48 hours alone with 4 kids under 4.*

Jason has been on back to back doubles at work. So I have been on my own with the munchkins wake up to bed time...boy am I beat. The weather was nice one of the days, thankfully, so they got to spend some time outside. The other day it rained and we were stuck inside all day. I am only a little embarrassed to admit to watching a lot of TV today.

Poor Xander took his first kick to the, um, tenders. You should have seen his eyes, they got HUGE then he kind of bent over and started saying "my butt, my butt, my butt hurts" hehehe. Hayden didn't mean to, but hopefully she is more careful in the future. Even so, I am sure it won't be his last time experiencing this :(

I can't believe it is the end of May already. I was just thinking back and remembered my baby shower for the triplets was May 18, 2008. I had stopped working a few days before, and thanks to going into preterm labor, I started my 6 weeks of hospital bedrest on May 30, 2008. I can't believe it has been 4 years since I had an 'out of the home' job. I wouldn't trade being covered in finger paint and kisses from my kids for anything, but man it has been a long time LOL.

Jericho climbing on some more stuff he shouldn't be.

The trio have started trying to corral the cats in their room. The kitty's make a break for it as often as they can, but as you see here, the kids just go back and try to get them again. Bye Woosaw, I will come save you in a min. LOL.

The kiddos truly love their Daddy, they have told me off and on all day for the last two days how much they love and miss him. So tonight as I was putting them to bed we made a little 1 min long video saying goodnight and blowing him kisses and sent it to his phone :) Then my dear Haddie asks me who will see them in the morning, they like to ask this every night...I think my kids are planners. I tell her very excitedly that her Daddy will be waking them up. I was just as excited for them as I was for myself...that means I get to sleep in. Well Hayden just took things too far. She tells me "Yay Momma, just don't wake up Mom, you just don't wake up my Daddy will be here" hmpfh, I sure hope she didn't mean she didn't want me to never wake up LMAO.

The dresses are done, man.

Hayden and Lily's birthday dresses are DONE!! Another Pinterest win for me...thank goodness I had my mother in laws help, I could not have done it without her! They may not be as good as the one we based these off of, but we are very pleased. It took us about 4 hours per dress, I am sure that would get faster with practice, and 2 sewing machines, but all in all it wasn't too bad. We do have enough left overs to make a couple more, so maybe we can improve on our time.

At the end of this post I am going to add some how to info, if anyone wants to try their hand at making their own rainbow patchwork dress :)

The inside of the dresses. Here is how we sewed in the elastic to help hold up the top and keep it fitted.

The dresses inside out. We didn't line the dresses or do anything to make them look less homemade...they are homemade so that is kinda the look we were going for LOL.

Haddie modeling the new tie straps.

The back.

We are going to have a couple rainbow cuties at their party...I can't wait!

OK here is how we did it!

We made our dresses/measurements for a 5t-6t size dress...so if you want bigger or smaller you would need to make some changes.

As I said when we went shopping for the fabric, we picked 22 different patterns/colors...you could do more if you wanted to, to use fewer patterns over again.

-1st we cut our fabric into 4"- 4 1/2" squares.
For the purple tier we needed 20 squares per dress we used 5 different fabrics, blue needed 18 squares, again we used 5 different fabric patterns. Green took 15 squares and we used 4 different fabrics, yellow 13 squares and also 4 different fabrics. Orange was 9 squares and 3 different fabrics.

-Next we sewed the individual tiers, we sewed all the purples in a line together, then the blues, then greens and so on. We used 1/4" seam on almost all the sewing except when otherwise stated.

**You want to mark your tiers (and later your red top and elastic) in quarters so you can match up the quarters when you sew it. We folded our fabric in half and marked the top and bottom, then folded it in half again and marked the top and bottom...that should give you your "in quarter" measurements.

-Next, on the top of each tier, where you will sew it to the next tier up, we put in two "gathering stitches" they were 1/4" and 1/8"...this is to give you the little ruffle where the tiers come together, you will remove these stitches once the dress is all done, yup it is a pain in the ass LOL. Some pics of this step and getting the tiers together here.

-Next you go about attaching the tiers to each other...remember to use your quarter marks so things stay even. We started with purple and worked our way up, again all were 1/4" seams except for the orange to red seam, that one was 5/8". Also we used white thread everywhere except when sewing on the red top...though we did use white for the top elastic strip, then red for everything else dealing with the red tier.

For our dresses we used just one color red for the top, we cut the fabric to 30" x 6 3/4". We sewed in 4 strips of 1/2" elastic (we used 22 1/4"-22 1/2" lengths.) Which for us was a 2 person job as you needed to stretch the elastic as you sewed so it would constrict back but have the give when worn...if that makes any sense.

For the straps we used 20" x 6" and halfed it twice sewing the edges closed so it looked nice and clean. They ended up being 4 straps of 1 1/2" x 20" then obviously sewed 2 straps on the front and 2 on the back so they tie together over the shoulder.

All done! I may have forgotten some steps (or explained it badly, I am not the sewing pro)...this was a lengthy project done over several days, feel free to comment with questions if you have any.

I am such a great wife :)

OK, don't want to break my arm...so I gave Jason the morning off, go me. Those that know us in real life know that I am totally spoiled by my amazing husband. I would list all the stuff he does for me, our kids and our home...heck even our pets, but you would seriously say to yourselves "well, what the hell does she do?" So I won't list just how disgustingly spoiled I am, I will say that for once I got up this morning and let Jason sleep in. He lets me sleep in almost 3 weeks out of the month so his turn was much over due. He was even nice enough to prep breakfast for me before going to bed last night. Spoiled I tell ya!

We (hey I put it in the oven LOL) made that yummy baked french toast again, just as good as the last time!

After Jason woke, very well rested, around 10:30am :) we headed over to visit Grandma for a little bit.

A little gardening help.

Then Hayden and Xander made a new friend.

He seemed unfazed by his close encounter and just kept trucking.

The fighting has started, 3 to a row is still TOTALLY worth it, but yeah this gets annoying. All I can think of is one of my favorite comedy DVD's 'Bill Cosby Himself', when he is doing the He's touching me, will you stop touching me skit. If you have never seen this DVD you HAVE to watch it...it is old but so funny especially for parents. I have loved it since I was a kid...but love it even more now that I am a mom. Just to entice you here is a page full of awesome quotes from it!

 

Look at Haddie, the best 'I wasn't doing anything' look :)

Build A Bear...at home.

Before we get into bear stuffing fun, here are a couple cute pics of Jericho from the other day that I forgot to add. Such a little ham!

Do-rag time.

Trying on one of big brothers old hats.

This was just for mom and dad...I am one of those worrier mom's that will not give her kids popcorn until they are 5 or 6. Too many horror choking stories...I won't add any here but you can easily find a bunch on line. Chocolate peanut buttery covered popcorn! It turned out pretty good...though it would have been better if I hadn't burned the popcorn. Who the hell burns microwave popcorn...this girl LOL.

I kind of just winged the ingredients. I used a 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup regular sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 cup peanut butter and 3/4 cup chocolate syrup. I put the sugars, vanilla, peanut butter and chocolate syrup in a pan to bring to a boil...I added a splash of milk to thin it all out a bit. boil for 1 min. I put the popped popcorn in a giant bowl and poured the mixture over the popcorn. Toss until cool and well mixed.

On to the bear fun! The triplets got these little at home kits for Christmas. They had so much fun. Now I can't wait to take them for a visit to the actual Build A Bear workshop :)

Jason helped Xander and Haddie. Even though Xander's bear had the option of a blue shirt or a blue dress, Xander chose to be blessed with a daughter bear :) And newsflash, we don't care...playing with girl toys, or girl clothes or painting his nails are all no biggie in our book!

Stuff, stuff, stuff!

Awww hugs for baby bear.

The kids named their bears and I helped them fill out the adoption certificate. Miss Lily named her princess bear 'Vaya'...I have no idea where it came from.

Xan was very thoughtful, he named his 'Bear' LOL.

Hayden and 'Cookie' :)

The girls wouldn't leave their bears sides...Lily tucked 'Vaya' in for a nap Hahaha.

I think Xander would love a real "kids" camera for his birthday...I hope we can find one! He came up to me and said "Hold still mom and say cheese" LOL.

Hair, flowers and cookies!

I am so glad my girls are too young to care if Mom f's up their hair. Hopefully by the time they are old enough to care I will be much better at doing their hair LOL. I tried a couple new hair ideas, I am loving this site...lots of great ideas!

As you can see, I need more practice :)

Another 'triple into one' braid for Hayden. These are easy, since she hates to sit for long.

Gotta love Spring in Oregon, one day it is beautiful...the next thunderstorms and rain, lots of rain.
We stayed inside today and did a little painting. I saw a cute idea on Pinterest, but didn't have any 2 liter bottles, so we used finger prints instead to make our Cherry Blossoms.

They did a super job, the trio got a little carried away with the pink paint though :) 

Jericho's came out the cleanest...of course he had the most help LOL.

After we washed up and had dinner we made some more of those yummy no bake cookie balls! They turned out just as great as last time! The triplets were pro at rolling the cookie balls!

All dry, they turned out pretty cute, right?!