Easter 2012

The kids had a great Easter weekend this year, including dyeing Easter Eggs, two Easter Egg Hunts, visits to both sets of Grandparents, and plenty of candy and little toys. I took a LOT of pictures, here are the highlights:

A Little Easter Preview

I could not pass up a chance to post this picture of Elisha, it's just too perfect. I'll post more Easter photos later on in the week.

Mattel's Great Customer Service

This Christmas all KJ wanted was a Finn McMissile car from the Cars 2 movie that came out last year. He asked about it for months leading up to Christmas. When he opened it up on Christmas morning, he was very excited and wanted to play with it immediately. Once we got it out of the package, he carried it everywhere.

Now, this particular Finn McMissile actually has little plastic missiles that shoot out from it. As you can imagine, we lost the missiles. I was actually astounded that we had them as long as we did, about ten hours. 

Since then, I've been meaning to get on Mattel's web site to see if they offer replacement missiles. I kept putting it off and putting it off, because I really didn't want to spend more money on something that he was probably going to lose again.

Well, the other day I finally went to the site. I searched and searched, and came to the conclusion that they did not offer the missiles as a replacement part. 

I decided to email the customer service department and ask if there was any chance that I could get replacements. I was thrilled when I got a reply email the next day letting me know that they would be sending out a bag of replacement missiles free of charge.

Kudos to Mattel for their quick response and for actually taking care of their customers. It's really nice to see and experience such great customer service.To most of you this probably seems like a very small gesture on Mattel's part, but I know how excited KJ is going to be to get new missiles to replace the ones he lost.

Christmas 2011

So... I finally got around to dealing with the pictures and video from Christmas. I took a lot more video than pictures this year. A lot more. Don't worry, I won't bore you with the entire set of videos here. This year the kids really got into opening their presents, and they were patient enough that we were able to have them open them one at a time, instead of the free-for-all that we've had in past years. In hindsight, I should have been able to get a lot more good pictures, but then I wouldn't have all of the video that I do.

Even Buster got in on the action. He really enjoyed his gifts. I have a great video of him that I'll have to share in a later post.

The Elf

This morning the kids woke up to find the Elf clinging to the star atop our Christmas Tree.

Weird, but none of them was worried that he might get burned by the star...

The Elf

Like many families, we've been using one of Santa's little helpers to keep our little helpers in line leading up to Christmas. We've come up with some pretty good spots for the little guy to keep an eye on the triplets, so I've decided to start snapping some photos of him on his various perches. I'll share some of the better ones here.

Today, I really just want to turn the fan on:

Christmas Picture Outtakes

This year, I wanted to get a good picture of all three kids for our Christmas Card. Somehow, every year, I seem to forget how difficult it is to get all three of them to look at the camera with a nice smile at the exact same time. While it is frustrating while I'm doing it, when I look at the "outtakes", I'm glad I do it. Their individual personalities really shine in some of these pictures. They're each so funny and cute in their own little way.

Now I'd like to share a few of the outtakes with you.

Chim-in-ey

We've been talking a lot lately about Santa Claus and how he gets around, especially how he gets into houses. I absolutely love the way Juli has been saying Chimney.

We've also been fielding a lot of questions about the Elf on the Shelf that has taken up residence with us to keep an eye on the kids for Santa. Each morning when they wake up the Elf is in a different spot in the house, out of reach of the kids, but somewhere that he can keep an eye on them to make sure they're being nice.

The kids want to know how he gets around in the house, and how he gets to the North Pole and back while they're sleeping (he uses magic, just like Santa uses magic to come down the chimney).

Last night, after the kids went to bed, I placed the Elf high up in our Christmas Tree. This morning I forgot to check whether or not he was still there this morning when I went to wake the kids up. They rushed downstairs to find the Elf face down on the floor next to the tree. They were a little confused, so I told them that he was tired from a long trip up to the North Pole and must have fallen asleep before he found a good spot to watch them from. I distracted them with some breakfast and quickly placed the Elf back in the tree while they weren't looking. They were very relieved to see that he was okay.

Thomas the Tank Engine

This past weekend I did something that I've always wanted to do. When I was growing up my family never put a train under the tree. We always put a train up, but the set was too big to put under the tree, so we set it up in the basement on a ping pong table. It was fun, but I still wanted to have a train under the tree.

So, on Saturday morning after the kids woke up, we got out the Thomas the Train set that we bought last year but never put out because the kids weren't quite ready for it yet. After a little set up and a lecture about when we can and when we can't play with the train, I let them play.

I know it's a simple thing, but the kids enjoy it, and I enjoy watching them and the enjoyment little things like this bring them. You can't tell by their expressions in the pictures, but they did have a pretty good time with it.

Happy Halloween!

The triplets got dressed up in their costumes the last week for a little Halloween program at pre-school.

Then on Saturday we carved our Jack O'Lanterns. The kids picked out their design while Gretch and I cut them out. Elisha actually reached all the way in and grabbed a bunch of the "guts". She didn't seem to mind it too much. KJ would only reach in with the scoop and was taking out one seed at a time. Juli wasn't feeling too well so she just sat and watched for the most part.

Then on Sunday the kids found their stash of toys from their school Halloween party. The fangs were a big hit. Juli really looks the part, mostly because of the cold that she's had. The poor thing has rubbed the skin under her nose raw. I really hope this cold passes quickly (and doesn't infect the rest of us).