Fun In The Sun!!

Today was a really fun day!! Hannah Noelle had successfully spent the night over at a friend's house so we get up, fed the babies, changed them into their swimming suits, picked up Big Sister and headed to Coach, Kae-Pae and Jayce's to spend the day with my parents!

The Boys!
The Girls & Gunner!
Avery!

Gunner eating the toys, Go Figure!!
Cannon giving the grass a try!
Look at that belly!!
Gunner trying to get his ball snack back!
Come on girls, ya gotta keep up!!
Lauren up to No Good!
Cannon trying to climb the stairs!
Mom, she's in my space!!
And they all followed!!
Gunner was the first to make it to the top!
Lauren would not give up!!
Cannon SO tired!!
Avery getting her bottle from Me-Mom!
Lauren getting her bottle from Coach!
Gunner getting his bottle from Kae-Pae
The Big Kids playing!!
Cannon still sleeping even after I changed his clothes!
Avery on the loose!
Say Cheese!
What, cheese, another snack, AWESOME?
Pee-Pie!!

The babies had a blast and were COMPLETELY worn out and took a great nap for Pae-Pae while Matt and I ran to Home Depot to order blinds, look at paint and crown molding. They were all in great moods this evening and were easy to feed with help from Paw-Paw and Be-Be! We laid them down at their normal time and have yet to hear a peep out of them!
We had to leave Gunner's swim trunks with Me-Mom to hem the length! To get the suckers big enough around the waist, they ended up being swim pants instead of shorts, poor fella!! Their swimming suits ranged from 3 months to 18 months! Considering they're 9 months, 7 adjusted, that just cracks me up!!
I'm sure you're thinking, I thought her mom left last week.... well, she's back. My mom and dad made a surprise visit on Thursday and are going to spend some time with us before mom's medical leave is over (she had surgery on her foot) and daddy has to go back to school (he's a professor at North Greenville University).
Two post in two days, so make sure you didn't miss yesterday's post!

Then versus Now

This excerpt is from my June 29, 2008 post.
I can give my assessment of what I think their personalities will be:
Baby A: Cannon Gregory - laid back, not much bothers him, but when he wants to be recognized, he will sure put on a show!!!
Baby B: Gunner Cole - wild and crazy!! fights with his sister, Lauren, non stop!
Baby C: Lauren Katherine (I think that's how we're spelling it) - beyond wild and crazy!! she is up more than she's asleep!
Baby D: Avery Caroline - sweet, sweet! She's so laid back and quiet, rarely makes me uncomfortable!!!
Now, here is my 9 1/2 month assessment of personalities:
Cannon Gregory: Mommy's boy! The above was a pretty true assessment, he is fairly laid back, a good bit bothers him and he can will put on a show!
Gunner Cole: Very Very loving!!! The above is SO wrong!! He is the one that will wipe away his brother and sister's tears and be the first to laugh at their jokes!
Lauren Kathryn: Another thing I got wrong with her was the spelling of her name. You can look at 20 different posts and it's spelled differently each time! I spelled it just like my Grandma Kay spelled hers, but every time I go to write it I second guess myself! Her assessment was SO wrong! She loves, loves her sleep and is BY FAR the best baby!
Avery Caroline: After reading this assessment I again for the 100th time question whether or not Avery was actually Baby C and Lauren was Baby D. The only thing that holds me to the fact that they were delivered in the correct order is the 4D ultrasound we had done at 20 something weeks. Lauren was the only one we got a face shot of and she looked identical to HN's 3D and to this day Lauren resembles HN the most! Avery is the leader of the crew!! She's always the first to do something, try something, test the boundaries! We're going to be in for it with her!!
All 4 are official crawlers now. Cannon and Lauren actually crawl on knees and hands where with Avery and Gunner it's elbows and bellies. They can make some ground like that though! Everyone but Gunner can pull up on everything and cruise their way around it! Gunner has a little big disadvantage with his weight. Most of the toys that the others pull up on just flip over when Gunner goes to use them for support! It's HILARIOUS! They love the couch and getting anything off of it that is within arms reach! We are counting down the days before we move in the house for many reasons, but also because Avery and Cannon will stand up in their beds and pull things off the counter into their cribs!!
The 100th post keeps getting better and better! I'm hoping to have 10 giveaways for that post, right now I'm at 8. Everyone needs to make sure they can comment (several people have said they have trouble) now so that when the 100 hour countdown starts for entry to the giveaways they get entered. If you have trouble commenting, e-mail me, Facebook me, something and let me know!! Some giveaways are geared towards readers with children and some are not, so everyone should see something worth entering for!! Can you tell I'm excited?
Well, Hannah Noelle is at a friends for a slumber party, the babies are all asleep, I think I'm fixing to grab a good movie and call it a night!!!

Who Loves Yo Baby?

`We do, We do!!

We love YoBaby and Your Baby and that's why we wanted to let you in on our little snack time secret!! We have tried several snacks for our munchkins that were extremely messy, not too nourishing and down right just nasty! I took advice from some of my fellow Quad Mom Bloggers and tried some YoBaby! We used it with our older daughter, but it's even better now with new ingredients, new more Eco Friendly packaging and more flavors!

As most of you know we had a low iron scare with Lauren, our tiniest. Well, we have since been on a "YoBaby Snack Diet" because after some research, I found out :
YoBaby Plus Fruit & Cereal—all the good stuff, plus important nutrients your little one needs!Over half of all babies and toddlers don’t get the recommended daily amount of iron they need. YoBaby Plus Fruit & Cereal with Iron provides 30% of your little one’s RDI for Iron in a delicious yogurt with fruit and cereal puree on the bottom.
We were also having a tough time transitioning to sippy cups because their formula/cereal combo is too thick to come through the sippy spouts. Juice and water are great and they love it, but we're still battling reflux and with the thin liquid... well, you get the idea! The last time I went to buy some YoBaby Yogurt I came across the YoBaby Drinkable Yogurt and let me tell ya, IT'S GOOD! We bought the banana flavor and the kids sucked their sippies dry! It smelt so good I had to take a taste, whew, I wish I was a baby!

And just in case you don't believe me, ask the Experts!!

The countdown to the 100th post is ON!!!
YoBaby is another one of the great giveaways we have for that post!
For more info on YoBaby, visit their website at http://www.stonyfield.com/
or specifically for YoBaby, click HERE.

Happy Birthday to.....

Jayce Henry Pater
Jayce, my nephew, turned 5 on May 29th!
We celebrated his birthday with a dinner at
a local restaurant on Thursday night so that my
mom could join us!

Happy Birthday Jayce
Love, Cannon
Happy Birthday Dude
Love, Gunner
Happy Birthday Buddy
Love, Lauren
Happy Birthday Bubs
Love, Avery
Hannah Noelle & Jayce
Kae-Pae
Kae-Pae's birthday is June 2nd.
We celebrated her birthday, her Uncle Allen's and
Jayce's birthday together on Saturday night with a
cookout and lots of fun!
Happy Birthday Kae-Pae
Love, Cannon

Happy Birthday Kae-Pae
Love, Gunner

Happy Birthday Kae-Pae
Love, Lauren
Happy Birthday Kae-Pae
Love, Avery

Right next door to Jayce's Nana and Pop's
is a daycare (Kuntry Kidz) who so graciously let us borrow
their Bye-Bye-Buggy for the party!

Hollister
Hollis turned the BIG ONE on May 29th.
Hollis' mom, Gina, and I are very, very dear friends!
We were so excited to bring the quads to Hollis' party and celebrate with his family!
Thanks a ton to all the people there for helping us out!
(For the record, this picture does this ADORABLE baby no justice!
He was NOT excited about the hat, but isn't he still so dern cute!)

Avery had a blast playing!

Cannon just followed Hollis everywhere! Lauren was getting all the sympathy she could from her shiner!

Cannon and Avery attacking Gunner!

And Gunner was LOVING IT!

6 babies 12 months and under!
Cannon, Blaine, Hollis, Lauren, Avery & Gunner

I had to add these next three pics just
because they were SO cute and to show Once Again
what a great husband I have!
I went shopping Monday and as I walked out the door
I handed the babies each a Biter Biscuit.

The babies made quite a mess!!!
But daddy bathed them all so they were
squeaky clean when I came home!
Thanks, Matt, for all you do, but for mostly
just being You!!
My Mom has been here for the last month helping
out with the babies, sewing their bedding for the new house
(which we hope to be in by July!)and getting loving from Jayce
& Hannah Noelle! When we told the babies she was leaving, this
is the response we got!
NO ME-MOM, DON'T GO!
And Lauren, well, she wanted to cry,
but with Hannah Noelle around, this little
girl just won't cry!
Thanks Mom for all of your help! We enjoyed the visit!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to all you May and June Babies!!

9 Months Old

Last week we had our 9 month old check up. Is it as hard to read as it is to type/say 9 months old? I can't believe it's been 9 months since I laid on that operating table with unexplainable emotions of fear, excitement, joy, uncertainty and the repeated question to my dear surgeon, "Have you tied my tubes yet?" (Yes, I did just pull myself out of a post that was getting mushy right back into a fun one!) I can't even explain to you how much our lives changed in those 5 minutes. Gunner, of course, the Big Guy, took two minutes to come out versus the minute between the rest of them! Did I just call 3 pounds, 1 ounce the Big Guy?
Matt and I often talk about what our lives were like this time last year. 2008 or "that summer" has become a block of time all to itself. It's kind of like how down on the coast everything is based "before Katrina" or "after Katrina." We always say, well, "that summer." This time last year we didn't have this amazing blog, I didn't have my amazing Quad Mamma support nor the support of all of you who have kept me going when the going gets tough and TRUST me it gets tough! We had just purchased a mini van (oh, how I dreaded that day, but now love The Ole' Mini.) We knew that the babies were 2 boys and 2 girls although Baby B and Baby D were still nameless. We had Cannon and Lauren ready from the start! We didn't know how we were going to survive financially, emotionally, mentally or physically, we just knew for the sake of our family we had to!! Now, a year later, 9 months after their birth, we're still surviving. 99 percent of the emotional, mental and physical part are from help fro Pae-Pae (whom we couldn't and still can't live without), grandparents, friends, family and the support from our church. I sometimes look back on the first 3 months of their lives and think, Holy Cow, how did we do it? Then we remember their struggles in and out of the NICU and think, Holy Cow, how did they do it? We've all shown the fighter in us over the last year. Okay, okay, must move on.... it's not normal to be up at 4:15 with all my children sound asleep, but it's also not normal for me to be the one crying at 4:15 in the morning!!
Our schedule has changed drastically over the last 9 months. We originally had a bottle feed every 3 hours. Oh, how I'm glad that's over with!!! The babies now wake up around 8 am and have breakfast and a bottle. Around 11 they have a veggie and sometimes a fruit too and then another bottle and they settle in for a long nap!! They stay in their beds until 4, which is slowly becoming awake time from 3 to 4, but they're pretty good at staying in their beds until 4. We just cut out the 4:00 bottle and now have snacks. They love YoBaby yogurt, Gerber Puffs and Baby Mum-Mum's! Around 6:00 we start dinner and fruit and then they have their night bottle around 7 and go to bed after some loving! It's come a long way and it's still not perfect, but it'll do for now!!

Cannon Gregory
2 Pounds, 11 Ounces, 15 Inches
18 Pounds, 12 Ounces, 28 Inches

Gunner Cole
3 Pounds, 1 Ounce, 15 Inches
22 Pounds, 26 1/2 Inches

Lauren Katherine
2 Pounds, 10 Ounces, 14 Inches
14 Pounds, 25 1/2 Inches

Avery Caroline
2 Pounds, 8 Ounces, 13 Inches
15 Pounds, 4 Ounces, 25 1/2 Inches

Whew, we have come a LONG way!!

Now to answer some questions from the last post:
Leigh: What and where is Malbis?
Malbis is in Alabama. It's the Eastern Shore Shopping Center. It is an awesome place that I highly recommend for a family outing. They have a splash pad, Build A Bear, tons of great stores and even better food!
Teri Duggan: I love the big bow; where do you find them?
The bows pictured in the last post are the same bows that were previously in their headbands. I purchased both from My Dolly's Bows.
She's super cheap and very easy to work with!
Nicole: Quick question, how do you get your blog name to post on the pics on the blog? I think that is a great idea!
I use Picasa to edit my photos with and it's an option on there. I copied the idea from a Quad Mamma Sista and started doing it.

I am only a few post away from my 100th and I have something really fun in store with some great give-a-ways!
Hint: One of the give-a-ways is from.....

It's $15 dollars off of a blog design. Isn't that AWESOME!!! Thanks Jennisa!

By the way, how do you like my new look?