Name in the Sand....

Carly Marie Dudley is a mom from Australia who lost her infant son Christian. Since then, she has worked hard to help other parents heal and remember their babies.

One of her projects is Christian's Beach. You can read her full story here, but basically, based on a dream she had about her own son, she now visits the beach in Perth Australia at sunset and writes the names of babies and children whose lives were too brief.

I requested Ben's name to be written, because it is so heartwarming to know that on the complete other side of the world someone would be thinking of him and honoring him. The photograph is also a wonderful memento.

So, here it is! I think it turned out lovely.

 

To see the photo on Carly Marie's website, click here. There is a tribute written to Ben as well.

My favorite moments...

Two of my most favorite things about being a mom of multiples....

 Bath time:

Seriously, is anything cuter????

 

I love how Rhys is too curious to stay on his own side. Clearly, Garrett's side is much cooler than his :-)

And, my second favorite Mom of Multiples moment:
Swinging at the park!

This happened by accident the first time. There was only one baby swing available and we discovered they were too small to fit in there alone anyways. So, we did this! And it was so freakin' cute, that we do it every time we are at the park now. The boys love it and I get to take like three million pictures!

Long time no post....

Wow, it's been a month since I have done anything with my blog. Feels like five minutes though...time has flown by.

We had a great summer and surprisingly did a lot of different activities. When I found out I was pregnant with all these babies, I assumed that we'd be homebound for quite some time....but that's not been the case!!!

So, here's what our little family was up to this summer....

At the beginning of August, we visited Mark's family in Regina/MooseJaw. We all crammed into one hotel room, which is something that I have to say, we are unlikely to ever do again. Might not have been so bad if we didn't have two cribs, bumbos, a double stroller, exersaucer, carseats, bottles, bottle warmers, nursing pillows and who knows what else with us. But we did. Crowded doesn't even begin to describe it. This is why hotel suites were invented, I'm sure of it!

 Nobody slept. Not even a little bit. In fact, I'm pretty sure the first night I didn't even close my eyes. The babies woke up Rylen, and Rylen woke up the babies. Rhys was sick and feverish. It was truly awful.

We needed a lot of this in the morning:

But, it was all good, cause we got to visit some family members that have never met Garrett and Rhys before.

Later on in the month, we went camping! Garrett and Rhys and I travelled home for the night to sleep in the comfort of our own beds (the previous hotel experience completely scared us off from trying out camping overnight) but Rylen and Mark stayed. The next night, my parents babysat the babies and I got to join the boys for an overnight stay. It was so much fun and made me realize how much I love and miss camping!

At the end of the month, we rented a cabin for three nights in the Whiteshell...still scared from the hotel experience, but we wanted to do something all together as a family. "Conveniences" is a word that is very important on our priority list when looking for a place to stay. The cabin was right on the water so once we were there and settled in, we enjoyed three days free from packing stuff up to go to the beach. We just simply walked out the front door and we were there!

In between all of our adventures, we did some pretty cool things around home as well: swimming, splash parks, playgrounds.... summer is so much fun when you have kids!

 

Garrett and Rhys grew a lot. And they learnt some new things too, like sitting up!

 

 

 

It was a great summer. We did so much more than I ever thought we would, and we really enjoyed our time together as a family. When Rhys was sick in the NICU, I would often tell him "you need to get better and come home, our family is so much fun!" I would imagine us all together doing stuff just like we did this summer. I feel so lucky that we were actually able to do it!

A Year Ago Today....

On this day last year, we found out we were expecting triplets!

I can't believe it's been a whole year. In a lot of ways it seems like it all happened five minutes ago. But, on the other hand, it seems like a lifetime ago. So much has happened since then and are lives are very different.

If there is one day that I could go back to and relive, it would be August 18, 2011. It was probably the craziest day of my life. I wish I could go back and remember it better. I think after they said "triplets", I totally blanked out and the shock and fear took over. I wish I could have enjoyed it more and been more excited about my three babies and less stressed out about the news.

But, that being said, there are parts of that day that are burned in my memory that I will never forget. And despite all the shock, it was such an amazing experience to learn that I had three babies growing away in my body and so happy to know that they were all healthy!


Last year, we walked out of our two hour fetal assessment, completely stunned with this picture in our hands:

I didn't know at the time that it would turn out to be the only picture that we have of our three babies together. It has turned out to be one of my favorite pictures ever and is framed in my bedroom and I look at it everyday.

I also got our photographer, Cynthia Korman  to make me this, which will one day hang in Garrett and Rhys' room should I ever get a spare moment or two to frame it!

One thing I will never forget about this day, and the days after, is the crazy amount of support and love we had extended to us from all of our friends and family. It was truly awesome, and we will always remember it. Thank you all!!!

Eight Months

Here are Garrett and Rhys' 8 month photos:

Pretty cute hey?

And, as usual, here are the many outtakes, which are pretty hilarious. I feel like I should get a trophy or award or something for getting a decent picture of these two together!

The last one is my favorite. Poor Rhys. Not impressed that Garrett is using his hand as a chew toy!

Observations....

Just some random things I have noted over the past several months of mothering multiples:

With one baby, if you decide on a whim to go to the park one sunny day, you pack some stuff, feed the kid, and you arrive at the park within the hour.

With two babies and a 3 year old, if you decide on a whim to go to the park one sunny day, you pack ALOT of stuff, feed all the kids, and maybe if you are lucky you will arrive at the park by next Tuesday at noon. Oh yeah, and as soon as you get there the three year old will have to pee.

Another observation:

When you have more than one baby, you are basically a circus attraction. It's as if people have never seen two babies in the same vicinity before. They are attracted to you like magnets. When we are out in public, I spend probably 50% of my time talking to strangers. I also have to fend my babies off from strangers who want to hold them, kiss them and get in their personal space. Sometimes I feel like I should charge an admission fee just to come stare at Garrett and Rhys and ask me invasive personal questions about my fertility.

Another observation, and this is the best one:
I never ever thought that having two babies would be so fascinating. I just love to see them interact with eacthother. They are so funny. They fight already: Rhys is grabbing Garrett and poor Garrett howls like he's being tortured. Then, Garrett gets over it and rolls over and laughs at Rhys. Then they both start tugging on the same blanket and have a kerfluffle over that. It's so entertaining. I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have this experience! Of course, I so wish that I had my three babies and I wonder every day what that would be like and how they would all interact with eachother. I think about this alot and it makes me smile and feel sad at the same time.

Being a mom of multiples is tiring, fun, happy, crazy, insane, and exciting. It's downright chaotic at times (like between the hours of 6 and 9pm in our house....just nuts!) but it's such a unique experience and Mark and I are thoroughly enjoying it!

Better Late Than Never

So, it's only taken me 8 months or so to finally get all of the birth announcements mailed out. I think with Rylen I had them done before he was 6 weeks old!

To be fair...the pictures were only taken when they were over three months old... but still. I've been a bit slow.

And, I am missing some addresses. So, in the meantime, I thought I'd just share it with everyone. By the time I actually locate addresses, they could be graduating high school.

So, here it is:

This is the front

And this is the back!

I have to thank Cynthia Korman for once again doing a great job designing these after weeks of me pondering and changing my mind over and over again! She also did some amazing collages of the boys for me which I have tried and tired to upload but am failing miserably. I will hopefully share those another day.