Baby blessing and family pictures

With my little brother just returning from his mission and my older brother and his wife in town, we thought that it might be nice to bless the babies.  My brother had already planned on speaking this day, so we asked if it would be alright if we made a whole day of it and also blessed the babies.  It was so wonderful to hear each blessing and know that my sweet angels are now named through the gospel and have a blessed life that awaits them. The same weekend we decided to do a quick family photo, as everyone was together.  It was a wonderful weekend, and we were so grateful to be with the whole family, which we haven't been able to do for a couple of years! 

 Miles

 Jaxon

 Lilly

Babies first race

What a wonderful weekend!  My little brother had just returned the Wednesday prior, my older brother and his wife flew in from Vegas, we were together as an entire family for the first time in a long time!  When I was younger, my family started doing the Classic race together, and it became our tradition.  We've had a lot of years lately where only some of us could do the race.  This year, we were ALL able to run it together once more.  Phillip and I even ran/walked it with the babies in tow.  They absolutely love going on walks, so this was a delight for them!  It was so amazing to get together with my family again and do this with my own little growing family.  Who knows maybe they will even do the kids K portion someday! :)

Uncle Schuyler comes home and 3 months old!

A very exciting day!  My little brother Schuyler had been gone for two years serving a religious mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  He left with no nieces and nephews and came home to two nieces and two nephews!  We all are so proud of him, and it is pretty amazing to see the changes in him.  We met him at the airport and it was so wonderful to see him!!!  The same day that my brother came home, the babies also turned 3 months.  Both such wonderful milestones, what a great day!!!

Baby pictures

We had been looking forward to this for a long time!  We were so excited to do their baby pictures.  My friend had offered to do them for us, and she did such a phenomenal job!  We had seen work of hers before, but were so delighted with what she did!  She was a true saint though!  After 11 hours of shooting, and additional time editing, we were able to see the final product.  Thank you so much Aimee for your hard work for our precious kiddos!!  You are amazing!

 Miles

 Lilly

 Jaxon

 Lilly

 Miles

 Jaxon

Outings and dead batteries

We have been able to go on a few outings, walks, and adventures.  We just finished our basement, so decided to take them out one evening to get some decorations.  We first were encountered by a down pour of rain and wind gusts.  We came out of the store and were going to leave as the kiddos were getting hungry, and the car wouldn't start.  Luckily we weren't far from my parents home, so we called them, and my dad came and tried to jump start us.  When we tried to do that the battery started to smoke.  Well, we figured that was not a good thing, so Phillip called the tow truck, we piled the kids in my dads sedan (talk about a tight fit) and Phillips dad came and picked him up.  All for going on an adventure! :)

Triplets on their first walk

 Squished!

Back to the hospital......

It's been a couple of days since the boys have been home, and although the first night was pretty ugly, we've had a good run since.  However, about 4 days after the boys returned home, we were up for the 1am feed, and noticed that Lilly had blood in her stool again, or should I say stool in her blood, it was ALOT!  We called our amazing neighbors, they hustled over to our house to watch the boys until my parents arrived, and we took her right into the emergency room.  They did ultrasounds, and an x-ray and could find nothing (which we were grateful that there were no internal issues!).  We saw the doctor the next day, and she said it could be a myriad of things, but that she thought it might be a milk allergy, so it was off milk protein for me!  My obsession with yogurt, cheese, milk, and ice cream would just have to be put on hold.  My cute parents went straight to the store the next day and found me every substitute treat they could find!  On the bright side, the boys have come off of oxygen just a week after being home!!  They tried and tried in the hospital to wean them off to no avail. I'm so proud of my boys for being so strong.  These 3 angels are such a blessing in our life!

 3 tuckered out kids after a long night

NICU weeks 8 and 9... and HOME!!!!

These have been the most promising of weeks here at the NICU.  Miles, Jaxon, and Lilly are all looking really good.  Lilly has been off of oxygen and her feeding tube and they finally gave us a date to plan on going home with her.  We cleaned the house and got the cribs all together and had everything ready to go, and then the day she was supposed to go home, she had blood in her stool, so they kept her there an extra day/did some testing, but all was well.  She came home July 30th 2013, a week and a half before our due date.  During weeks 8 and 9 Miles and Jaxon were also making great progress.  They both were on the Vapotherm, but were weaned of and put on room air and had been dealing with that beautifully.  The boys both got a pretty nasty looking rash, but the doctor said it was nothing, just that newborns sometimes get these rashes that mean nothing.  Week 9 of the NICU was very interesting.  We would go back and forth between the hospital and home, as we had Lilly home and the boys came home after her, re-instating my respect for NICU parents who have other children at home, they are saints!  We were so blessed though, because that very next week the boys came home, together!  We couldn't believe it!  We were fully expecting to have a longer journey with at least one of them.  They did the car seat test, and all did great, the boys had to be turned up a little on their oxygen.  So the day came that we were able to take the boys home, it was quite a process (we had to wait for the pre-authorization for their oxygen and monitors to take home-kind of need that!)  The boys joined our family at home on August 5th 2013.  What an exciting day to have all of our family together again, and at home!  That ended our NICU experience.  We were so grateful to the good nurses and doctors that took care of our sweet angels, but (and everybody would say this up at the hospital) we REALLY don't care to see you there again! :) 

Last family photo taken at the NICU

    

 Our home for 9 weeks!

Quite a sight to see!!

Our cute girl on Daddy's birthday, home just in time!

 Our handsome boys welcome party from Aunt Amber and Uncle Spenc!

Daddy's first time holding all 3!