A Job Worth Having!

I complain a lot about my job as a mommy, but when it all comes down to it, it’s the best job in the world!
Thanks Hannah Noelle, Cannon, Gunner, Lauren and Avery!
I love my job as your mommy!

Flying High!

One out of four has a love for swinging!!

Isn’t his smile just CONTAGIOUS!

Spreading the Love!

And it’s not necessarily the love we like to be spreading!
Saturday Avery woke up sick and was sick all day.
Sunday everyone woke up great and I thought, wow, we dodged that bullet.
Monday Lauren woke up sick and was sick all day.
Tuesday started with Lauren and Avery both pretty puny and by 8:00 last night I was in the same puny boat with them!
To spare some majorly graphic details today has been filled with lots of clothes changing, several baths, several sheets being bleached and a whole lot of, back up Hannah Noelle, she’s sick again!
We’re praying we can keep everyone hydrated enough to stay home and not have to make a run to The River.
As of the latest tally, all four babies and myself have caught “the love” and we’re just holding our breath hoping
Pae-Pae, Daddy and Hannah Noelle don’t get it!
And while we’re on the topic of spreading some love, hop over to Gen’s Review Blog and see the love towards
Designed For Babies that she shared with us!

Who you Callin’ a Monkey?

 We recently got a Monkey Joe’s near where we live and after attending a party there, Hannah Noelle has been begging to go back! So, I, in what was FOR SURE a moment of insanity, decided to take all 5 by myself!
The play area for younger children was a HUGE HIT!Even Hannah Noelle loved it! She wasn’t getting to far from Mommy because Monkey Joe, himself, was there! And to say that he was NOT a hit with my kiddos
would be a HUGE understatement! Lately the boys have been teaming up a little,
which is good, but scary all in the same!This was all they would do in the jumpies.  They hated going through the little entrance holes, so we just played at the bottom of them.  There are 2 that are designated just for younger children so we just hung out at the bottom of those!
Since it was around lunch time we decided to eat there!   One problem, only 3 highchairs! For some UNKNOWN reason, I chose Lauren to be the “Big Kid” and sit at the table with Hannah Noelle. Do you see why it wasn’t such a good idea?

The babies all wore yellow for two reasons. 
Reason #1, if I have them all dressed similar it’s easier to count them 1, 2, 3…… um, there she is, 4. 
Reason #2, Gen McNulty is one of my best friends.  When her Nani went to give Jesus a big giant hug, Gen shared with us that Nani’s favorite color was yellow so sometime last year shortly after that I went and got the girls these yellow dresses and the boys some yellow shorts.  We wore them then and sent Gen a picture and this year when I was busting out the Spring clothes I saw those dresses and this year, they’re doubling as shirts. With some more digging I was able to find the boys some yellow shirts and we decided to have another Nani Day! I asked Hannah Noelle to go find something yellow in her closet and she said, in her biggest 5 year old voice, I love Aunt Gen, but yellow is just not that fashionable, she’ll understand! With a straight face (which was very hard) I said, oh, okay and began texting Gen as fast as my fingers would allow!
Something VERY exciting is going to happen on Gen’s Blog and Gen’s Review Blog one day this week, 
**cough, cough* TUESDAY *cough, cough* 
So please make sure you make your way to
her blog this week Tuesday.

U Name It!

After coming up with about 50 different captions to put above this post I figured I would let you caption what Avery is thinking because TRUST me, she was thinking something!

Just When I Think I’ve Done It All

I’m reminded I will never have done it all!!!

In all the scenarios I have played out in my head, this was NeVeR one of them!!!
2 miles from home my little warning light came on…
My husband has taught me well, don’t stress, just figure out why it’s there.  I immediately start scanning through all the little handy dandy functions the mini has and I see
LOW TIRE PRESSURE
32psi 32psi 32psi 21psi
I thought, 21, I can make it home on 21, then I glanced back down, 16…… UH-OH
I had to make decisions and FAST now down to 6psi and 1 mile from home with all 5 kids in tow.  I pulled into the driveway of one of my best friends who I have always referred to on my blog as “my neighbor” to aggravate her and her twin sister, but after this save I think she’ll forever be referred to as “My Best Friend Neighbor!” I frantically rang Denise’s doorbell and PRAYED she was home. YAY, she was and she had an air pump.  By this point the babies were screaming and OVER it! We hooked up the air pump and it started slowly filling with air. 
We then realized how fast it was actually seeping out so in true Girly Fashion, we looked for the Duct Tape.  Hey, we knew it was a long shot, but I only had a mile that I needed that air to stay in! I’m proud to announce, though I don’t recommend it, the Duct Tape worked!!! I drove a little faster than normal and by the time I approached my driveway I had 4 psi left and I said to myself, “Self, if it gets to 2, you’ll have to stop and walk the babies the rest of the way home so you don’t mess up your rim!” Well, it hit 2 as we pulled up to the house!
We’re home and I will now be taking a refresher course on Tire Changing and Matt will take a refresher course on turning his phone off of vibrate the second he walks out of school!!! 

Need Some Exercise?

Walk a Mile Block in Our Shoes!

Think before you speak!

Checking My List

I do a lot with the babies by myself, but I’ve had one thing left on my checklist to get done with them...  After going to Developmental Testing at this super cool place called The Watermelon Patch last week, I knew this was the perfect place for my solo endeavor.
I knew not only would Hannah Noelle have fun on the Zip Line.
I knew that Gunner was sure to find something SUPER manly to do..I knew Cannon would find a window to look outside and do his Fancy Dance in front of. I knew that Avery would find something to play Pie-Pie (Peek-a-Boo) with.I also knew that Lauren would take at least 30 minutes of solo time taking it all in, waiting to make sure everything was perfect in her little world first.   Watching them interact stare at the other children was amazing to me as well.  After an hour they were interacting better with the 5 other children that were there. 
After 5 minutes of being there I was satisfied that I had made a great decision and would be joining the Family Plan for Open Play.  We are going to TRY to go three days a week during the Open Play time on their schedule.
I can hear one of my best friends, Beth, a/k/a Germie, saying, SAAANNNDRRRA DEEEEE, think of all the germs. Well, that did enter my mind several times over the last few months when I wanted to go, but when I went Friday for testing I saw how super clean and neat this place was.
But as a parent, when you see this… … you immediately SPAZ out! Then, one of the other moms said, hey, there’s a bin over there to put that in.  I looked over on the counter and this is what I saw….Oh, wow, that is amazing!!  
If you live in our around the Mobile area, you should definitely check this place out and come hang with us sometime!!After we left I decided to tempt fate and take the Crew to lunch.  We went to Chick-Fil-A and let Hannah Noelle play on the playground after we ate.  They were so good, I even let them have dessert!
There were about 100 times throughout the day I would say, the way you act today determines how many adventures we do this summer.  I knew that the Little 4 had no clue what I was talking about, but Hannah Noelle would be on her best behavior!
If they act like this all summer, we should have a pretty interesting time!

You’re Beautiful

At least once a day if not 5 million times a day I tell each and every one of my children how precious and beautiful they are.  I have no doubt in my mind that they will grow up with the self confidence they need to succeed in wherever life takes them.  Last year during Pageant Time, which is a HUGE thing in our community, Hannah Noelle started asking to be in the pageant.  We did one last year that was a church dress style pageant and she loved it! Every contestant won a trophy and she was so pleased to get the trophy for Prettiest Smile. 
As Pageant Season rolled back around Hannah Noelle said, mommy, I want to be in a pageant with a fancy pageant dress.  After a great opportunity fell in our laps to purchase a pageant dress at an absolutely awesome price I said, OKAY, we’ll do it, but with two rules.  Number 1 rule, HAVE FUN.  Number 2 rule, never let the smile leave your face, win or lose, you’re beautiful! The Little Miss Gulf Coast pageant was this weekend and it had one rule that I was a big fan of, No Makeup! Yay!! She could dress up, look fancy, but I didn’t have to stress with putting makeup on her!Special thanks to “my neighbors” Denise and Deanna
for doing her hair and nails!
Mrs. Neese and Mrs. Nana know what they’re doing, Mama!  Mommy and Pae-Pae with our Beauty Queen!She was shocked and SO excited to get Second Alternate!
After she got her trophy she said, yay, can we go eat now?
It was very ironic that we matched, I did not plan it, but when we got there I was informed I had to walk her on stage.  I was so relieved I had actually washed my hair and worn
non-wrinkled clothes!  Hannah Noelle and her (in her words) Fan Club!
Jadyn, Tori, Anna and Abby!
Of course mommy of the year here, I forgot my camera! 
Again, special thanks to Deanna for taking pictures and coming down my driveway to bring me the picture CD!
I owe you a car wash!!!
 
Have a BEAUTIFUL Day!

Go Daddy Go!

Tonight starts Daddy’s baseball season! We hate missing games, but it’s just impossible to go to every one, especially with this CRAZY weather we’re having!!!

These are all pictures from last season.  We made one game with the babies and that was only because it was only 10 miles away. This year, we’re going to go to as many as we can and let the babies toddlers get rid of some of their never-ending energy!
Good Luck Daddy!!

We’ll miss you until Friday!!!

Practice What You Preach

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, no excuses, just in an all out BAD mood! I fed everyone breakfast and then went to the computer to try and finish up the Media Guide for Matt’s baseball team.  I took two years off from doing it, but for fundraiser support we needed one this year.  It’s a hassle, a pain and a few other words I’ll save you from hearing, but the money raised let’s the kids eat a meal when they have games on the road so I agreed.  I’ve been scanning pictures, picking fonts, rearranging for days.  I assumed (that word has bitten me square in the butt a lot lately) that PageMaker saved periodically like Word does, like Windows  Live Writer does, well, I was wrong.  Hannah Noelle played on the computer some last night and when I got to it this morning all programs had been closed out (I just pressed the little X mommy) and my Media Guide was gone.  I did the responsible thing and said, please walk out of the room Hannah Noelle, mommy needs to breathe for a few minutes.  As I sat here aggravated, agitated, ready to ground her for the next 30 years I remembered a post I did a while back named The Little Things and in that post one of the things I said that gets me through the day is…

* The day several years ago when I was working on a transcript and something happened, my computer went blank and I lost everything. It was at that very moment I realized I could get mad, walk away screaming or use my frustration to work harder and get it done. (Don't get me wrong, I still get mad at things, just learned it really doesn't do too much good!)

So I took a deep breath, called Hannah Noelle back in here, explained to her what she had done, grounded her from the computer for a day and started working even harder on the Media Guide. 
Practicing what you preach is a hard thing to do, but I’m glad for today that I had put into words in my blog something I needed to reread today!

Have a Great Day!

Make sure you read yesterday’s post too!!!

Got a Baby?

When I got pregnant with the quads there were no websites I could go to generated specifically for multiples that I could purchase from.  I was so overwhelmed, confused, etc.  How I would have loved a shirt like this……It may have avoided some of the stares that went along with me imagining the cartoon bubbles above their heads saying… Holy Moly, she’s HUGE!
I also would have loved to have purchased this shirt for Matt to wear into the delivery room….It’s a polo style which is Matt’s favorite and the chest emblem says, Proud Father of Quadruplets.
And in the NICU, how cute would my Angels have looked in these little onesies?   The front of the onesie says Angel in a precious Script Font.
Well, these shirts weren’t around then, but now, thanks to one of my best friends, Casey Gerwer, mom to BBGG quads, just like me, you can find all these things in a one stop shop!
Since she opened her Online Store Designed for Babies I’ve been a little of a shopaholic! My first purchase was this awesome tee.Then, for Christmas, I received a happy in the mail!
I’m going to order Matt this shirt for Father’s Day!   Kidding, kidding, although I do love that shirt, this is the one I’m really going to get him…These are on order for the Babies…I’m also ordering these for the babies…I needed something special for Hannah Noelle too so I sent Casey an email to see if we could do something for the Big Sister to Quadruplets and she said, yes, it’s in the making, stay tuned!!!
I’m so excited not only for a one stop shop for moms of multiples and moms with singletons, but that my friend, a mom to quads, has such an amazing business. 
Here’s a few ways to check out Designed For Babies
The Blog, Facebook or Twitter.
One more thing….. if you’re worried about fit because you have the “mommy belly,” quit worrying, she picked out shirts with us in mind.  Last year when we were planning the Quad Mom Trip we decided we wanted shirts.  That was the first we all heard of her amazing business.  We generated a few hundred emails and gave what we liked, didn’t like, etc.  We had sizes ranging all across the board and yet, she found the perfect shirt to make us all comfortable! Congrats, Casey, on an awesome business!!!