We've been having problems with the girls throwing all the clean clothes around their room when they should be sleeping.  Sometimes they play with the clothes before they go to sleep, sometimes its after they wake up, but they always do it stealthily, they make no noise at all because they know they're being bad. 

We've had this changing table since they were born with two open shelves below it where we keep their clothes in large baskets.  The girls were so bad about taking those clothes and throwing them about that the baskets have been living in the family room for a couple weeks.  Then the other night we hear a big boom and go into the room to see one of the girls on the floor with a stunned look on her face and the changing table laying on the ground.  She had climbed up on top and apparently toppled over with it so the changing table has now been relegated to the garage, which solves one problem but not the problem of where to store the clothes.

My mother-in-law found a neat dresser at a consignment store for $20 so now we've got that in the girls room, already bulging at the seams of course, and we hear another loud boom in the room while putting the babies down for the night last night.  This time it was Jacob, our oldest, who had pulled the top drawer out then yanked and the whole thing fell over on top of him.  He cried but thankfully only his feelings were hurt!  Anyway, bedtime was then immediately put on hold until daddy got the drill out and attached the dresser to the wall.  I'm glad we don't have to worry about that any longer, but wonder how long it'll take the girls to simply open the drawers and "decorate" the floor again.  Guess our next step will be to take all the furniture out of the room and leave them their mattresses

        

I just found out about PayPerPost from an interesting book I'm currently reading about blogs called "Blogging Heroes, Interviews with 30 of the World's Top Bloggers".  This is a really neat service where you can get paid for blogging when you write about certain topics. You basically take on assignments from advertisers to write about web sites, products, services, and companies and you can earn cash for providing your opinion and valuable feedback to advertisers, typically about $5 per post and up.  I think it sounds interesting and I'd like to try it out and just see how it goes - wouldn't hurt my feelings to make some much needed diaper money   Anyway, I will only choose assignments that I believe would be of interest to my readers and my reviews may be negative or positive but they will always be honest.  Furthermore, any sponsored posts that I do decide to make will be fully disclosed as they will all be classified under a "Sponsored Post" category.

If you're an advertiser or a blogger I'd recommend checking out PayPerPost.com for yourself!  Please don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts and give my your comments on my sponsored posts, I value your opinions!

        

I'm not at all sure how it happened - daddy likes to think that he's the tough one, but all of a sudden I'm the stern one and whenever the kids get into trouble they start calling for daddy, like he's going to save them from me or something.  He's pretty good about backing me up when I've put my foot down about something, but he has somehow turned into a pushover when it comes to the kids.  He gives in on things like leaving the light on at bedtime or going out without shoes on, then of course I'm the bad guy when I go turn the light off or try to get their shoes on them.  So for the kids its been all about daddy here lately - seems like everything I try to do, put them in the bed, get them dressed, etc they all tell me they "WANT DADDY DO IT"!!  Well paybacks are heck I think - just last night not one of the babies would let me put them in their jammies to get ready for bed.  Daddy had to diaper and clothe all of them by himself and at the end of "jammy time" he turns to me and says "I think I'm tired of being the popular parent". 

        

About six months ago we were having problems with the little boys if they pooped during nap or sleeptimes.  They just all of a sudden decided that it was a fun thing to do to decorate their rooms and cribs with poop.  It started out just occasionally then more and more often until we were ready to give up - we had tried tape around the diapers, layers of clothes, diaper pins, everything we could think of.  Then they just quit - I'm knocking on my head right now but they haven't done that again in a long time.

Now out of the blue the girls have started doing poop art in their room.  Same M.O. as the boys, they did it just a time or two over the course of a month or so, now they're doing it ALL THE TIME!!!  Last night about midnight Sienna scarts SCREAMING in her room.  We rush in to see what's wrong and it turns out that Sarah had taken off a poopy diaper and proceeded to smear it into the walls, carpet, sheets, clothes, her legs, just about everything within reach.  Apparently Sienna sat and watched her go wild until she actually got some poop on HER, that's when Sienna started hollaring.  Then today during naptime, all is quiet in their room (and believe me, whenever EVERYONE is quiet in this household, we let sleeping dogs lie) so we don't realize anything is going on until we hear a lound thump from their closet.  We go in to check and here are the girls in the cutest little dresses, with no diapers on, poop all over themselves, actually rubbed into the window panes, and all over the clean clothes they're sitting amongst on the floor that they've taken from the CHILD LOCKED closet.  BAGS of folded clothes previously divided into summer, winter, yard sale, etc just STREWN about the floor and them sitting there looking like they're proud of themselves.  It's gotten so bad that we've run out of spare sheets for their beds, we can't wash them fast enough.  I just hope nobody opens the closet door for awhile, they could get lost in there now! 

        

On Thursdays we make our weekly run to the grocery store.  My mother-in-law comes out to the house and gives us some MUCH APPRECIATED (and well deserved) time off from the young'ns.  We do the usual errands (bank, post office, etc) then take ourselves out to lunch at the Chinese buffet before hitting the store.  Sad as it may sound, its our TREAT for the week!  (probably the kids' treat for the week too - they dig hanging out with nana, and for some reason they mind her much better than they do us)  So yesterday we get in the van to head out and within two minutes we realized something was TERRIBLY WRONG!  No matter how much we turned up the A/C it just wasn't cooling off.  It was already in the 90s out (and about 130 inside our Chevy microwave) and we had a looooooooong way to go!  Oh well, at least it was just us and not the kids so we dealt with it.

We are very fortunate that both my husband and I are able to run our own businesses from home, but it can be VERY challenging to squeeze everything you have to do to run a house full of kids and two businesses into only 24 hours.  To help us catch up on the week's work (and to help retain our sanity) my parents have been keeping the kids on Thursday nights - they come pick them up in the van, leave us their car and we go pick them back up the next day.  Well we couldn't figure out what to do about getting the van into the shop because we can't be without it or there's no way to carry the kids around so my parents figured out a way that they could take it in next week and bring it back to us when they come to pick up the kids next Thursday - way kewl of them to take the time out of their lives to deal with it for us.

Head over today to pick up the kids only to find out that my dad had given up his weekly breakfast and golf game with the buddies to take the van in and get it fixed.  Said he didn't know what we'd been grumbling about until he drove home in that tin can (only the front windows open) and he decided it had to be fixed right away.  Honestly I think he just couldn't stand the thought of the kids riding around in it.  THANKS SO MUCH DAD!!  You're the best

        

Now that we've got the pool filled with water the kids have slowly been getting used to paddling around in it wearing their swim vests.  It's funny how the girls are much braver than the boys - they're trying to dog paddle and kick their legs, and love to act like they're "swimming".  The two little boys will get in the water, then back out, then back in.  They splash around and love the water, but they're very cautious of it, which isn't a bad thing I guess.  But Jacob - our oldest, he hasn't stepped foot in the pool again since we got it filled up.  That first day when we were filling it up we all played around in a few inches of water, but he just cannot be cajoled back into the pool.  We have a large plastic tub with rope handles that we keep beside the pool to store the floaties and pool toys and the last couple times we've been out in the pool Jacob will systematically take out all the toys and using a plastic cup will fill it up several inches with water from the pool.  He then proceeds to play in "his pool" and has a grand old time doing it, the first day he even wore his life jacket in his tub/pool. 

A few months ago we got brave and took all the kids down to the beach for an afternoon of fun and sun.  The kids all really enjoyed themselves and only wanted to go into the water with an adult of course, and only a foot or so out into the surf.  Things were going really well until Jacob fell face first into the water while throwing/chasing a stick along the shoreline.  We pulled him out right away but he refused to go back into the water that day.  We can only assume that the episode at the beach is the reason he's acting so scared of the water, but we really have no idea what to do to help him get over his fear.  We're being very gentle with him about it, don't want to push him and make it worse.  I'm sure that once he finally gets in and sees what a good time he's been missing out on that we'll then have problems getting him out of the pool, but I wish I knew how to help him get past it.

 

        

With as much food as these kids go through in a day now, we're scared to death of what its going to cost to feed them as they (and their appetites) grow!  Last year we started a garden but didn't really have time to maintain it.  We got tons of tomatoes and a few snap peas but that was about it.  This year we decided to try again now that the babies are a little older thinking we might have more time for weeding and watering.  Although it could stand more (a lot more) weeding, its doing pretty well so far.  We probably went overboard with the tomatoes this year - we have like six rows of different varieties, but the kids all love them and we wanted to have enough to share with others.  We also have about five rows of green beans cuz they're a favorite of the kids, thinking that would be enough to freeze or maybe can the extras.  They're getting eaten faster than we can put any away (we like them steamed with herbs and butter) but my mother-in-law gave me the BEST IDEA the other day - she says the best way to store any extra beans is to throw them right from the garden, without washing them, into a pillow case, tie the top shut and keep the bag in the freezer.  Just add more as you get them, or take them out as you need them.  Wash'm and cook'm - sounds like a plan to me!  Might have to get a 2nd pillow case cuz I'm thinking about doubling the number of rows for a winter garden.  If I'm still motivated after this summer that is

        

Night before last, about 10 pm, we hear one of the girls in the bedroom coughing like she was choking.  We went to check on the girls and Sienna tells us that Sarah "swallowed battery, swallowed battery".  She's kinda freaking out and Sarah's still coughing off and on so we question the girls some more - ask Sarah where's the battery now and she says "in my tummy", ask Sienna what the battery looked like and she said "little one from shelf". 

The babies recently got some bears that have buttons, snaps, zippers and more so they can practice fastening those things, but the bears also talked and it didn't take the babies long to figure out how to open the back and take out the four button cell watch type batteries from inside.  We quickly confiscated the bears and gave them all batteryectomies but we had left one on a top shelf in the girls room - this must be the battery they were talking about. 

Now we're getting really nervous - is the battery poisonous?  What do we do about getting it out?  I called the poison control center and they said that we needed to take Sarah to the emergency room and get an x-ray to determine the placement of the battery.  They told me that it could potentially come back up while she's sleeping and choke her to death. 

So here I am in the middle of the night driving the 45 minute trip to the hospital and of course they're PACKED when I get there.  After waiting there for over an hour a man with a visibly broken wrist got up and loudly proclaimed "s***w this, its been over six hours and I'm not waiting anymore, it'll still be broken in the morning!"  WOW - I figured I'd be settling in for the night at that rate, but it actually didn't take TOO much longer to get into x-ray.  Sarah had brought her favorite stuffed rabbit that she for some reason has named "Puppy",  so Puppy has to lay down with her on the exam table so they can x-ray her stomach.  I just about choked when asked if it was possible that I was pregnant (we were hoping for two and got a suprise five so I think we're done) because I had to keep Sarah still on the table while they took the picture.  We wait for a few minutes and the technician comes back to say we need to lay her back down and try again, need to get a picture a little higher up to locate the battery - so we try again.  NOPE!!  Nothing there!!  Don't know whether to be mad or relieved, but its MUCH better to be safe than sorry.  Now if I could only find the battery that WAS on the shelf

        

We had a Mercury Mountaineer SUV style vehicle when we had Jacob, we thought it would be perfect for having more kids so we were very pleased with our choice.  Then when we got pregnant with the quads we realized there was no way we were getting everybody in that car so we started looking for a minivan.  They've got some really cool features these days so weren't too bummered about it, but then we realized - they don't make a minivan that will hold five carseats, much less a couple of adults and groceries etc.  So we start over, looking for a van now, and it turns out that even a nine passenger van won't hold all of us plus the quad stroller and those pesky groceries.  We ended up with the mommy van of all mommy vans - a 15 passenger Chevy Express van, built to haul!  Would you believe - it actually gets better gas mileage than the Mountaineer, we were shocked!  Not that gas is affordable by any means, but at least we have the satisfaction of knowing its better than it would have been if we were still ridin' in style

Well getting this many kids loaded up to take them anywhere is like a minor military movement.  It takes lots of preplanning to get ready to go (do we have spare clothes, enough drinks, everybody's favorite blanket or toy or stuffed animal and so on), then we have to leave 30 minutes before we normally would if by ourselves to allow time to hustle everybody into their carseats and prepare for takeoff.  Yesterday, as we were huffing and puffing our way through getting the crew strapped in, I guess I was making demands like "put this here, I want that over there, make that strap tighter" and my husband turns to me and says "I am aware of your wishes my Mrs." and then proceeded to ignore me.  Is it any wonder we don't get out more often?

        

I don't really get it!  Jacob, our oldest, he never climbed the furniture, he never took his diapers off, he never smeared poop all over himself and the walls.  But the quads, now they're a whole different story!!  The climbing started with Sarah, then once she got going she taught everybody else and it was downhill from there.  We started having to move everything in the room higher and higher and then just eventually out of the room!  Now they're tall enough that they can reach several of the light switches with the help of nearby furniture and they just think that's a hoot! 

The two boys share a bedroom and the two girls share a bedroom.  They still have individual cribs in their rooms even though they can all get in and out of them easily enough (our project for the weekend is to take the sides off to turn them into "toddler" beds).  Well a little while back we were having problems with the boys - if they had a bowel movement while sleeping they would take the poop and smear it all over the walls, the crib and the floor, of course getting it all over themselves in the process   They would have the stuff SO SMEARED all over everything that it could actually sometimes take awhile to figure out which one provided the ammunition for the current explosion!  We tried everything, we taped their diapers on, we used snap shut shirts, snap shut shirts with tape, several layers of clothing, several layers of clothing with tape.  They could get out of anything we tried if they decided they wanted to, they were really just toying with us, letting us THINK we were in charge.  Then one day they just kinda quit doing it - OH JOY!!!!!!  No amount of talking, lecturing, begging or bribing did any good so we were just HUGELY relieved when it appeared to be over.

Now the girls have taken up where they left off.  It's unbelievable!  We only THOUGHT the boys were bad, the girls are downright creative and thats all I'm saying in case anyone is eating in front of the computer!  Anyway, they only wear diapers while they're sleeping and during the day they don't like for their underwear or clothes to be wet or dirty so why the fascination with smearing poop???????  I think if they were singletons that they wouldn't do it, that somehow they're egging each other on when they do it.  What do you think?  Any other experiences out there?  Any tips on getting them to QUIT???