in the future). But, as the night progressed, her haircut started to grow on me and as I messed around with it I really started to like the "pixie" cut on her. It takes some getting used to, but it fits her personality.

I wanted to end with a "new dew" group photo. However, everytime, I kept trying to take the picture the girls continued to stand up in the chairs to rock in them or bang on the wall. So, I turned them around to get my photo, and as you can see, they weren't happy with my decision:

Stella also wanted to share that she cut a new tooth over the weekend as well, and once again, if I could add video, I would share the one of the girls trying to bark at the neighbor's dogs. Too bad it doesn't scare them away!

Corrections

The post dated October 30, 2007 was really meant to be posted then, but I had some issues with getting the pictures to attach correctly, so it was actually just posted today. If you are looking for Halloween pictures, we don't have any. Nobody, including myself and Ian were in the mood to dress up. The idea was for the girls to be the 3 blind mice. Hopefully, I can get around to putting the costumes on them sometime when we aren't so fussy due to cutting teeth. Let's see...in the last few days, Abby has cut another tooth, Stella's new favorite word is "Go", Zoe has learned a new way to make noises with her tongue and all three girls have finally noticed the dogs next door and have started barking at them when we look out the window (thanks to daddy).

Updates from the Den Mother

I'm finally getting a moment to get to the update that I promised I would post after our 15 month check up. It has been so unbelievably crazy around here, I can't even imagine what we could possibly add to the day to make things any busier. But then again, I'm not sure that I want to know right now either.

The month blessed us with head colds and horrible runny noses. We were very lucky that the "worst" outcome from this was Abby having an ear infection. She also had another routine eye exam with the eye specialist. Her eyes are finally complete with no signs of scar tissue or damage. Everyone will be screened again when they turn 2.

There has been a lot of change in these little girls in the last couple of weeks, that I can hardly keep track of it all for their baby books. One thing I do know, is that nobody has gotten any more teeth and we stand at the following count: Stella:1, Zoe:2 and Abby:13.

The celebration for the 30th Anniversary of the St. Luke's NICU took place on the 14th. We were so excited to go and catch up with the nurses, doctors and support staff that took such wonderful care of the girls as well as many of the friends we made while spending our time in the NICU. We definitely didn't get a chance to get pictures with or see everyone we wanted to, so if you are reading this and have other pictures to share with us, please send them to our email. Here are some photos from the day:

A photo of the billboard advertisement with the girls for the 30th Anniversay Celebration of the St. Luke's NICU.


This is Stella with Sue. She cared for Stella a lot during her early days in the NICU as well as for all 3 girls on occasion when they all shared a room prior to going home.



While this isn't a very flattering picture of Zoe, she is being held by Stacey. Stacey was one of Zoe's primary care givers throughout much of her stay in the NICU due to Zoe spending so much time in her own room. Zoe loved Stacey from the get go and always appeared to have better saturations or days when Stacey was around. You could tell that Zoe still has a bond with Stacey as she greeted her with smiles and didn't hesitate to go to her the minute she saw her.


This is Michelle with Zoe. She also was a primary care giver for Zoe in the beginning, then she added Abby, then Stella and finally, she was brave enough to tackle all the girls when they moved in together. We all formed a special bond with Michelle as she seemed to be the one who had to brave the Fox Den on the most regular basis. I believe it was Zoe though that gave her the most grief while on the ventilator both during spit bath times and with breathing. Michelle was present for a lot of the milestones that the girls conquered while in the NICU... with one of my favorites being the day the girls moved into the big girl bed! She also took a very special picture of the girls for me to take with me on my first day when I returned to work.


(l-r) This is Allison who is being held by her mom Dianna. She shares the same birthday as the girls. I met Dianna in the elevator one morning when we were both on our way into the NICU. Next is Abby with Shiela. She was one of Abby's primary care giver's in the beginning. She taught us how to give Abby a bath. Next is me with Zoe, followed by Stella with Sara. Sara rocks. In addition to Michelle, she was another who took on the challenge of entering the Fox Den on a regular basis. She was great at anticipating each girl's individual need and didn't take any attitude from them. She also liked to give Ian a hard time.


The 17th brought our 15 month check up, along with a round of shots....4 per girl to be exact. I was chosen to be the one to hold them down while this occurred then pass them off to Ian for comfort. I'm sure it isn't the first...or the last time that I will be thought of as the mean mommy. Surprisingly, they did very well. Lucky for us, no more shots until kindergarden As a whole, Dr. Nau was pleased with the progress that the girls are making developmentally, despite the fact that they are not walking yet. Their vocabulary continues to grow as well. Dada is still primary, saying mom mom when we are mad or want something. Other words include bye, bye, abba, uh oh and baby. We have figured out how to work several of our mechanical toys, get into the television cabinet and turn on the radio and climb steps. The following photos should give you an idea of what we have been up to during the month.

We have all figured out how to walk behind our cars. We are still working on the control part of it.


This is Abby. She absolutely loves the freedom that comes with exploring new ways of travel. She is the speedy one and will zip from one end of the basement to the other in a matter of seconds. She's not real good at steering and gets frustrated when she runs into things and can't keep going.



Zoe. While, she may be the least coordinated at doing this, she sure isn't letting her sister's show her up. Here, she is upset, due to Stella pulling her to the ground mid stride. I don't want to hear any comments about the clothing either...it's all Ian's doing. I think that he tries to test me on a daily basis with the clothing combinations he puts the girls in.....I think it's a personal contest on how crazy he can make them.


This is Stella demonstrating how we play peek-a-boo...with our cheeks.
Or, our chin



Here are the many faces of Abby. (in all honesty, I couldn't pick just one photo to share.) As you can see, we still have not gotten hair cuts. I cannot help but to laugh every time I see this girl. She is just so funny right now. She likes to point at things, click her tongue and can dance up a storm (which is the cutest thing ever!). She motivates around furniture real well, but is hesitant when there isn't something around to hold on to. She is big into diving from a standing position to the floor to a crawling position then she's on the move.




A couple pictures of Zoe...Ms. Attitude right now. Here she is trying to click her tongue. Auntie Lindsay also taught her how to wiggle her nose.



And here she is mid temper tantrum.



Here we are climbing the steps up to bed.





And last but not least, a few group photos:




We love when mommy cuts us loose after meals, especially when she lets us sit in our chairs the way we want!

Bambi eyes.

I kind of realized when I was changing some things around on here that I'm kind of painting an unfair picture of Zoe, as this brash, disgruntled child. Believe it or not, this isn't really the case. She's just very opinionated--but anyway here is a picture of Zoe that conveys the type of little person she is 95% of the time.

Business as usual.

This is Abby in the midst of her routine in the jumper. Once upon a time she barely made the jumper wiggle when she jumped, now she's shaking it when she's jumping, bouncing back and forth and pulling on the side supports.

Moptop.

Carey and I have been talking about taking the girls for their 1st haircut soon. As you can see with Zoe's picture, the poor girl's hair is long enough to be in her eyes. Luckily for Zoe, I can now use hair clips in her hair without it looking completely ridiculous. Now if I could do the whole "pony-tail" thing.