Happy 5 months!

Today marks five months since we welcomed our quadlings into the world. The time just keeps flying by and yet some days I can not believe the pregnancy is over. I actually miss being pregnant with them at times. Time to let go and move on!! Going from month 4 to 5 seemed bigger than any other thirty day span. We are starting to really see personalities of each of the kiddos and they at the beginning stages of being fun "playing".

My big 5 month olds

Rylan you remain the most content and will just look around at your surroundings. When you are placed in your crib you immediately look up because the music box in your crib has a projector and you will watch it until it shuts off and sometimes you let us know when it turned off by giving us a shout out to turn it back on. You could care less that it is pink and has fairies! You will often not fall asleep during nap time but instead spend the entire time checking to see if we did anything new to your bedroom since you had been in it last. You have also made mommy so happy because you are the first baby to really start reaching for toys. I will make a confession that ever since the night when you were 24 hours old I have worried about you developmentally and probably will for a long time. That night was plain awful for me and it scared me more than a mother should ever have to be. So when you do things that you should be doing it makes me cry happy tears of joy. Along with reaching you have discovered your hands this last week along with your brother ans sisters and it is so amazing to watch a baby find their hands. You just stare at them like they are the coolest thing ever! My only concern right now for you is the back of your head. It is so flat. I can not wait for your therapist to see you next week so I can get their opinion. I hope you do not have to wear a helmet because it will give you seriously bad hair days! I love you my little man...

Tate you are my big man and my Mr. Smiles. You give out the most smiles and when you smile it reaches your eyes. I just love it. Besides fussing when you finish your bottle because you have an air bubble that you need to get out you are a pretty happy little boy. You like to be upright in the exersaucer so you can see what is going on but when it is time to snuggle with daddy in the evenings after your last bottle you cuddle in and don't make a peep. You have moved into 3-6 month clothes and will not be in them long because for some reason you think you need to just keep growing. You do try and get in a good workout each day by doing 15,893 bicycle legs. Your little legs are always a moving when you are on the floor. Bibs still remain part of your wardrobe and I can not wait for the day that we do not have to accessories with them. We again have added cereal back to your bottles to try and help with your reflux.

Isabella my darling you have been napping so much better the last couple of weeks which in turn has decreased some of your fussiness. We increased your feedings by a whole ounce and it seems to have helped. It would have been great if you could have just told me with words that you needed more. It would have gotten done a lot sooner!! The smiles you give us though definitely help us forget the loud out of tune screeches you give us. I tried getting some of your first giggles on tape but of course as soon as daddy grabbed the video camera you quit so now there is a very boring video clip for us to watch some day! We started taking you to the chiropractor to see if that will help with your choliciness. You do love blankets up by your face. I have come into your room many times to find you totally covered from head to toe with a blanket. This makes me a tad nervous so now I have given you a soft blankie that is only about 8x8in so you can keep it snuggled up against your face. And your hair...well lets not even go there. You have a lot of it and it does what it wants. So for now we let it have its way and if we go some where we slap a headband on to hide it a little.

My little peanut, Kenzie. A parent is not suppose to have their favorites but your sisters certainty do. Natalie and Aubrey love you and are always asking if they can hold the peanut. Your hair is getting longer and it is red! I am excited to see if it becomes blonder but I am totally fine if I get one red head out of seven. I do think you have the most ear piercing scream of everyone. For being so little we do know that you have some healthy lungs. You are so close to rolling over and it won't surprise me if you are the first one to complete that adventure. I am kind of ready to have rollers. I say kind of because I know what comes after rolling and I am not ready for that stage yet! At five months you still fit in newborn clothes but mom is tired of looking at them so they are all being packed away. 

Why yes my flower is as big as my head!

My little loves you have brought so much joy to our family and I am so glad we were blessed with you five months ago. Dad and I often say we are so lucky that we have quads. There has been some stressful times, many exhausting hours, lots of routine, more time spent at home than we like, thousands of diaper changes, & spit-up galore during the last five months but there has also been lots of smiles, a few giggles, warm little bodies to snuggle with and more joy than we really deserve. Mom and Dad love you.

Let me tell you those little necks make for some awesome kissing spots.

Love those little piggies

They often hold hands when laying next to each other!!

And now for one outtake!!!

This is how I feel our life is right now; a little lopsided but absolutely beautiful

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

So today I was suppose to work but at 5:00am I got the call telling me I got to stay home. This came with a mixture of emotions. I enjoy staying home but I sooo needed a day without my kids. I told Paul I thought about telling him I was going to work and spend 13 hours out but wasting 13 hours without spending money (because then Paul would know I didn't go to work!) seemed a tad difficult and not that much fun either. What's funny is my unit has less babies than I have at home!! Maybe I could bring my kiddos back just for a day and get paid to take care of them. It would double our census. So instead I am using today to play catch up by organizing pictures onto my computer. I have all the pictures since the girls were born organized my month and then year. I have never gone through and deleted all the blurry or not so adorable pictures but I figure I will get around to that someday, or may not. I may just save it for the time when all the kids have moved out of the house and I have nothing to do but sort through old pictures. I wonder what kind of computers we will have then?!? While going through pictures I found some fun ones that have not been shared.

Natalie sleeps with an eye mask on. I think she would be better off sleeping with ear plugs!

A daddy feeding set-up (I,R,K,T)

My lumberjacks

Mom impressed herself with this train track. The boy needs more tracks; just can't build much with what he has.

The boy loves his superhero shirt. There is a cape on his back for superhero adventures.

All the big kids have taken to shaving with daddy. No worries no razorblades allowed except for in daddy's.

Love that he knows how to make the correct facial expressions.

Gotta smell good.

All ready to head out.

She still remains our peanut.

Sometimes you just have to be silly!!

Thought maybe she would fold her own clothes but it didn't happen.

Who takes after who??

Oh blog how I have missed you. I really enjoy blogging but I have been so busy since my last post that I have not had a chance to sit and not be interrupted 12,538 times. What have I been so busy with one may ask? I have no clue! The days start with big ambitions and high hopes of getting so much done each day and then when night comes I usually can only cross off one or two things from that ambitions list. But I know that I didn't spend my days sitting on the couch eating BonBons so I know I finished the day getting "stuff" done just not the stuff that is enjoyable. Today the big kids start back at school and I am one mama that is so excited. The kids are ready and need people to play with besides those with labels of brother and sister. We are not having  play dates very often this winter due to the risk of bringing germs into the house so once spring comes I hope we can fill our palace with kids. People think I am crazy when I want more kids over but really it keeps my kids from fighting so the more the merrier.  Other than that not much going on around here besides keeping that dang influenza bug as far away as possible.

I recently had a blog reader ask if I would post pictures of the big kids from when they were babies. I thought it was a great idea and I had so much fun looking through their baby pictures that you get more than one. It is fun to see similarities in the big kids and the babies because before we had the quads we had three kids that really did not look much alike. So who do you think look alike?

Natalie

(2 weeks old)

 Aubrey

(2 weeks old)

The Girls

The picking on one another started at a young age!

Natalie, Aubrey

Natalie, Aubrey

Baptism (Natalie wore Paul's gown and Aubrey wore mine)

One of my all time favorite pictures of the two of them. (Natalie, Aubrey)

Drew

(2 weeks old)

Drew's baptism. Father Arnold has baptized all three big kids and I am so sad that he is being transferred three weeks before the quads baptism. If we weren't in RSV season we would load everyone up and fly to Hawaii where he will be moving to have the babies welcomed into the church but since flying is a no-no with them during the winter months we will just remain sad.

3 weeks after his cleft lip repair

Kenzie

 

 Isabella

 Tate

 Rylan

If anyone else has post ideas or questions please feel free to leave them in the comment section. Sometimes I am at a lost for what to write about and often I feel our day to day life gets very redundant and who wants to keep reading the same thing!

Our solo morning routine

I haven't figured out what time of the day is the busiest for us; it's either 8:00 in the morning when we have seven kids that are all hungry at the same time or between the hours of 5 & 7 in the evening when seven kids again need to be fed, bathed and put to bed and the babies are having what we call the "bewitching" hour. This bewitching hour is not the same as happy hour by any means. The other morning I decided to capture how we do the morning routine if Paul or I are alone. It does not show the three older kids routine so just know that they do get fed, teeth brushed, hair done and clothes on somewhere in between the following.

When the babies wake in the morning they were ready to eat five minutes ago. They are now sleeping from 8pm-7am and so this equals four screaming babies in the morning.

If Paul and I are both home then he will change all of their diapers while I pump and then we both feed two babies but if we are solo than we use the bottle props and feed them in their room.

We have been doing it this way since the beginning of December and it has been working great. We feed the babies (we never leave the room and they are always supervised) using these cheap bottle propers from abcdistributing.com except for Tate who's bottle does not fit. By using their night time blankets and tipping the props upside down they work great. We can also work with the babies on putting their hands on the bottle in the hope that sooner rather than later they will be able to hold their own bottle. They had been sleeping in rock n' plays so it was easy to just prop the bottle and go but we have transitioned them out of the rock n' plays and they are now sleeping in their cribs like big boys and girls. We still keep the rock n' plays in their room so we just have to set them up and we are off.

While the babies eat we, or Aubrey, will pick out their clothes for the day and have them all ready on the changing table. They do get dressed every day even if we don't go any where. They then get jammies on after their bath in the evening. As each kiddo finishes their bottle they get burped and put down on the play mat for some play time.

The last one to finish their bottle is the first to get their diaper changed and dressed.

The others wait patiently for their turn. Usually a sibling or two will come and play with during this time.

Natalie, Aubrey and Drew love their brothers and sisters and are almost always wanting to play with them.

Aubrey has recently started helping get them naked for me which helps speed up the production line. After they are dressed they get some more play time. The ceiling fan is the most amusing thing in their room right now.

We have learned to never take Tate's bib off before its his turn to get dressed and as soon as his shirt gets put on a new bib is placed.

After everyone is dressed this is what we are left with; a pile of dirty laundry that will get washed that night, four empty bottles and four wet diapers. We have a diaper genie in their room but have learned to just walk them to the garage where we keep a grocery bag and then take it to the trash once its full. We would be emptying out the diaper genie daily.

It is then tummy time (which they are NOT big fans of) or they are moved out to the living room for some sort of contraption time.

So that is our solo morning routine. My favorite time of the day, besides bedtime, is after lunch has been served. Everyone is then ready for the day. Bottles are usually made. I don't have to prepare another meal for a couple of hours and we can just play.

And now you just get some cute pictures to view!

We are now getting giggles along with the smiles and they found mommy very funny or they were laughing at me because they were suppose to be napping and I gave in for some play time!

Almost time for some sort of haircut Mr. Rylan

Natalie & Rylan

And Isabella's hair is just plain wild!! This is how it is in the mornings after she goes to bed with wet hair and I don't think she is a fun of me showing it to the world.

Dr. Drew trying to figure out why we have a fussy Izzie. Diagnoses: bewitching hour.