Merry Christmas!

Cookie Monsters

Brought to you by the color green and the number 3.

This morning, I stepped away from the kitchen for one minute to bring the laundry downstairs. When I returned, this is what I found.

The crime scene: two freshly iced cookies missing. Fingerprints visible in the remaining cookies.

One guilty Wesley with green icing and crumbs on his chin and shoulder and hands. (And therefore we now have green icing all over the chairs in the playroom from when he fled the scene...)

A guilty looking Winston, with a beard of green icing.

And a Charlie on a sugar high.

Let it snow!

We are in the middle of our first major snow storm of the winter. The snow started falling around 2pm yesterday and has yet to stop. I think we have over a foot on the ground already. After breakfast, the boys watched Daddy snow blow the neighbor's driveway.
Wesley, Winston and Charlie. Charlie's arm is around Winston, heads touching. How sweet!


They all turned around when they heard the camera!


We then had our dear friends Ellie, Kevin and kids Lucy and Owen over for brunch. They braved the snow - thankfully they only live 2 miles away! What a great day.

Boxes are better than gifts

I am not able to shop in stores (perhaps you've noticed we have triplets), so all of our Christmas shopping has been done online. Which means that our house is now filled with large boxes. And we have discovered that boxes are often more fun than the toys they once contained. It was so sweet to listen to their giggles as they played peekaboo with each other, or as they banged on the box like a drum while their brother was inside.




Charlie & Winston discovered the camera

Then the boys decided it was time to hug one another...Charlie & Wes

Win & Charlie (as Wesley hides in the box)

Photo fun

A friend posted this on her blog, and it looked like fun. So here goes!

Here are the rules:

1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer.

2) Select the 4th picture in the folder.

3) Explain the picture.

4) Tag 4 people to do the same - NO CHEATING! (cropping, editing etc.)


Here is my Grandma, niece & God-daughter Alexandra and brother Jim celebrating Alex's one year birthday and baptism. It was such a wonderful celebration in Toledo. She is even wearing her own Korean hanbok for the occasion. My favorite part of the photo, though, are Jimbo's devil red eyes. Hooray for blue eyes! (Taken sometime around November 2005.)

Sniff sniff cough cough

Our family of 5 has spent the last week+ sick as can be. Thankfully it did not effect our tummies or give anyone fevers, but there have been many runny noses, coughs, lost voices and all around exhaustion (yet sleepless nights). There is nothing worse than being sick and trying to care for your sick children - and not being able to give them any medicine! But thankfully we're all on the mend.

In spite of all this, the boys have provided a few moments of comic relief. We sing the boys Christmas carols at night. We were singing "O come let us adore Him..." and Charlie points to the closet and says "DOOR!". We couldn't continue the song, we were laughing so hard.

Because we have been housebound, I have been trying everything to keep the boys amused. I brought out a bag of cardboard boxes (the ones that look like fake bricks), in different colors and sizes. Without any hesitation or argument, the boys divided the blocks. Winston took all the large red blocks and stood on them like he was surfing. Wesley took the medium yellow squares and would stack them and carry them into the kitchen. And Charlie took the small blue blocks and stood them all up on their ends, creating his own little Stonehenge. It was too funny to watch them!

We are so blessed!

Wesley, Charlie & Winston

Nanna & Poppa!

We have had a wonderful visit with Nanna and Poppa. Life will (unfortunately) return to normal after they leave tomorrow. The boys will miss their playmates and Rob and I will miss all of their help!

One of the many highlights of their visit was going to see the How the Grinch Stole Christmas musical at the Wang Center in Boston. It was a joy to watch the actors and truly celebrate their talent. And apparently we sat in the Gallagher seats where all the special effects fall right on your head (but not two rows in front or behind you). All the 5 year olds were jealous. And no, we didn't bring the boys.

I was able to run some errands today, and when I returned Nanna informed me of a new development. Winston received a 2 minute timeout for hitting. And while he was in timeout, Wesley purposely hit Win in order to join him in timeout. Apparently they don't like to be apart!

Attack Nanna!

Attack Poppa!

Wesley is smiling because he stole Nanna's shirt - it was the greatest toy

Win - look at all those teeth! Their eye teeth are now coming in.

Well, well, well...

Wesley getting Poppa kisses

Nanna, Winston and Charlie

Winston and Poppa

The Green Pond Gang

We had the pleasure of a quick afternoon visit from a few members of the Green Pond NJ Gang (also our next door neighbors in Maine). Jennifer, Scott, Hayleigh, Brayden and Colby came out to see the boys while they were in MA for Thanksgiving.
Nanna, Colby, Wes, Win, Hayleigh, Brayden and Charlie

Hayleigh and Winston

Charlie and Brayden

Winston, Nanna & Wesley

Stoney grabbing the camera

Chucklie

Weserley

Happy Thanksgiving!

This is the first time we hosted Thanksgiving. To celebrate, the boys invaded the boy-free zone with Nanna, Poppy and Poppa to watch their first football game. (It was the Cowboys, in honor of Jim and Mi Jung's new hometown, so that made it okay...)

Poppa & Winston, Poppy & Charlie, Nanna & Wesley

The boys watching the game in front of the fire...not a bad life...

The feast with Grammy, Poppy, Nanna and Poppa. Here we are openly mocking the boys by doing baby sign language for "more please".


We had a wonderful feast that included turkey (brined, courtesy of Alton Brown, of course), sausage and cranberry stuffing, mashed potatoes, sauteed green beans, creamed onions (one of my family's traditions), maque choix (Rob's specialty - cajun corn pudding), cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and kentucky bourbon pecan pie. YUM!

No more bottles (for the boys)

Tonight was the first night that we didn't give the boys their bedtime bottle. We have slowly reduced the number of bottles they take each day over the last few months, as they have started perfecting the sippy cups. We have held onto the bedtime bottle in the routine because they had not been big milk drinkers during the day. In a lot of ways, we still thought of them as preemies that had to drink enough to grow. But in reality, they are big boys now! They are still not huge fans of milk, but they will happily get their calcium from grilled cheeses.

So we celebrated this milestone with a bottle of our own - a bottle of champagne.

Funny Bunnies

We have those kids. I brought the boys to a music class at the library, and while all the other kids sat quietly on their parents' laps, the boys wandered the room, made friends, shared instruments, etc. They did everything but sit in my lap - but they had a great time! They had huge smiles for the second class, and even found the same dad that they played with the first time (his son was none too pleased).

We also brought the boys to the childcare at the YMCA - they played while we worked out. It is a huge playspace for the kids, which the boys loved. Apparently Wes is such a good climber that they had to take his shoes off to give him less traction. He kept climbing up the slide, much to the dismay of all the other kids.

Speaking of climbing, Winston discovered that he could stand on the seat of his riding car. We discovered this when he proudly brought me the hand sanitizer (which he swiped from the top of the cabinet)! Wes decided to mix things up and figured out how to stand inside the seat.

And one last incredibly sweet thing...We pray with the boys before they go to bed. The other night as we ended the prayer, Charlie pulled his blanket from his mouth and said "Amen"!

Wes sitting (not) on the seat

Then he discovered he could stand IN the car

Charlie thought it looked fun

Win pushing Wes around the playroom

Time to do the laundry!

What did you call me?

Some of you may know that we rarely call each other by our given names. Many nicknames are given, and some actually stick. So it is only natural that we have a bunch of nicknames for the boys already. I thought it would be fun to share and also to look back on years from now to see which ones continue on. But for now, if you hear me refer to Stoney, Weserley and Bucks, you know who I'm talking about.

Winston
Win, Winsley (his Win-Wes combo to make sure we got at least half of his name right), Winner (really WinR since his middle name is Robert), Winston Binston, Winny BinBin, Stone, Stoney Bones, Stoney Balogne (often shortened to just Stoney), Stoner Malone, The Brownheads (The Ws: Win & Wes)

Wesley
Wes, Weston (his Win-Wes combo), WeJam (his full name is Wesley James), Weserley, What Are You Eating? (you can always tell he found a piece of food/lint/dirt/spider by looking at his proudly pursed lips), Wesley Besley, Bam Bam, WesMan, The Brownheads (The Ws: Win & Wes)

Charles
Charlie, Chuckles, Chucklie, Bucklie, Charlie Buckle Barley, Bucks, Char-Buckle, C.Bucks, Doodlebug, Chuckle Boo, Boodles (really, every possible variation and combination of any of those), C.Ray (his middle name is Raymond), which then morphed into Crayon (thanks Jamie!)

Brothers!

So cute...
Charlie, Wesley & Win were all holding hands (and loving it) after their snack today.

First Haircuts!

We gave the boys their first haircuts today. I bought haircutting scissors, thinking that this will save us money in the future to cut their hair ourselves. Unfortunately for the boys, I have no experience (or skill, really) cutting hair. The upside is that they are too young to be openly mocked at the playground for uneven bangs.

Winston before:

Winston after:

Wesley before:

Wesley after: (as you can tell from the tears, he was not pleased with the process...or maybe it was the outcome?)

Charlie before and after: (Charlie got an "aircut")

Happy Halloween!

We're not huge fans of Halloween, but thought it would be fun for the boys to have some sort of costume. So I bought a few hoodies (I could only find 2 browns and a grey) and some art supplies, and decided to turn their costume into a fun craft. Grand dreams and sketches ensued, only to be dashed by reality. So the boys each got a set of ears...

Winston the Bear

Wesley the Lion

Charlie the Elephant

It was unseasonably warm tonight (50s!), so Grammy, Poppy and I brought the boys out for a walk in the neighborhood. It was too early to do any trick or treating, but it was fun to look at the decorations.

The pack

But their favorite part of the night was playing with their costumes at home. They loved putting them on and tearing them off (themselves and each other).
Wes as the Bear (As a side note, I bought scissors so we can cut their hair this weekend...think they need it?)



Charlie as the Lion



Winston as the Elephant


Just wanted to add that Rob and I headed over to our neighbors garage (Grammy and Poppy offered to stay and watch a movie). Everyone congregated for drinks after all the kids went down. And we had the greatest time. We've met folks in passing and all seemed nice, so this was the first time we've been able to spend time and get to know them. And it was a ball.