Happy New Year

Well, today is the last day of 2011. We hope everyone's year has found him or her with good fortune. The Fletcher household has done quite well. Our children are very healthy and we have not completely lost our marbles taking care of four children under 3 years old. We feel very blessed.Our triples just turned a year old a few weeks ago. Robert has made a new video similar to what he made for Luke when he turned 1 year old:

From Triplets

The kids also had an enjoyable Christmas. We got a toy box for each one of them. Much of the toys are not for any specific child, so we have distributed them across the children's toy boxes. We took a picture of how the living room looked once we got it ready for the kids for Christmas morning:



The kids had a great time on Christmas mornig:

Our kids are growing up

I'm sure many of you remember the stage your children were in at the age of ours. You're probably saying that it's no big deal. Well right now, it's a big deal to us that our children have reached a couple of small milestones.

From Luke

We just started Luke with potty training this past week. We've got a stash of stickers to give him when he uses the potty. He gets 1 sticker for #1 and 2 for #2. He's usually does #2 in his pull-up, but there has been once he has done a #2 in the potty. On the other hand, he has done very well with #1. About the only time we need to throw away a wet pull-up is after he has been sleeping a while.

We have a sticker board for Luke that we have taped on the wall. When Luke gets a sticker, he has to show it to all of the babies and then he sticks it on his board. It's getting pretty full now.



Mark and Becky have started to crawl. Becky's the fastest, but Mark is getting there. Jared is doing the rocking thing, so it won't be long before he starts crawling. Becky is also able to sit up on her own.

From Becky

Also, we have a picture we just had to share. Robert has already shared it on Facebook, but some who follow this blog don't get onto Facebook much if at all. After mommy and daddy got done with their corn-on-cob one evening, we decided to break it up and let the babies gnaw on them. The totally loved it.

From Triplets

Southern Utah Vacation

We took the latter half of July to escape the heat of Arizona and visit family in Southern Utah. We mostly stayed in Cannonville at Robert's Parents' home. We had a very enjoyable time there. It was good to see everyone and we had a lot of help taking care of the triplets and Luke also.

Our kids had a lot of fun playing outside:

From Becky

From Mark

From Jared

We helped out with the water station at Robert's Parents':









That same day, we went to Willis Creek as part of the Fletcher reunion:

From Luke

The next week, we went to the Pioneer celebration in Tropic. Luke had a really good time, and a really good sunburn:

From Luke

We don't have a whole lot more pictures than that. Many others were much better at taking pictures than we were. We were too busy with babies to take any at the Broderick reunion on July 30, but we had a really good time there too.

We have made it back home and are now trying to get back to our normal schedules. It is taking a while, but we're getting there.

Trip to the Zoo

Things get so hectic around here that we hardly have any time to do anything other than take care of the kids. It pretty much take 2 adults most of the time to keep track of all of them. We are very fortunate to have Shelley's mom so close. We are very grateful for her. She comes over every day that Robert is at work.

Because of this busy schedule, it has taken an episode of insomnia to have the time to update the blog. Robert promised on Facebook that we would post some pictures of our zoo trip. It has taken us a few days, but here they are. Clicking on the photo will enlarge it. You can also click on the link under the photo to view the whole album.

From Triplets

From Luke

New Pictures of the Kids

We got some new pictures of the kids that we wanted to share. We got a new table that Shelley's brother, Cris, built for us:

From Triplets

From Triplets

From Triplets

From Triplets

We also got some cute pictures of them outside:

From Triplets

From Luke

From Luke

Then, we gave the triplets a bath for the first time in little bath seats last night. Really cute:

From Triplets

Late Posted Easter Photos

Yeh, yeh, we know, Easter was a week ago. When you are raising triplets, time sort of slips away from you. Of course many others can find other excuses, the triplets one is just been our big one lately.

We had all of our children wearing Easter outfits. Shelley didn't feel well enough to go to church with three babies, so we weren't able to show the babies' outfits at church, but we did show them off at Shelley's parents' place.

From Triplets

From Luke

We spent the evening of Easter Sunday at Shelley's parents'. Easter fell on our Sunday of the Matthews' dinner rotation, so we were also in charge of Easter dinner. After dinner, we took the kids out to see what the Easter Bunny had left for them. They got lots of candy. We all had fun.

Luke Turns 2

Yesterday was Luke's birthday. He is now officially 2 years old, though it seems like he's been that age for at least a few months already. He got a scooter and protective gear from mommy and daddy and a really neat card from Grandma and Grandpa Fletcher. We'll celebrate his birthday with Shelley's family tomorrow evening.

From Luke

In the morning, yesterday, we took him and the babies to see the Dr. for a well visit. The doctors say they are all growing up very well. The babies had shots, which they didn't like, but their getting over the pain.

The weights of all the children are:

* Luke - 31.8 lbs
* Mark - 11 lbs 11 oz
* Becky - 13 lbs 6 oz
* Jared - 13 lbs 3 oz

After their Dr. visit, we took everyone to the zoo for Luke's birthday. We met a friend their, Tiffany, with her foster son, brandon. We all had a good time, especially the kids, (well the walking kids, the babies were just there for the ride.)

From Luke

In the last hour, we let the boys play in the water. Luke had a total blast, even though he got very cold.

From Luke

The triplets have had their blessing

The triplets had their blessing last Sunday. Robert was pretty nervous, but made it through quite well. Both sets of grandparents were there and all but 1 of Robert's siblings were there and all but 1 of Shelley's siblings were there. The circle was pretty large and they were barely able to put a hand in to hold each baby.

Grandma Matthews made some really nice blessing outfits for the babies. They looked really spiffy.

From Triplets

Pauline and Michael of Robert's family had to leave right after the blessing to make it home at a decent hour, but the rest gathered at our house after church for a stuffed potato dinner. Our house was pretty hoppin.

The babies have doubled in size

The triplets are now almost 3 months old. They have all more than doubled their weight. They are now:

- Mark: 8 lbs. 9 oz.
- Becky: 10 lbs. 4 oz.
- Jared: 10 lbs. even

They all seem to be sleeping better at night, but we still have to feed them every 4 hours at night.

Just after Christmas, Robert's brother-in-law, Curtis, came down to do some yard work for us in the back yard. He did a great job, but we didn't expect him to tackle the front yard. Well, we finally hired someone to do our front yard. We had it done a week ago. We had a lot of ugly vegetation going on that we had all removed. We have include a before and after picture.

From Rob & Shell's Blog

From Rob & Shell's Blog

Well, we've got to go. Two babies are crying now.

Triplet Announcement Created

Well, we have now found kind of a routine going now with having a toddler and 3 infants in the house. We have had someone here with one of us most of the time so we have at least 2 adults here or 1 has taken Luke off somewhere else.

In the last week since Robert's mom has gone back home, Shelley has spent most mornings alone with all 4. She has made it through most of them unscathed, but in the last couple of mornings, Shelley has been about ready to pull her hair out. Her mom has usually come in the late morning, which has helped the situation a lot. We can never thank our family enough for their help.

As all of you can imagine, we are both running on very little sleep. It is hard for us sometimes to sit down to feed the babies without nodding off. Robert has resorted to taking naps during work time. Of course he goes out to his car and makes sure he doesn't include the time on his time sheet.

Well, on a brighter note, (Just had to get the venting out of the way.) We were able to get a very nice announcement together and send it to a bunch of our family. We had to limit how many we could send, so I apologize to any of you that would have liked a physical copy and didn't get one. In any case, we have a digital copy of the announcement also. We are posting it here and in the triplets section of our web album. You can print a copy if you would like. The quality of what we have posted may not look the best on an 8 x 11 sheet. If anyone would like a digital copy of the announcement in its original quality, please let us know.

From Triplets

Click on photo see a larger copy.

Satisfying Everyone's Fix

You know, it's barely been 2 weeks and we've already been getting requests for updates on the triplets. Since Robert has started work again, neither of us has had any time to make updates, but Robert's mom came down for a week, so that has given us a little time to do some more updates.

We haven't taken the triplets to the pediatrician since our last update, but they have been really healthy. Robert did take Jared to a specialist last Thursday to be checked to see if he needs some surgery done on his little boy part. They said that he will need to go in when he is about 6 or 7 months old for the operation.

As mentioned before, Robert's mom is down to visit. She flew in on Thursday night and is staying with us. She has been helping a lot already with the triplets and Luke. Shelley got in a very good nap yesterday.

Since Robert has start work on January 17, things have gotten pretty hectic for Shelley, especially in the morning. Luke is getting much more capable of getting into things that we don't want him to, and he will continue to do so while Shelley is trying to feed the triplets. It makes her feel kind of helpless while she is holding a baby and Luke will start getting into something like opening the oven or dishwasher or turning on the water on the fridge. There is nothing she can do immediately to defuse the situation. Before Robert's mom got here, Shelley has had a lot of help from her mom.

We now have more pictures posted on our Web album. We post a few on the blog, but we have much more on the web album. You can get to each specific album by clicking on the name of the album under the pictures we have posted in the blog, but we will also post a link here that goes to our general album:

http://picasaweb.google.com/robertfletcher65


Here are a few pictures we have recently taken:

From Mark

Mark

From Becky

Becky

From Jared

Jared

From Triplets