Ashley's Disneyland Day!

Ashley and I headed out to the Happiest Place on Earth on Monday to share her Mommy Date day. We got into the van and she started to talk and NEVER stopped! LOL My little middle child is quite the talker! We had a wonderful time. It was HOT and it was humid, but we stayed cool and drank a lot of water. The air quality is horrible right now due to the local fires so she got to ride in the stroller all day to try and keep her asthma at bay and I had the travel nebulizer on hand just in case (we never had to use it! Phew!)I wasn't sure how Ashley was going to approach this day. She is usually quiet and "go with the flow" so i wasn't sure how she would be with giving the orders. In the end she ended up doing several things that Madeline did (because Madeline did them- like Big Thunder Railroad and Matterhorn). Below she is telling me- I can't believe I just went on that crazy train~ whose plan was that? and some things we did because Emily wanted her to (because Emily told her- "pet the goats for me!")- I just love this smile! and then she picked several things that SHE wanted to do; like the teacups... ... and Dumbo (we also rode Autopia, Finding Nemo and Alice in Wonderland as well as several Fantasyland rides)All in all she loved her day and surprisingly her favorite part was Splash Mountain! She loved it so much we rode on in TWICE! Wow! That's my girl! After the second ride we were much wetter and refreshed! We ended the day with a snack picnic on the Rivers of America waiting to watch Fantasmic! Somehow I got her onto my shoulders and she had a perfect view of the whole thing. I love my little Ashley-bean!

FFF: Favorite Foto Friday: Madeline!

I'm technically a day late with this post- but I took these pictures on Friday so that counts for something right?I took Madeline for a date with Mommy to Disneyland on Friday! There's just something about seeing Disneyland through the eyes of your children/child! It was so fun to go with just her and do the rides/things she wanted to do! Her list mainly consisted of roller coasters! She had no fear and rode the biggest of the big (for Disneyland and her height limit). I'll post all the pictures soon- but here are my favorites of the day!

Starting the day with a double decker bus ride

The look on her face above says it all!

This was right after the LARGE drop on Splash MountainRiding on Dumbo.

What about Emily and Ashley you ask? They get their days this week- all just before school starts!

Sarah is still doing FFF on her site and this Friday marked her 100th FFF! If you want to see her blog/post on her "tiny dancer", just click HERE!

Reading Superstars!!

We are having a productive summer! One of the items we crossed off our list is completing the Summer Reading Program at our local library! The girls loved going in and checking out books, then returning to give their book reports. In the end they read a total of 8 hours (though I'm sure they read more- that's the minimum they had to read to finish). They each got their picture taken for the wall at the library... ... and received a packet full of coupons for free items at local restaurants and even Legoland tickets! We're very proud of our girls for committing to this challenge! We are still continuing our trips to the library even thought he program is done. As a treat we went to lunch at a little diner in Long Beach that had these cute car benches/seats at the front of the shop. The girls were more into the books! LOL

200th Post!!!

Yes folks! It's here! My 200th post! When I did my 100th post, it seemed to me that 200 would be far away and yet, that hasn't been the case! Blogging about our life has allowed me to share with family and friends the events of our lives. But more importantly, for me, it is giving my girls a written account of the fun that we have had with them and hopefully shows them the indescribable love we feel for them. While I do try to make paper scrapbooks for the girls, my progress is slow. This blog is allowing me to keep up with the day to day events that I may not scrapbook about (or at least record the stories with the pictures so I don't forget!). Does this all make sense? Eventually I will have this blog published into hard cover books for the girls to have. So thank you for riding this amazing ride with us that is "life with triplets", I hope you're in for the long run! I have some special pictures of my lovelies that I want to share with you on this special occasion! Many have commented on the cool Color Accent feature on my camera that I used in the Sno-Cone post. I thought I would share some more fun that I recently had with it with some flowers in my front yard.

EMILY

Emily can be serious when she wants too, and quite stubborn (Hmmm...wonder where she gets that from?) She also has a very SILLY streak to her. She could be WAILING about an injustice done to her and then with a snap be laughing hysterically. She's for sure one-of-a-kind! Case in point- see below!

ASHLEY

Ashley is the girlie-girl (most of the time- she kicks a mean soccer ball and can hit any ball thrown at her with a bat!). She loves to play dress up and usually wears some type of accessory. She often breaks into dance and song. She is passionate and sensitive. She makes sure everyone gets a kiss good-bye and will wave to you from the front door.

MADELINE

Madeline has a zest for life like no other. She usually skips more than she walks. She will proudly tell anyone that she is now tall enough to ride the big rides at Disneyland (which she will get to do in a couple weeks!). Madeline is also sensitive and wants to please. She loves making new friends and is the social butterfly of the trio.These girls make me smile! We are having a wonderful summer and are going to make the most out of these last few weeks together!

Our Anniversary!

Summer is flying by and we have a little under a month before we all go back to school! We are enjoying every moment of it (despite our gloomy weather- BOO!) and as I type this the girls have a friend over for a playdate (a first for our house!). It's so cute to listen to them playing together and hear the things they think are so important to share (have you ever touched a snake? what is your mom doing today? we did the summer reading program!)

I'm trying hard to keep the blog up to date on our happenings, but sometimes events fall through the cracks! One important one in particular was our 11th Anniversary! It's still so hard for me to believe that Rick and I have been married for 11 years now (and together for 16!). To celebrate the occasion we asked my mom to watch the girls and we had a night out with our friends Mike and Michelle! Our first stop was dinner at the Hibachi Steak House (think Benihana!). It was delicious and I ate EVERYTHING! LOL After dinner we went to see the movie "The Hangover"- I haven't laughed so hard in a long time- but for sure not for the weak of heart!! It was wonderful to have an evening with Mike and Michelle (it was like "old' times- if I remember correctly what the "old" times were like- also referred to as the period BT - before triplets).

And to my hubby- I love you! Happy Anniversary!

A Frugal Mom's Guide to the Fair!

My friend Tanya contacted me the other day and asked if we wanted to join her and her crew at the Orange County "Super" Fair. A bit hesitant because I have heard horror stories about the amount of money spent at this fair, she promised me that we would do our best to spend the least amount of money as possible. I agreed and we were off! Here's an account of how we "fared".

Our first stop was FREE parking! We found a side street across from the fair that was not permit only and found two spots! They were right next to this park so we let the kids run around while we got settled (and we contemplated just staying at the park) then we were off to find an entrance.
Kids 5 and under are FREE so we got all SEVEN kids in for FREE! Our tickets were only $5 (instead of 10) because we had a coupon and were there before 5pm!

Our two big rules for all these kids? 1) No rides and 2) No toys. Sounds harsh but believe me- it didn't matter- there were so many great FREE things to do!
For example- in the "Super Swine" tent we could look for porks in beans :) and play with the fun house mirrors.

We got to play with Mac n' Spam noodles too

Outside the Swine tent there were these huge oxen to look at followed by the horse exhibit!

We met this pretty horse named "Princess Aurora" and got to pet her and kiss her nose!

We also got to see and pet goats- lots of goats!

And brand new baby piglets!

We watched people take rides on the elephant

We got FREE balloons from the Marketplace and got front row seats for the Pig Races!

And they're off!

At the end of the races we got coupons for free bacon from Ralph's! LOL

Are you keeping track? So far I've spent the 5 bucks on my admission! That's it! woo-hoo!

The petting zoo was free (you had to pay for food- we didn't feed the animals)

Our crew!

So we finally broke down and bought some food (I brought in sandwiches for the girls so I got them french fries). The fair is famous for its Deep Fried food items- so Tanya and I tried the deep fried Reece's and Snickers bars.

It was good- but I would have been happy with a plain old snickers ($3.75 for the snickers and $3.50 for the fries). LOL

Then we hit the JACKPOT! We went to watch the dueling pianos and came across a booth that had FREE ice cream!!! Sure it was 9:30 at night- but how can you pass up free ice cream? Everyone got one and then to our delight- the kind men behind the booth gave us moms each an insulated cooler bag (along with a big wad of napkins!)

Happy, happy mommies!

Then I busted out the leftover glow sticks we've had sitting at home and everyone got two!

My girls were beyond tired at this point (Maddie asked me if the Super Fair had a hotel LOL!!) so we headed back to the vans with sugar-high, tired kids.

I'm telling ya- the good-byes are so sweet among triplets!

Love the expression between Jaden and Ashley below!

So our final score was: $12.25 out of pocket PLUS all those free goodies! The ice cream and cooler cost more I'm sure!! Very very happy mommies and very very happy tired kids that were asleep before we hit the freeway! We can't wait to go next year!