Ocean City, NJ

When Steve's Uncle Jim and Aunt Anne generously offered us the use of their Ocean City, NJ shore house during the first leg of our trip, we jumped at the chance. Their lovely 3-bedroom, 2 bath home sits just a block and half from the beach. We spent 4 days exploring the beach and taking in all the sites. Cousin Finn, Uncle Chris, and Me-Mom also stayed in the house and Aunt Kate and Uncle Wags also joined us for a day.



The buddies splashed in the surf, collected sea shells, built sand castles, made tracks in the sand with their trucks, chased sea-gulls, and ran free. On day 3, Me Mom and I took all three boys on a trolley ride (very exciting!) down to a cute little ice cream shop near the boardwalk. Inside, model trains traveled all around the shop - overhead and along the walls. The buddies and their cousin were mesmerized.

After 4 full days of fun in the sun, it was time to depart and head for our next destination: Granddad's house. Check out all of our shore pics here.

What is wrong with this picture?

That's right - someone took not one, but two bites out of the decorative watermelon cookie. And it was well before we sang "Happy Birthday" to our favorite triplet friends at their party. I'm afraid that a certain brown-eyed boy is a bit of a stinker-pants. It was an awesome party, despite the cookie thievery.

First T-Ball Game

And for our readers' enjoyment, our debuts at the plate. Sorry for the shaky video - their camera-mom had too much coffee before the 9am game.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the daddies in our lives! Steve enjoyed a full round of golf this morning as my present to him and the buddies painted these lovely modern art canvases for him. Ben's creation is on the left; Ace's is on the right.

We also spent the week filling in the blanks on the following Daddy Questionnaires, which we gave to him today. Ace's answers are in blue; Ben's in red.

My dad is 1 / old years old. (actual answer: 35)
My dad has brown / brown hair. (actual answer: brown, though not much of it)
My dad has black / brown eyes. (actual answer: blue-green)
My dad loves to cook some dinner / sing.
I love it when my dad does a silly dance / plays upstairs.
My favorite thing to do with dad is make funny faces / play golf.
My favorite game to play with my dad is Silly Face / Hi Ho Cherrio.
I like it when my dad sings 5 Little Ducks / Silly ABC's.
My dad makes great Chinese food / dinner.
When I’m sad, my dad sings a song and I feel better (awww...) / makes me feel better.
I like to sing the "ya ya ya" song / lick it (honestly, I have no idea...) with my dad.
I love my dad because he sings the "I love" song / Daddy hits the ball.

We hope all the daddies out there had a great day!

Two Super Fun Parties

The buddies attended two birthday parties this weekend and had a couple of wild times. The first, their pre-school classmate Jack's party, featured the Fun Bus. And what fun it was. The Fun Bus is a gymnastics academy on wheels that teaches gymnastics to kids ages 2.5 - 7. The bus has its own rock climbing wall, monkey bars, trampoline, vault, rings, tumbling mats, a zip-line, and a slide out the back. Just about everything you'd find in a traditional gymnasium was included. The buddies loved it.


Mia's party today was just as fun. She had an inflatable water slide that kept our wild boys entertained for hours. Ace said, "This is awesome!" after sliding and racing back for more a few times. Another highlight of the party was the pinata. Ben ate his first pixie stick but ate the whole thing like a candy bar - taking big bites, paper and all. Yum!



View all of our party pics here.

T-Ball!!

The buddies attended their first t-ball practice this week. The consensus? We love it!! Two other sets of twins (all good friends from our playgroup) are on our team too. It should be a fun-filled season.

Swimming with Friends

We met our twin and triplet friends at one of our favorite neighborhood pools this morning for some summer fun. I can't believe we're in the full swing of summer and it is already going by so fast. Despite heavy applications of sunscreen, we are all quite tan after many fun days in the pools, parks, spray grounds and lakes. We just can't get enough of water fun.




And the best part about spending the morning at the pool? Both boys take nice, solid naps afterwards.

Swimming Lessons

Whew! Today we completed our two week swimming course. Here are a few high (and low) lights of the course:

Day 1: Our 3-year old class could easily be described in two categories: those that stayed with the class and those that didn’t. Sadly, one of my children fell into the latter category. Ben wandered away at least half a dozen times, but did well otherwise. Both boys put their faces in the water with ease and enjoyed the pool. I quickly made friends with the mom of another wild boy and together we spent a good portion of the 45 minute class directing our children back to the group.

Day 3: Ben and my new friend’s son were labeled “the runners” by their very nice and very patient teacher. Ace pushed Ben (just because he was excited) on our way out. Ben bled. A lot. Both boys wailed. Loudly. It took us 15 minutes to walk through the Y (leaving behind a trail of blood that I pretended not to see), out the door, through the parking lot and to our car. All whilst receiving lots of stares, tongue clucks and a few pitying looks.

Day 5: I spent the entire class herding two wild boys back to their class. So, I started thinking and put together a plan. After our lesson, we made a trip to the grocery store where I let them each pick out their own ice cream. Then, I told them that they couldn’t have any until after swim lessons the following day and only IF they stay with the class the entire time. Big kids stay with the class and get ice cream. Babies run away. We looked at it in the freezer all afternoon and talked about how they could earn a scoop.

Day 6: Success (mostly)! We looked at our ice cream again in the morning. Several reminders later, we were at swim class. Ace stayed in class and listened to his instructor, regularly reminding her that he was going to have an ice cream cone. Ben did great too, but the big slide was just too tempting and mid way through class he made a break for it. Poor Benny. It nearly killed me to give Ace his ice cream in front of Ben, but I did it. Parenting is definitely not for sissies.

Day 8: We made it! I think we are all glad to have our swimming lessons behind us.

So, did we learn how to swim? Um…no.
Did we have fun? Aside from Day 3 and Day 5, sure.
Did we learn anything? Yes! All three of us!
What’s up next on our summer schedule? T-ball! Look out YMCA, we’ll be back.