Six Months! No, Really!

Wow...on Saturday, the boys turned six months old. We can't believe it. We had a very fun day. We dressed the boys up in groovy orange outfits that their Great Aunt Sue thought they would look adorable in. And they did!

But first, we captured two of the boys on film performing an amazing stunt:





Jacen and Ty can hold their bottles for (very) short periods of time! But genius has to start somewhere, right?

Here's some other cute photos of the boys...

Here's Ty playing. He's very deliberate now in his hand movements.



King Ty...



And here's a boatload of photos from Saturday. Here's Matt and Ty...



And with Jacen...



Jody with Alex...



Jody with all three (left to right, Ty, Alex, and Jacen)...



The boys propped up against each other...



And with Matt!

Springtime is Coming...

...and the Madeira Triplets are almost 6 months old! We can't believe it.

This week my mom is in Florida and I am on Spring Break, so Matt and I are home with the boys. I know we promised to post more frequently, but when I was able to finish my article and get it out the door, it was time to work on a grant proposal. These are all good things, but they definitely keep you busy. So I intend to use this week to finally finish unpacking some of my things from the move in December (Matt's been unpacked for about 2 months now!). I blame my slow pace on the triplets...with babies that cute in the household, how can you do anything else?

We tried solids for the first time about three weeks ago. It didn't go too well. We made the mistake of trying to feed them solids first when actually what they wanted was a bottle. So next time we will feed them at least half a bottle and then see if they are willing to take a few bites of something else! But it did give us some good pictures. We are going to dress them up later this week when they turn six months (March 15th!) and take many more pictures then.

Here's Jacen giving Alex a squeeze...

Grandma Burkett getting ready to feed the triplets. Note: no mess as of yet! This is our triplet table. We decided that we couldn't stomach cleaning out three high chairs so many times a day. Ew...

Jacen looks a little mystified, and Alex (to his left) has decided this "solids" thing really isn't for him...

Now it's Jacen's turn to learn what this is all about...

No one really likes this experience, least of all Ty (all the way to the left).

This is what Ty has to say about the entire affair. I love this picture and I think it could cheer me up even on the baddest of bad days!!

The horror of attempting solids for the first time stuck with Ty, affecting him even after bath time...

Jacen has started to make a weird grunting sound and will "talk back" to us when we make the same sound! It's adorable. Here, he's learning to make this sound, and he's concentrating very hard...

Happy Valentine's Day--We're 5 Months Old!!

Well, a whole month has gone by since our last post (sorry--we promise to post more often!!). So much has happened this month. Jody has been teaching at IU for 4 weeks now and is in the middle of revising an article for publication, which always takes up a lot of time! Matt has finished his website and is on the job market. The triplets are doing fantastic--as of Feb. 1, Jacen weighed 14 lbs 11 oz, Ty weighed 13 lbs 13 oz, and Alex weighed 11 lbs 16 oz. Alex and Jacen are both rolling over from front to back and from back to front now.

The triplets want to wish everyone a happy Valentine's Day, especially their grandparents! Grandma Burkett gave them 2 jumperoos for Valentine's Day, which Jacen and Ty especially love. They have a certain effect though...they induce sleep after an energetic jumping spree!

Check out these photos!

Here's Jody and Alex...all dressed up for the pediatrician!

Jacen loves his duds...

Ty loves his Dad pillow.

Alex and Ty holding hands...

Jacen in his exersaucer!

Alex in his Rainforest Jumperoo...

All three triplets out cold!

Ty cuddling his giraffe...

Jacen eating his gloworm...

Alex just hanging out in his swing...



And with his doll...



Jacen is worn out from the Rainforest Jumperoo...



Alex asleep in Dad's loving arms...



Ty asleep in his Galloping Fun Jumperoo...



All three triplets busily bouncing away!

We're Four Months Today!

Can you believe it? Four months already! The time has flown by so fast. The boys have an appointment with our new pediatrician in Indiana on Thursday for a well child visit. We'll get the latest weights then...two weeks ago Jacen weighed 13.7 lbs, Ty weighed 12.7 lbs, and Alex weighed 10.11 lbs.

Who knew that by four months all three boys would be sleeping through the night in their cribs as well as they are? And rolling over? We're two very proud parents!

Howdy from Hoosier-ville!

We apologize for the long break in updates! On December 15th, we moved from Boston to Bloomington, IN. Of course, the weather that weekend was terrible. Hardly a weekend that made you want to move two cars, three babies, two dogs, and household plants! Packing started on Thursday and spread into Friday due to a blizzard; the movers loaded Friday and Saturday and we hit the road Saturday afternoon. We managed to get to Scranton, PA the first evening and stopped overnight in Clearfield early the next evening because visibility was practically zero. Fortunately, Matt's dad was able to assist with the driving. Nonetheless, it was a long weekend. We reached Bloomington at 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning after a less than stellar detour dreamed up by the $@!& GPS (think 50-60 miles of rural roads).

One big thing happened, however, on the trip--we found out that the boys would sleep through the night if left in their car seats. Jody was so happy to give up the 3:30 a.m. feeding!

When we arrived, we found out that scarcely an appliance worked in the house. That's right...the dishwasher was so beat up that you could barely pull the racks out, let alone put breakables in them, and the washer only washed on hot. There were also broken shelves in the refrigerator. The sad thing is that these appliances were about 5-6 years old. Thank goodness Matt's parents had traveled out to Indiana in early December to clean the house and do some painting. We can't imagine what our reactions to the house would have been had we seen it in the condition in which the former owners had left it.

That said, the layout of the house is wonderful for raising triplets, and new stainless steel appliances make things very liveable. We intend to post pictures on the web after everything is unpacked...triplets make it difficult to spend a lot of time on such activities!

The boys had a great Christmas and New Years, even though they were of course unaware that the true import of those days. We had fun dressing them up in Christmas PJs and posing them with a tiny triplet-sized tree.

We're very lucky that Jody's mom will help take care of the triplets!! She arrived on December 29th to help take care of the boys, and will be staying at least until the Spring. This will help tremendously since Jody steps into the shoes of a law professor and officially enters the classroom on January 14th.

Here are some great pictures that we've taken since the last post...

We finally caught Alex in an act of baby cannibalism--hungry for a bottle, he tried Ty instead.





Ty, however, survived and was able to lounge around on Christmas Eve...



But he wasn't smiling on Christmas Day when he got together for a group photograph with his brothers!



Jacen and Alex also posed in front of the Christmas tree...





And Matt gave all three of the boys (and the two dogs) a big Christmas hug!



Ty likes his swing so much that it's easy to get him to grin while he's rocking away.



Here are all three of them swinging away...



A bath brought out the grins from Alex!



Jacen likes his swing too.



Here's Alex cuddled up on Mom's shoulder...



And Ty in a silly baby carrier...



Ty swaddled like a mummy in his swing...



Jacen tickled at the thought of getting a bottle...



And Ty and Alex saying how much they love dinner time!

Our holiday photo session

On Sunday afternoon we braved some triplet temper tantrums and got some cute pictures! We integrated three of them into a Christmas card insert through Walgreens' Snapfish site. It actually turned out to be adorable.




Here's some other cute shots...

Alex...




Ty... (note the Christmas wink!)






Jacen... (He's saying "Aw, presents for me? You shouldn't have!")