9 Months Old!

The kids turned 9 months old on March 20th! I can hardly believe it! This first year is going by so fast! They'll be a year old in no time! Michelle was out-of-town that day, so I got crazy and decided to try taking their pictures myself. The results aren't too bad, but the experience was! There just wasn't enough time to change diapers and outfits and take pictures all by myself after the noon bottles but before it got too close to naptime and they got all cranky. So I got individual shots, but no group one. I'm not too concerned though since we got good group shots the week before when my family was here.

The grin is slightly evil because that it what Jonathan was! Slightly evil! In his seated pictures, he kept trying to crawl away, and in his standing ones, all he wanted to do was grab the drape and pull it or stick it in his mouth!

Second-best baby of the afternoon, but only because I took the other three who were crying in the background and put them to bed before getting any good shots! Before that, Zachary just kept looking at the ones who were crying.

Best baby of the afternoon!

Maybe it's because she went first, but Reagan was great the whole time!

I think Thomas may have been a little sleepy. He looked like this in every picture I took. He also didn't want to stand. He just leaned against the box and kept sliding off the side.

One more shot of my little angel!

And the Crawling Award Goes To...

Jonathan!

Despite Thomas' efforts over the last two months or so, Jonathan beat him to this milestone. It was a very fast progression. The last couple of days of my family's visit, he started making definite crawling efforts. Then on Saturday the 17th, he crawled! It was so fast! We captured some early steps on film on the 18th.

In his early crawling days, he needed a real incentive, like Daddy's coffee mug. He is particularly attracted to dishes. Gradually, he came to realize that crawling was good for getting to other things, like toys or siblings. It took him a while to get up the nerve to leave the playroom. He has taken to bursting into tears every time I leave the room lately, so if the kids were in the playroom and I would leave, he would crawl to the edge of the carpet and then lay down and scream like his little heart was broken and I'd abandoned him forever. This makes it very hard for me to do anything...ever...but I just can't stay in the playroom every second! If I did, the laundry would never get put away, I'd never get to go to the bathroom, and we'd all starve to death.

Then there were several days where he would crawl just a couple of feet into the kitchen before collapsing in a broken-hearted pile. Then this past Friday he crawled all the way to the edge of the kitchen and sat there crying. He has yet to leave the kitchen.

Luckily in the last couple of days he has discovered the joy of exploring the playroom more, so sometimes I can leave the room without him noticing and then everything is okay. It's always fine unless he actually sees me walking away.

With this new crawling talent has also come the ability to sit up on his own. We discovered this the Wednesday after he first crawled when I went to get him up in the morning and he was sitting up in the crib. So Jim lowered the crib mattress that day.

And today he started really trying to pull up to stand. He only does well when pulling up on objects about a foot and a half tall, but if they are stable enough, he can stand up while leaning on them all by himself! He may be the first to walk too! We'll see!

Carter's First Birthday!

Last weekend, on St. Patrick's Day, Carter turned one year old! For those of you who don't know, Carter is the son of our neighbors and good friends Josh and Cris. So we dressed the kids in green and headed across the back yard for his birthday party last Saturday afternoon. There was a huge crowd, as their family is pretty big, and the kids were quite a hit. It was the first time some of them had seen the kids, and of course any time you see quads for the first time, it's kind of a big deal. Carter was delighted to have his best friends over for the party.

Happy Birthday to ME!!

I don't know if you can see them, but there are 4 cameras (not including mine!) pointed at the kids in this picture!

The gang's all here!

Hey man, glad you could make it!

Birthday Boy!

My favorite present! It's from the Quads!

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday dear Carter! Happy Birthday to you!

What is this stuff?

We all had a blast! Happy Birthday Carter! May we be with you to celebrate many more!

Also, earlier that day we had a visit from Jim's cousin Caleb. He was in town to help a friend of his and dropped by to see the kids and have a little playtime.

PS--Happy Birthday to me! The day of this post is MY birthday!

David is SO cool!

Michelle has often remarked on how helpful David has been in entertaining Abby, pretty much since she first learned to smile. And he has certainly been great with my kids, especially now that they are old enough to really pay attention to him and smile and laugh at his antics. David is always eager to jump about and make funny faces and funny noises for their amusement. Here are a few pictures of him playing with the kids.

Can you see the smile on Thomas' face?

What about the look of complete adoration on Reagan's?

See, there were these two ducks...

Hey, where did he go?

There he is!

Look, there he is again!

Thanks David! You are truly super-cool!

8 Month Pictures

Okay, I realize that the kids will be 9 months old tomorrow, but here are their 8 month pictures anyway! Thanks once again to Michelle for her wonderful photographic skills, particularly as the kids get older and harder to capture on film. They are so much more interested in doing anything other than smiling directly at the camera!

Jonathan

Zachary

Reagan

Thomas

The kids had so much fun with their blankets that David and Abby wanted in on the fun too, so they had "blanket-head" pictures taken as well!

David

Abby

You'll have to excuse Thomas. Although quite capable of sitting up just as well as everyone else and certainly of smiling just as nicely, he refused to do either for this picture (or any of the other group pics we attempted to take that day!). Nevertheless, here they all are!

Happy 8 Months Old!

AND thank you Sabrina for the adorable outfits!

Fun with Cousin Kinley!

Last week my family came to visit. It was an extra-special visit because Aunt Jodie and Cousin Kinley came with KayKay and Daddy Bud. It was so great to see them since we hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving! Kinley is getting so big! She's talking now and loved to tell me every so often who everyone was, just in case I had forgotten. She would look at me and point at Jodie and say, "Mama!" so I would know that that was her Mama. She would do the same with KayKay and Daddy Bud, whom she calls simply Bud. It was terribly cute, and fun to think that this time next year, that's what my kids will be doing!

Aunt Jodie and Cousin Kinley

It was also fun to see Jodie all pregnant! She's due July 1st, but I'm hoping the baby comes a little early so she can be born in June like all the other grandkids!

We love Aunt Jodie!

See, we can all fit in one bed!

Playing with Daddy Bud

Thomas watching TV with KayKay

David and Abby came over to play with Kinley, and although it doesn't really show in this picture, she had a blast! David was the life of the party for her, and she and Abby just cackled at all the funny things he did to entertain them.

Kinley shows her cousins how the toy works

Mom and Jodie were a big help at feeding time!

Aunt Jodie and Zachary

Daddy Bud and Zachary

KayKay and Zachary

Jonathan says, "I won't look at the camera, and you can't make me! A-ha-ha-ha!"

Zachary says, "You think I'm the cutest, right?"

Reagan says, "Zachary's the cutest? Seriously?"

"You guys are all crazy! Obviously I'm the cutest!" replies Thomas

"Crazy?! Who said I was crazy? I'm not crazy!"

Okay, maybe we're all cute!

Now, this is the way to drink a bottle!

A full house!