Still Digging Out

I love a snowy Christmas, it reminds me of childhood going to grandma's house and having a Christmas eve gift giving. Well, at that age, it was a gift opening and it was always such fun to get to open something early! I hope that my kids have fond memories when they get older. Not just about Christmas past but wonderful memories of things that we did or will do as a family. I have a short "bucket list",perhaps the kids will want to accompany me as I cross things off the list. One thing I'd really love to do is go see the northern lights. I need to research and determine when is the best time to go. Jeff isn't thrilled with the idea but I'll gladly follow him on a vacation that he wants to do, if he'll follow me on mine.

Santa's Haul

Nascar 09. What could be better???

Opening gifts could be better!

and more gifts.....

and still more gifts.

• Christmas brought some wonderful visitors, 28 family members and one huge snowstorm. I think that the pile of gift wrap, opened boxes, toys, clothes and Wii and PS2 games was much deeper than the 9 inches of snow that we got. Now, 5 days later, I'm still digging out but not from the snow. The digging involves the clutter that is left in the wake of a Christmas brunch with 34 people total, when you add in us Keller's.
  
  
  
  
  Christmas was a wonderful day. I always love having people come to our home and celebrate with us. Like I said earlier in this post, we had 28 visitors and the 6 of us crammed into this house. Makes me realize how small my kitchen is and how nice it would be to have more space for entertaining. But, we have a house, we have work, and I am able to stay home with our kids. For me, that is what is most important.
  

Late

Those of you who know me know that I am always late. I think I'm 5 to 15 minutes late but my family says it's more like 15 to 30. I think they exaggerate. Dad says I'll be late to my own funeral, I think he's right. You see, I have a problem. I'll have 10 minutes before I have to leave and, since I hate to waste time, I'll start a 15 minute project thinking that if I just hurry I can still be on time. Well, it never works out that way and I show up late to everything. At least now that I have the kids, people think I'm late because I have four 6 year olds, not because I have poor time management. If I don't correct them, they think that I must be an amazing mother who has her hands full with four first graders yet stil manages to only be 5 minutes late to school. Truth is, I was late before they were born. Now I just have something to blame it on.
The reason for telling you this is that I'm late posting some updates so you may find me telling stories from a few weeks back. My blog won't exactly follow any chronological order but I'll try to keep it comprehendable.
So, in the spirit of being late, I'll now post Halloween pictures.
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Above picture is Mason as Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Carson as Jimmy Johnson

The picture below is Jaxon as the cutest Batman ever and Amanda as a pink Unicorn




I found myself a little sad that they didn't want to dress up in themed costumes this year. It seems that they've all gone and got opinions while I wasn't looking. Oh well, maybe when they are older and can appreciate the whole quadruplet thing they will go back to dressing in a theme.
I thought Three Blind Mice would be a scream!

Binkys Bottles and Butts, Oh My!

I returned Sunday night from a trip to visit Mike, Amber, and their four precious infants. I spent two glorious days holding babies, getting spit up and peed on, washing bottles, replacing lost binkys into crying little mouths, and sleeping for an hour at a time.
What a wonderful way to spend a weekend.
It brought back so many great memories of doing the same for my own little babies... But that was yesterday. Today, my babies don't need the kind of help that Amber's babies do. I realize that as time goes on they will need me even less. I hope they never outgrow the need to sit on my lap and get hugs.
I realized that Jeff and I can really pat ourselves on the back for surviving that first year. I had forgotten how intensely tiring and fulfilling it had been. Thank God I get the priveledge of helping (to a very small extent) a friend get through her first year. I wish I could do more, but distance has me at a disadvantage.
Thank you Mike and Amber for sharing your babies with me.

"Here's Your Sign"

Last night, while driving my kids home from their cousins birthday party, I came upon a car facing the wrong direction in the emergency lane. Further inspection of the vehicle showed a young girl on a mobile phone and a nasty scrape down the passengers side of her car. I pulled over to help.
"Did you see that?" she questioned me. "No, I didin't see anything, I just stopped to see if you were OK." "Well, someone just hit me and left. They didn't even stop to see what had happened" the girl replied. It seems that she was a new driver of 8 months, and had never been in an accident. "I can't believe they just left", she lamented. "Well" I said, "it won't be hard to find them, they left their front license plate sticking out of your door."
I wish I wouldn't have forgotten that my new phone takes pictures. It really was quite funny to see the perpatrator's calling card sticking straight out of the edge of the passengers side door.
The officers soon arrived and got quite a kick out of seeing someone leave their signature at the scene of a crime....And you know what? They got pictures!

Disneyland

This year's Disney trip will not soon be forgotten! We started out by leaving almost 2 hours late, then one of the three vehicles suffered tire damage while only an hour from home. Thankfully, we were close to a tire shop. Four new tires and an hour and a half later we were on the road again! A few more mishaps were coming our way but all were due to mother nature so we had no control.
The first night we stopped in Vegas and went to the Nascar Cafe. For those of you who don't know, Mason and Carson (the identical twins) are Nascar freaks! This is their favorite place to eat. Then off to Disney and California Adventures!
Now the mother nature induced mishaps begin....There is only a 2% chance of rain in Anahiem the week we went and we managed to find one of the two days in a hundred on Monday. Luckily the rain only lasted for half the day and the rest of the day was cool and beautiful. It then heated up to almost 100 on Wednesday, forcing a lot of our group to flee for the comforts of the hotel pool and the rest of us to stay cool anyway possible in the parks. It wasn't easy, we had to take frequent breaks to play in the water at Bugs Life or to soak our shirts in cold water in the bathrooms. Then on Friday, we anxiously awaited the fireworks that everyone talks about. We scouted out a perfect location, complete with 3 benches for all 23 of us and waited more than 2 hours only to have the park cancel the fireworks due to the direction of the wind.
In spite of all the things that went wrong, we really had a lot of fun in the parks. We also took the kids to the beach for the first time ever.
Hopefully we will be able to vacation again next year. I think we may try somewhere different so if anybody has any great ideas, please share!

Four Little Monkey's Sleeping on the Bed

One fell off and broke his head...

Yes, my kids sleep in my bed. Chastise me if you must but they started doing this about 2 years ago and it's now such a habit that even if they start out in thier own beds, they wind up in ours by nights end. All 4 kids plus me and Jeff jockey for position and attempt to have enough space, and blankets, to sleep peacefully. Well the night before last while I was in a restful, Ambien induced sleep, I hear a thud followed by crying... Jaxon had fallen out of bed. I didn't think too much of it as Jeff went about the business of comforting him and getting him back to sleep. Next morning, I notice the poor little guy has a shiner. I think we either need to get the kids sleeping in their own beds or buy a bigger bed. Do they make beds bigger than king size?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEFF!!!

The kids put the candles on his cake. Jeff just laughed when he saw that the kids made him age several years by swapping the candles around.

Blowing out the candles (not bad for a 64 year old)

Playing his Guitar hero that he got for his birthday.

Happy Birthday Babe! I love you!

First Day, First Grade

Well, it happened. They left me. My children are officially in school all day, 5 days a week. I found that I wasn't as sad as I thought I would be. Maybe it was because of their antics yesterday of dumping a box of cereal all over the floor, throwing Coke cans in the driveway to watch them explode, fighting over the WII or pretending to need to pee "really bad" while at Wal-Mart just to watch the automatic toilets flush, making a 30 minute trip last an hour and a half. Maybe the sadness will hit me tomorrow. Maybe it will take a few days to sink in. I do know however, that my babies aren't babies anymore. They had to learn their PIN number for school lunch and all I could think was "aren't they too young to have a PIN number?" Obviously, from the pictures of Jaxon and Amanda eating school lunch they are plenty old enough to remember a PIN number, but as a mom I just wish they would stay little for a little longer. I find a little sadness always comes with the pride you feel as your kids learn and grow. Sadness for the times that will only live in pictures and in your mind (or on your blog!), but complete pride and adoration for the little adults that they are becoming.

Mason and Carson were so darling, they love their class and all their teachers. They are in a high functioning autism class with first and second graders. Many of the kids were in their class last year so the transition has been an easy one!

Speaking of memories, here's a couple more kid-ism's that I remembered recently:

One day I was making brownies. I asked Amanda if she would like to lick the bowl. She replied "No, my head won't fit in the bowl."

One of the kids friends was talking to my niece Cathy, who is deaf. Amanda looked at her friend and said "She's deaf, you have to speak to her in Spanish." (ummmm, she can't hear in Spanish either!)

We were driving past a house that had a garage stuffed to the rafters with junk, I'm not even sure if they could shut the garage door. Amanda said "there is a lot of crap in that garage!" Mason replied "Yeah, but there's no crapping in our garage." (Given how long it took him to potty train, I'm sure a LOT of crapping went on in our garage.)

Well, off I go to figure out what to do with my 6.5 hours a day child free. I doubt that I'll have any trouble filling up the time.

Is it kids day?

The monday after Father's Day this year, my oldest boy Mason (well all four kids are a total of 3 minutes apart so oldest simply means first one out) asked me if it was Father's Day again. "No" Is it Mother's day then? "No" Ooooohh it must be kids day, is it kids day mom? "Yes son, it's always kids day". He's got some great reasoning skills!
Carson, the second boy born, asked me to go to Wal Mart because he was out of peanut butter cups and Kitty Kats. I hope he never figures out that they are called Kit Kats because his name for the candy bar is much cuter!
I really need to start writing all the kid-ism's that come my way on a daily basis. I know many of them have been forgotten but hopefully, something will bring them out of the deep recesses of my half functioning brain. If that happens, I'd better be close to a pen so that I can jot it down. This blog may end up having sections of kid-ism's sprinkled in as I remember some and the kids say even more!

Let's start at the Very Beginning

I decided that blogging would be a great way to keep track of the day to day events in my life. I'm sure there are many funny things that have happened over the last 6 years that are lost in the dark abyss of my brain never to be retrieved again. Hopefully, this will be a source to help me remember and even provide a memory or two that may embarrass my kids one day! Here's a little background to start my blog...

Nineteen years ago I married my husband Jeff. Sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday, other times it feels like a lifetime ago but in any event, he is the most wonderful man. He's definitely the best dad in the whole world and I can't imagine my life without him. When he first met me, he wanted nothing to do with me. He even made a date with me once and stood me up to try to get rid of me. Being the stubborn person that I am, I saw it as a challenge and vowed that the man would go out with me come hell or high water. We often joke now that he was running from me because he had premonitions of what was to come!

Six years ago, we were blessed with our beautiful quadruplets. Mason, Carson, Jaxon and Amanda were born at 27 weeks 3 days gestation and weighed 2lb6oz, 2lb3oz, 1lb13oz and 1lb11oz. Mason and Carson are identical twins who shared a placenta but were thankfully separated by a membrane in their amniotic sac. It was a very high risk pregnancy but we knew we had to do whatever was necessary to get every one of these babies here. Despite their prematurity and a very tough start to life, they are healthy and happy now. One of the reasons for starting this blog now is that a friend of mine, Amber, is now pregnant with quadruplets (three boys and a girl also) and many of the memories are flooding back.

One of the challenges of being a quad mom is lack of time so most of my entries will be short. I just hope that they are at least coherent don't sound like complete ramblings of a mad woman. I'll do the best I can postine pictures and such but I'm afraid my computer skills are lacking. Perhaps I can ask my brilliant children to help me as this technology stuff is a piece of cake to them!

I'll post pics soon....