Thank you for your help, it seems like I have to "restart Bitcoin Core with the -walletbroadcast=0 option and then you should be able to use "Abandon Transaction". in order to abandon those old transactions.  But I have no idea how to restart with -walletbroadcast=0   

that being said, all 3 transactions now have 2 confirmations so I guess they are going to go through. If you could still answer my questions for future reference I would appreciate it. Thanks again!