Judy Tweeten said she feels the hardest work of helping with her three granddaughters is done.

“Now I can just enjoy them,” the Hartland woman said of triplets Faith, Hope and Preslie, who turned 4 on Nov. 5. “They say the funniest things.”

Tweeten was one of the relatives who came to stay with Bruce and Jennie Nielsen when their triplets were born, first taking care of the couple’s two sons, Noah and Jaxson, then with Faith and Hope when they came home from the hospital before Preslie.

Jennie said life is a lot easier now that the girls can dress themselves and are potty trained.

“But they’ve developed a little sass,” their mother said, and they’re no longer content to just put their clothes on. They have to pick the clothes out.

Faith usually wears a dress, Hope wears her dance costume and Preslie will wear whatever doesn’t make her stand out. She’s the shy one, her mother said.

The trio started preschool when they turned 3 to help them learn to socialize with other kids.

“They do know how to share with each other — although they don’t always choose to,” their mother said.

They go to preschool two days a week for two hours.

“I love those two hours,” Jennie said.

Tweeten reminded her daughter of when she was a little girl and worried about leaving her mom behind to go to school.

“What was I thinking?” Jennie said with a laugh.

Even when they were babies, the personalities of Faith, Hope and Preslie were evident, their mother said. But it’s even more pronounced now.

For example, Hope loves the Disney character, Hanna Montana. In fact, one day she came home from preschool and said, “Barney (Bonnie, the teacher) called me Hopie.”

“That’s good,” Jennie said.

“No. I’m Hanna Montana,” Hope said.

Hope can also be seen twirling around, doing dance moves.

Faith, even though she is the smallest of the trio, is the leader, her grandmother said.

And Preslie is her mom’s helper. “She’s a little adult,” Jennie admitted. “The other day she folded a whole basket of laundry without even being asked. She’s just a good girl.”

While they all have very different personalities, they still see themselves as a unit, Jennie said.

“When they watch a video, they say, ‘That’s us,’ not ‘That’s me.’”

Other than preschool, they don’t go a lot of places, Jenni said. After preschool, they’re exhausted.

During the summer and after school, the Nielsen home is the meeting place for kids in the neighborhood. “At times we have 12 kids in the yard,” Jenni said. “But I like havin them here. I know where they are.”

The Nielsens had to fence in their yard because Hope likes to let herself out. The family has four locks on the door because of her craftiness.

In fact, on her birthday, she did get out and went to Grandma Judy’s house — probably because they were going to have cake there later.

For their birthday, the family ate at a restaurant for lunch, saw a ventriloquist perform at their church and had cake at Judy and Arlo Tweetens’ home. The following Sunday, they had a party with extended family at their house.

The key to keeping it all together is routine, Jennie said.

The family has a set supper time, then the triplets get baths, brush their teeth, get stories read to them and then it’s lights out.

“If we break the schedule at bedtime, it’s chaos,” she added.

The Nielsens still make sure to give Noah, who is 10 and in fourth grade, and Jaxson, who is 8 1/2 and in third grade, the attention they need. Noah loves playing football with his friends and both have tried pheasant hunting with Bruce. They’re both active in Lutheran Pioneers at their church, too.

Jenni keeps her perspective by networking with other mothers of triplets. The Nielsens, the Howards of Blue Earth and the VanPelts of Austin all get together on an annual basis. The Howard triplets are 6 and the VanPelts are 2 1/2.

Because the Howard children are a little older than the Nielsen kids, Jennie finds a lot of support from Becky Howard.

“I talk to her a lot,” she said.