The Jones Girls

How in the world did that happen?    They have to wear them all fo the time!, except when they are playing outdoors.  A few weeks ago I took the triplets to their annual eye exam at Dr. Fierson’s, a pediatric opthamologist.

Miranda has been crossing her left eye inwards.    He said she has a lazy eye and it causes the cross eyed because it is weak.  He prescribed eyeglasses for her.  She is also farsighted more than little kids are at this age.  Miranda’s left lens of her glasses will be specially made to help straighten her eye out.  If it doesn’t then we begin to patch the strong eye to make the weak eye work hearder.  Worse case if that doesn’t fix it, she will need surgery on the eye muscle.  I am hoping to avoid that at all costs.

Amanda also has a lazy eye that I was never able to detect!!  He said she is also farsighted more than little kids are at this age.   He prescribed eyeglasses for her. 

Maryssa’s eyes are the least problematic but her farsightedness has worsened since a year ago.   He prescribed eyeglasses for her. 

I took Savannah to her eye appointment last week.  The optometrist said Savannah needs glasses too!!    She is farsighted.  She needs to wear her glasses all of the time.  So that day I ordered all 4 girls glasses.   That was some endeavor I tell you!!

Today I picked up all of their glasses.   I immediately put their initials inside the glasses so I know whose is whose.    They all wanted to wear the same pretty frames and to be honest, I don’t blame them, they are really nice frames.

It is quite an adjust for them, and even more for me to remember to make sure that they wear them consistently.     I have forgotten a few days to put glasses on them.    I have to make it a habit.

Daddy’s Cliff’s glasses look very similar to the girls’ glasses and my glasses are sort of similar so it looks like a riot to see all 6 of us wearing the same glasses!!

Today was Savannah’s 1st day as a Daisy Girl Scout.   We have 14 girls in our troop.   Some are Kindy Kids from Savannah’s class and the other Kindy class, some are 1st graders and some are from another school, Jordan School.  

The meeting began at 1:30pm, right after school.   We all met in the multi purpose room and then at 1:45pm we all moved outside and enjoyed the nice weather.  Today it was 77 degrees and sunny.

Since I don’t have a babysitter, I brought the triplets to the meeting with me.  It made it fun and challenging to have the triplets at the meeting while I was co-leading the troop.  The other co-leader, Lyn, is AWESOME.  She was a girl scout for many years and remembers all of the girl scout songs, the Girl Scout Promise and all of the fun activities the troops do.   Our troop is so lucky to have her!!

Today the girls made and decorated daisy necklaces with their names on the to help all of us get to know every one’s name.   They also traced each other’s hands, cut out their traced hand and glued it to the Girl Scout Promise Poem that they need to learn to earn their first patch, which will be in a month at their Investitute Ceremony.   

We had snacks, sang a song, learned what makes a good Daisy and then finished the meeting with a friendship circle squeeze of each hands.  

We will meet 2 Mondays a month.

Today the girls had their first swimming lesson.    All 4 of them are enrolled in the Pikes which is the very beginning class for swimming lesson.   They go Tuesday and Thursdays at 4pm.

They were all so excited to go swimming in the indoor pool.    They all get in…except for Miranda.  She was scared out of her skin.  She screamed, hollered, clung to me like Velcro.     Finally we pulled her off me and it took 3 people to help me get her in the pool.  Amazingly, the instructor told me this is completely normal and they see this all of the time. 

They all hung onto to the side of the pool.    They leard to kick their feet in the water and get their face wet.  They didn’t blow bubbles in the water, that was a little too much for them to do and they got a little scared.  Savannah did fine with blowing bubbles and dunking her head.

Savannah did so well that they have moved her up to Polliwog!!    Her class will be after the triplets, at 4:30.

Miranda cried the whole lesson.    She really was scared and kept saying she was scared.  I think she needs the swimming lessons the most to help her get over her fear.

Amanda was so happy she held on with her strong left arm and splashed the water with her right lucky arm and also kicked her feet in the water.  She had a complete blast and was enjoying it so much.

Maryssa was following the teachers directions and splashing as she was told to do.  She is quite the good little student!!  

They all froze their little tails off when they got out of the pool.  They cried as I put their towels on them.   They were shivering.  We quickly scuttled to the car and I changed their clothes when we got home.

I am so proud of my little guppies!!

Last night I dressed the girls in matching Christmas pajamas that I had purchased from JCPenney’s in November during their Door Buster Sale.   They all looked so cute.

Unfortunately, Amanda and Savannah got sick in the middle of the night.  They had a stomach bug.  So I had to change their cute Christmas pajamas.  Maryssa was sick a couple of nights ago and was throwing up through the night.  They must have caught it from her.   Anyway, the girls are fine now so all is good!1

Last night Cliff put together the triplets Mermaid Tricycles.  They have a cute bubble and music machine.    The girls went crazy for them this morning.  These were supposed to be the triplets birthday present back in August, but Cliff was in Arkansas working for 6 weeks and was not here during their Birthday party to put them together, so I just hung onto them for Christmas.

The triplets got digital cameras by Discovery Kids.  I had scored big time on these cameras at Bed Bath & Beyond.   The cameras were on sale for $30 and I had coupons and saved $30 so I spent $60 for all 3 cameras…woo hoo!!  I also got Savannah a real video camera and got it cheap for $25.

Savannah got a neat VTech Pocket handheld video game package.     It is a little advanced for her but she will grow into it.

All of girls got Leap Frog Learn To Read Books.  

They had a great Christmas.

Dad and Fran came this afternoon.   We went for a nice walk.   They enjoyed interacting with the girls.    I made  a nice lunch – homemade tomato & rice soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

We had a nice dinner together.  I baked chicken.     We watched the movie Julie and Julia tonight.

One of the most beautiful and festive things to go do during Christmas time is go to Disneyland. 

I took the girls to Disneyland this afternoon.   It was a little chilly and we were all bundled up warm sweaters and it felt like something out of Norman Rockwell.

We started off at California Adventure and we saw Mickey Mouse Club House Live!  Afterwards we had some lunch that I had brought with us and then we ventured over to see Crush which is an interactive Nemo show.  Then we saw the Pixar Parade and the girls went crazy over all of their favorite cartoon characters such as Nemo, Buzz Light Year and Woody, etc.  

We left California Adventure and went into Disneyland Park.   We saw the beautiful Christmas Parade.  It was so beautiful!!      We all ate marshmallows and drank Hot Chocolate that I had brought with us.    It was lovely.  We took a stroll through the crowds and saw the beautifully decorated It’s a Small World.   It was a 2+ hour wait so we decided not to go on the ride.  We had something else more important to see!!  We will go back and see it after Christmas when the crowds are shorter.

After the parade, we went back to California Adventure, bought some Gingerbread Cookies and enjoyed them with hot chocolate and sat down to watch the Electric Light Parade.    This is the most magical parade ever!!     They don’t have this parade often, only during limited engagements so we were delighted to watch it.

It was so crowded that day that I parked on the very last lane of the uppermost level of the parking structure.  We had arrived at about 1:00pm.   Shortly after we arrived, they said Disneyland was sold out and the parking lot was full.  They were not accepting anymore patrons. We got there just in time.    Thankfully when we got on the tram it wasn’t too busy because pretty much everyone was already in the park.     Even though it was a little crowded at Disneyland park, California Adventure was only half as crowded so I am glad we spent a lot of our time there. 

This day really got all of us excited for Christmas!!  Yippee!!

I received some awesome coupons from Party City and it prompted me to go online and check out their costumes. I went to their store today.  Boy did they have tons of costumes to choose from. I wound up purchasing some “kits” and I am going to be making their costumes and adding the kits. I had some awesome coupons and wound up saving $30 on the costume kits.

My girls are big time into bugs these days…lady bugs, bees, butterflies, centipedes, worms, ants, etc. They originally all asked to be monkeys and then they changed their minds and asked if they could be bugs for Halloween.

This is what they will be:
Savannah will be the Queen Bee
Amanda will be the Butterfly
Miranda will be the Bumble Bee
Maryssa will be the Lady Bug

The outfits will have leotards, tutus, tights, wings, antennas, boa fur on the cuffs and neckline and a puffy ball on their dressy shoes.   I will be doing some sewing and using my creativity to make their costumes.  I priced the pre-made costumes and they are outrageously priced.  So I am going to hand make mine and I think mine are going to be even cuter and 100% better quality.  

The girls saw their costume kits today which consist of the wings and the antennas.  They loved them and are so excited.

So I am stating to cut the 50% off coupons from Joann’s Fabrics and that will be a huge savings for me to do the costumes.  I can’t wait to get started!!

Savannah made the late bird class – yay!! She goes from 10:10am-1:30pm. This works great for me because I have more time in the morning to get the girls ready for their day plus get a little house cleaning done.

We do lots of flash cards and practice writing her name and other words. She is learning to read site words now. She knows 2 word colors by sight now – RED and GREEN. We are working on upper case and lower case letters and she knows them all by sight and sound. I have flash cards with all of our names on them and she now knows them by sight. I then have her write each of our names down, including her last name too. She is doing very well at this.

She knows all of her numbers up to 30. 1-10 by sight and most of her teens but gets a couple confused and most of her 20’s up to 30.

I ordered some books from Scholastic from her school. They had a packet of 20 books that focus on sight words so I ordered them for Savvy. We do reading every night together. She loves to read together and so do the triplets.

She has a tendency to talk without raising her hand so we are all working on teaching her to learn to raise her hand and wait her turn to speak.

They get one snack at 10:30am and she loves her cheese and crackers and orange juice.

I LOVE her teacher, Miss Tarbell. She is a wonderful Christian and is very patient and kind.

Savannah’s Kindy curriculum is high academic and we get about 1-1.5 hours of homework a night. Reading writing, sorting, grouping, coloring, cutting, pasting, and flash cards every night.

Can you imagine what it is going to be like with the triplets go to Kindy? YIKES!!  I hope they get Miss Tarbell.

Homeschooling Preschool for the triplets is going well.  The tuition was over our heads since Cliff took a 50% pay cut at the beginning of the year. I have a tutor come in for an hour on Mon and Wed. I give her the assignments and she does them along with allowing them to take breaks and play. This gives me an hour to run errands or get caught up on housework. It is only 2 hours a week, but that is all I can afford and it is a good way to begin introducing the triplets to someone else teaching them. If our finances are better in January, I will put the triplets in preschool for 2 mornings a week for 3 hours each day. I am not too worried about preschool because they just turned 3 last month. I am going to make sure they will be in PreK next year 3 days a week for sure.

The triplets know most of their colors. Maryssa knew her ABC’s by sight and sound since she was 18 mos and the other 2 have known for about 6 months. They know most of all of the shapes and know most of the primary colors. They can count to 10.

I am going to start taking all of the girls to the library once a week. The triplets are just about finished tearing up and damaging books and they understand to respect books so I think we are ready for the library. I have a pretty extensive home library since Savannah was in preschool the last 2 years before Kindy. I was able to order her books through Scholastic at Preschool so I have built up quite a library of classics and popular kids books. Over 1/3 of them are damaged from the triplets ruining them in the past couple of years so I will be replacing them this year through Scholastic.

So we are plugging along here.