A/N: I would like to dedicate this story to anyone who's ever taken the taken to tell me they love the triplets and would like to see more of them. This is for you. (And for those who would prefer something else, I apologize. Again. LOL. Blame Marlene King for my lack of inspiration.) It's a series of random scenes from their childhood – some I've had in my head for years; others are relatively new. It could have been posted as a oneshot, but I personally prefer it in three parts. I promise to be quick with updates. :)

Before I forget: thank you all for reading/reviewing my last story! I love you for staying with me and for being patient with my finicky ass.

Excerpts From A Scrapbook Of Memories

Toby Cavanaugh took great pride in the fact that his wife barely ever touched the laundry. Over the years, it had gradually shifted from a task they shared to one he took over on his own while she gravitated towards other things. With the exception of when he was away for work – which he tried to limit to only a few times a year anyway – their laundry load was pretty much all his doing.

He liked to think he'd gotten pretty good at it over the years. He knew all Spencer's favorite smells, and dutifully avoided the brands that irritated Eloise's exceptionally sensitive skin. When or Hanna or Emily or Aria called with a laundry question, he would smirk with satisfaction when his wife handed the phone over to him. And for once in her life, Spencer seemed to have no problem not knowing the answers.

He was separating the whites from the darks, enjoying the familiar sounds of Spencer puttering around in the next room, when she was interrupted by one of their youngsters.

"Mommy," she said importantly. "When I grow up, I'm going to live in a purple castle."

Toby could see neither Spencer nor Cleo, but he grinned widely anyway. He adored overhearing the random conversations between his wife and one or more of their children. At three years old, they were becoming so articulate. They were starting to reason; they were starting to make links in their minds, and it tickled him to no end to get firsthand insight to how their youthful brains worked.

"Really?" Spencer answered matter-of-factly, and he liked that no matter the crazy stuff that came out of their mouths she always took them seriously.

"Yes," Cleo went on happily. "I'm going to have three cats, a dog, a gerbil and a unicorn."

"That sounds nice," came Spencer's reply, and Toby heard the smile in her voice even though she was probably distracted with whatever task she was trying to complete.

"Very nice," Cleo agreed. "I'm going to have a girl and a boy. The girl's name is going to be Sophie."

"Well, what about the boy?" Spencer requested. He'd noticed before that her tone of voice changed slightly depending on which child she was talking to. With Lawrence, she would often – unconsciously, he was sure – match the excitement in his tone. With Eloise, her voice would become soft and tranquil, almost as if she were afraid that speaking too loudly would scare her away. With Cleo, she was her truest self. If Toby was honest, the conversations between Spencer and Cleo were the ones that usually intrigued him the most.

"I haven't decided yet. It's a very important decision," Cleo spoke wisely, and Toby's heart filled with adoration for this tiny human.

"That's very true," Spencer agreed. "But isn't there anything else you'd like to be besides a mommy?"

"Well, I'm also going to be the President of America," Cleo declared like it was obvious, and Toby reflexively chuckled as he heard his wife do the same. At least they knew their daughter had ambition.

"Of course you are," Spencer replied fondly.

Cleo had not finished planning her future. "I'm going to have a purple wedding."

"Yes, purple's your color, isn't it? Who are you going to marry?"

At this, Cleo laughed zestfully as if she were being asked the silliest question in the world. "That's easy! I'm going to marry Daddy."

Toby nearly choked on the water bottle he happened to be taking a sip from. He deeply regretted that he'd been unable to catch Spencer's initial reaction, but when he jumped up and peered at her through the doorway he was pleased to see her mouth still hanging half open in astonishment.

"Hey," she protested weakly. "What about me?"

"Oh…" Cleo's little face looked puzzled, as if she'd never given it any thought. She recovered quickly. "Don't worry, Mommy. You can live with us, too."

"Well, thanks a lot," Spencer responded dryly, after which she noticed him and their eyes met. "Did you hear what she just…?"

Before he had the chance to answer, Cleo leaped into his arms and he only caught her just in time.

"Daddy," she said cheerfully, squeezing her arms around his neck and pressing a slobbery kiss to his cheek. He blew a raspberry in her neck and tickled her until she shrieked with laughter. Then he grinned, kissing her head before setting her down on the floor and watching affectionately as she skipped off in search of her brother and sister.

His feet dragged him over to Spencer, letting his arms slowly come around her and enjoying the way she reflexively leaned into his body.

"She's such a Daddy's girl," she said wistfully, her hands coming to rest lightly on his shoulders as she glanced at the doorway their pint-sized daughter had disappeared off into.

"Sometimes," Toby allowed. "When she's not being Little Miss Independent."

"This better not be foreshadowing for you leaving me for a younger woman," Spencer muttered suddenly, and someone who didn't know her like he did might have missed the gentle teasing despite the fact that her tone seemed dead serious.

He scoffed and brushed his lips against the soft skin on her throat. "Like that'll ever happen."

No other woman would ever do, he thought. And it wasn't as if any other woman would ever want him anyway.

"This is what I get for choosing a great dad for my kids, huh?" she smirked. "I can't remember ever wanting to marry my father. Which is probably a good thing since I married the complete opposite."

He kissed her, slowly and languidly. "This conversation is getting weird," he mumbled against her lips, and she laughed delightedly.

Yes, Toby Cavanaugh took great pride in the fact that his wife barely ever touched the laundry. He honestly had no problem fully taking on that chore if it meant she could have more time for her career, for her children or even for herself.

However, he took even more pride in the fact that after fifteen years together he could still make her laugh without even having to try.

Toby and Eloise walked up to the unfamiliar house together. Her little hand held his tightly, and she continued to put one foot bravely in front of the other as she took in her surroundings with vulnerable eyes.

He and Spencer had always known this day would come. Their four-year-old triplets were for the most part inseparable, but sooner or later they would find their own friends and get invited to separate birthday parties and play dates and sleepovers. All of this was expected – the only part that threw them for a loop was that the first time it happened, it was Eloise. Somehow, they hadn't quite anticipated that.

It was a Saturday, and their turn to help coach Lawrence's soccer practice. Since Spencer knew infinitely more about soccer – and all sports, really – than he did, the discussion on who would accompany Eloise to the birthday party was short-lived. Cleo would tag along with her mother and brother. Spencer had offered her the position of assistant coach, and Toby had a feeling she would take over the entire practice if they let her.

The party was already in full motion by the time he and Eloise stepped over the threshold. Kids were running all over the place in elation, and parents (mostly mothers, Toby noted) huddled around the coffee table. His own child seemed completely overwhelmed at the chaos she was met with. She immediately leaned against his legs when he sat down in the chair he was offered, her hands coming to rest in his lap. Five of her tiny fingers wrapped around one of his for added security as she silently observed the scene before her. She knew all these kids from school, yet it was as if the foreign environment completely threw her off.

Not for the first time, Toby was made conscious of how fundamentally different she was to most other children – including his other children, who wouldn't have hesitated to join the fun.

He took a long look at her and felt his heart subsequently melt in his chest. She looked like an angel in her baby blue party dress that impeccably matched the color of her eyes. Spencer had French braided only the very front of her wispy blonde hair back and left the rest down to fall down her shoulders, and she'd added a blue bow to complete the look. Their child easily could have stepped out of a page of a catalogue, and when he'd told Spencer that she smiled and said yearningly, "I wish we could put her in bubble wrap instead."

He gently rubbed Eloise's back with his free hand. "Don't you want to go play with your friends?"

She shook her head, and he let it go. He had his own memories of clinging to his mother's skirt, of burying his face in her shoulder when strangers looked at him and of crying when she dropped him off at preschool. His father's continuous insistencies for him to "man up" had only made things worse, and Toby would sacrifice a limb before he upset his kids by forcing their independence when they weren't ready.

When the birthday girl's mother revealed the first activity, Toby wanted to kiss her feet for choosing something that was right up his daughter's alley. All the kids were given large pieces of cardboard paper and were told they got to design their own party hats. Eloise was still glued to his side, but when she caught whiff of the crayons and markers spread out across the table he could tell her interest had been piqued.

"Go on," he urged softly. "I'll be right here the whole time, I promise."

She hesitated, looking from the table of kids to him to the table again. Then she slowly released his finger, took bold steps and settled down in front of the piece of paper that had her name on it. She reached for a crayon, and Toby swallowed hard – partly because of the pride he always felt whenever one of his kids successfully conquered a challenge, and partly because he looked around at the other parents and felt suddenly alone and faced the undeniable reality that he was just as lost without her as she was without him.

Spencer came to greet them at the door when they arrived home a few hours later. Eloise ran to her happily, and Spencer kissed her cheek and murmured, "Hi, peanut. Did you have fun at the party?"

She smiled and nodded, holding up her goody bag for her mother to see. Spencer spent a minute looking through it with her before suggesting she go show her siblings. Then she turned to him, and he'd barely planted a kiss on her lips when she asked, "How'd she do?"

He squeezed her hip reassuringly. "Great. Perfect. At first I thought I was going to have to surgically remove her from my leg but then she warmed up and participated in all the games."

"Oh thank God." Spencer looked sincerely relieved for about half second before looking at him inquisitively. Her hand slid up his chest to his cheek. "What about you? How'd you do?"

He chuckled at how well she knew him. "Good, I guess. The moms said a whole bunch of nice things about my kid so that kind of made it easier."

"Really?" Spencer asked curiously. "What did they say?"

"One told me she was beautiful, three commented on how genuinely sweet she is and pretty much all of them had something to say about this," he replied, holding up the party hat their daughter had designed.

Spencer's mouth fell open at the intricate patterns, shocking detail and stunning color combinations. They had known for a while that this was where Eloise was truly in her element, but that didn't mean her raw talent didn't still catch them off guard at times.

"You know what?" Spencer said simply. "She is beautiful, and she is sweet. But I'm so glad people recognize her for more than just that."

Toby kissed her again in consensus.

"Crap!"

Her son's voice echoed in the hallway, and Spencer swore, too – though much quieter than him. It did not go unnoticed by her husband.

He smirked wordlessly at her, and it was enough to make her blood boil. "I know. This is all my fault."

"I didn't say anything," he protested.

"Your face said at all," she contradicted him testily. "Help me out instead of laughing at me."

"Lawrence," Toby called, and she felt an odd kind of gratitude for his compliance. "We've asked you not to say that, please."

"Crap!" Lawrence laughed. "Crap! Crap! Crap!"

Toby looked at her and shrugged helplessly. Ever since their son had overheard his mother sputter that word as she was trying to put on her makeup in the car on their way to Rosewood, he'd taken a great liking to it.

They hadn't been too concerned when he laughed hysterically from his car seat and said it again and again. They figured he'd probably forget about it soon enough, as five-year-olds do. But to Spencer's horror, he'd exclaimed it loudly several hours later in the middle of her parents' dining room.

"I'm the worst mom in the world," she'd told her husband miserably in a private moment a little while later, still feeling mortified as she remembered the shocked expressions on the faces of her parents, sister and brother-in-law. Toby looked skeptical.

"You're not even the worst mom in this room," he answered flatly, eyeing Veronica and Melissa standing just a few feet away.

Cleo and Eloise had repeated it, too – though not within the walls of the sacred Hastings' Manor, thankfully, and Eloise only once. Always the easy one when it came to discipline, she had stopped when they simply asked her not to say it again. Cleo had gone along with her brother's hilarity for a day or two, but had eventually knocked it off when they simply ignored the behavior.

With Lawrence, nothing worked – not that they hadn't tried. They tried explaining that Mommy said a bad word and asked him not follow her example, which went completely over his head. They tried being stern with him, which – for some reason – he didn't take seriously. They tried ignoring it, but what worked like a charm on Cleo didn't work at all on Lawrence. He didn't seem bothered by the fact that no one was reacting to this beautiful word he had discovered, and a week after the incident he was still joyously using it multiple times a day. Even his teachers had commented on it, which made Spencer feel even more humiliated than she already did.

"We're lucky he didn't hear you say anything worse," Toby poked fun at her now, and she scowled.

She quickly checked to make sure all three kids were out of earshot before muttering at him, "Fuck that, I'm not listening to this shit."

He laughed loudly, and she failed to suppress a grin. Thank God her husband seemed to find this whole situation funny more than anything else.

"Crap!"

She swallowed the urge to scream, and with that the last ounce of her patience ebbed away. "That's it."

She got up and returned to the kitchen a few seconds later, holding their son by the hand. She sat him down across from her, deliberately ignoring the bewildered and somewhat curious look on Toby's face. Lawrence, on the other hand, seemed relaxed as ever. He grinned eagerly, as if this was some kind of game.

He wasn't wrong, she thought.

"Lawrence Cavanaugh, listen carefully. I'm going to need you to repeat that word for me one hundred times."

His face broke out in delight. "One hundred?"

"One hundred. Daddy's going to count." She looked to Toby for confirmation, who instantly nodded. "Go."

He started enthusiastically. He sing-songed, almost, causing Spencer to hope and pray this wouldn't come back to bite her in the ass. Cleo could be defiant as well – more so than Lawrence in most cases – but at least she was predictable. Lawrence was a shot in the dark every time.

For a long while, he didn't miss a beat. But when he was about halfway, she noted a slight lull in his energy. He went on unperturbed, but Spencer noticed he was getting distracted. The novelty was starting to wear off. His eyes no longer looked straight into hers in glee but past her to the window outside, and she felt a sense of triumph.

It was working.

At sixty-five, he struggled. He fidgeted in his chair, sighed between words and clenched and re-clenched his little fists.

"Come on, bubba. You can do it," she prodded gently.

It gave him newfound strength, as he sat up straighter and picked up his pace again, but it didn't last very long. By eighty, it was abundantly clear he was over it.

"Almost there," Spencer continued to encourage him. "You can't give up now. It's your favorite word, remember?"

She had to guide him through the last ten, and when he finally made it she found herself smiling at him. "Good job, honey," she praised lightly. And then, "Come here."

She reached for him and settled him in her lap. He leaned against her drowsily, and she slowly rocked him back and forth while resting her chin on his head. Toby handed him a glass of water, which he gulped down in three seconds flat before slipping down and announcing he was going to finish playing with his Legos.

She watched him disappear, and when she looked back at Toby she noticed he was smiling at her almost reverently.

"You're a genius, you know that?"

She shrugged. "We'll see. He might forget all about this and go back to his old ways tomorrow."

He didn't. Fifteen years later, he was sitting at that very same kitchen table when his sister knocked over her glass of iced tea.

"Crap," she hissed, reaching for a rag to mop up the mess, and Lawrence winced.

"Elle," he said painfully. "Swear all you want, I don't care. Just please don't use that word?"

Spencer felt the victory like it was yesterday.