It has been a long time coming, but the boys are finally three years old! Three 3-year olds who think they are ready to drive, go to work and shop at Walmart (or Home Depot)! They had a fun (and quiet) birthday at home and got a special McQueen puzzle, some Thomas trains and delicious ice cream cake. This will probably be the last year where we can give them all one cake as they will probably be requesting individual cakes (and a party!) next year.

The weather was finally cool enough to go outdoors for a bit, so we took the boys to play basketball at the playground. It has been a long time since we did this and the boys loved it! Unfortunately, all three had sinus infections and were wheezing withing a short time, but they loved the time that we were able to spend outside.

This past Friday, Aiden started a new feeding program in Dallas which will run every Friday for 10 wks. We are praying that this will be more effective in helping him learn to eat by mouth, and that he will soon be able to do so! He has also started working with a new feeding therapist, and we are hopeful that this will help him make some progress in that direction.

Before cake and gifts, they want to play basketball (especially Evan)

There they go

Ready to shoot

Dribble!

Ethan, don’t hold it…shoot it!

He tries to give it to me

Evan loves his basketball!

Ethan is ready to go to the playground

There is #3

Time to swing

No oxygen cord…naughty boy!

Adorable

Happy Evan

Serious Evan

Silly Evan

“A challenge”–he tried hard to follow his brothers!

I figured he would end up behind bars one day!

The ‘escape’

Take turns

Crash

Back at it

True Aiden (no oxygen tube)

Love this one!

Going after ants

An ant’s perspective

Ready to take a nap

Three turned three

Time to open gifts

A weak attempt at hugging Uncle Tim and Kaelyn

Aiden wants more gifts

He loves his balloon

Don’t let go

Whoops…now its gone

Meme tries to keep the balloons attached

Uncle Curtis helps Ethan hang on to his balloon

The McQueen puzzle

Should have gotten a bigger cake

Time to blow out the candles

Don’t touch the fire!

Cake is yummy

More, please!

Aiden’s newest thing is making his toys crash into each other and yelling at them the entire time (see the video below). It is a lot of fun to watch and should be good blackmail material when he gets holder. Hopefully, he won’t be crashing real cars 🙂 In the video below, he also goes mowing with Curtis and really enjoyed himself.

Another of Aiden’s idiosyncrasies as of late is holding a pretzel and corn chip in his hands. He walks around with them and occasionally licks the salt off. Sometime, he even puts them in his mouth but it comes out a few seconds later. Additionally, he loves sitting Indian style and sometimes even falls asleep that way as you can see in the first image below.

The twins are getting smarter, strong and more cunning — which means more challenges for us! Fortunately, they are getting a little better at listening as well which helps quite a bit. Below are some images of the boys splashing around in the pool and posing in their McQueen underwear.

Hard to believe in less than a week they will be three years old!

Aiden asleep in the car (always sitting Indian style)

Don’t touch anything in the office!

Here comes Evan

In his swimming attire

Ethan too

Walking in his father’s shoes (only Manish does not share the same clothing style 🙂 )

We decided to keep diapers on Aiden while he was in the pool

Time to swim, splash and laugh

They love when daddy jumps in and does a super splash

Classic reaction from the Trips

A couple weeks ago, Hannah celebrated her birthday. The only thing was, she didn’t know about the secret celebration. Manish (and some very helpful friends) threw a little surprise birthday party for her. When she came home, she was very surprised! The boys enjoyed surprising her as well and sampled some of the goodies (of course)!

Below is a video of the surprise as well as some images. Additionally, in the second part of the video, the boys chase each other around as they play “Mr. Socko.” Evan puts his hand in a sock and brings “Mr. Socko” to life whose goal is to tickle little boys. Manish is usually the puppet master but Evan decided he would control Mr. Socko this time. 

Surprise!

Nicely decorated

Instead of cake…cupcakes

…and some yummies.

How do you tame three rambunctionus soon-to-be three year old boys? By putting on their favorite movie: Cars. Their hero is “Lightning McQueen.” Just mentioning that they get to watch a few minutes of it makes them giddy with excitement (especailly Aiden who points at the screen and laughs).

Over the past couple of weeks, they have been agressive with each other. These boys play hard and laugh hard. Aiden has learned how to taunt his brothers and they know that they can’t wrestle him, etc. like they can one another given his delicate condition. Unfortunately, last week Aiden would not stop harassing them and the twins decided they had enough and attempted to make Aiden stop.

We are not sure exactly what happened but think they sat on him and caused the balloon-type mechanism (which secures the G-tube button) to pop. Shortly thereafter, the button came out and he had to be taken to the Emergency Room to get the button replaced before the flesh closed. After six hours or so, they had dilated the opening to the point where they could get the button back in. So the question is, did Aiden learn his lesson…probably not!

In the video below, you can see Aiden doing somersaults, the Trips listening to Elmo, Ethan and Evan smothering Aiden and Aiden singing happy birthday to Amisha. Also, the boys had a good time at Carter Cates‘ birthday party.

Sitting very still and focused

What could possibly keep them so calm?

Lightning McQueen (from the Movie “Cars“)

At Carter’s 3rd birthday!

Guzzling

Snacking

They love their cupcakes

Ferocious eaters!

Ethan enjoyed going into the water

He smiled but closed his eyes

Getting restless!

It was an explosive Independence Day, to say the least. We took the boys to see fireworks only to realize, they ARE fireworks! It was a fun-filled weekend as Papa, Grandma and Uncle Sachin (aka “Oak”) were in town, the boys all got haircuts and we took them to Going Bonkers.

In the video below, the boys are “driving” at Bonkers and in a later clip, Aiden discovers Grandma’s sunglasses.

Manish has a couple of new gadgets including a HD point & shoot camera and a new cell phone that take HD video. While the quality may not be professional, it is very convenient for quick snapshots and video. We used these on some of the media below which is why some of the images/video are lower quality.

On the way to the barber

Thankfully, they had things to entertain the kids while we waited

Ethan, you are first

He is not into this

Don’t let it get in your eyes

Meanwhile, Aiden entertains Grandma

Just about done

Take a look

He likes it!

Evan’s turn…he chose the fire truck

So serious!

A little scared too…so he holds mommy’s hand

Looks like something from the 80s

Pulled back

Unkempt

Time to snip

They took the twins to the pet store while Aiden got his haircut

Do you like it?

Riding in the car at Bonkers

Kids aren’t the only ones who have fun there

“Oak” shows the boys a Lightning McQueen video on his laptop. They are hooked!