My Lil' Sick Princesses

Sick. Yup, sick again.

It started a few days ago with a few coughs and a fever here and there and just got worse. Way worse. We had the typical Motrin/Ibuprofen on board but they weren't helping. Baxlyn opted not to eat all day Sunday and by Sunday night she had a temp of 103 and Kylee 103.6. With high fevers and many coughs, it was a loonng night. This morning (Monday) I made the call the to pediatrician and was told to bring them in. Nana came over to watch the boys, I loaded up the girls and we were on our way. Upon arriving the nurse weighed them (Baxlyn 22lb 8oz Kylee 24lb 4oz) and took their temps. Luckily B was a normal 98.4 but Kylee was at 101.7 and the poor girl looked miserable. Whenever Kylee has to do something she's not a fan of (diaper change/having her face washed after meals/getting her hair put up...etc) we tell her "almost done, Baby, almost done". The second Dr. Reyes opened the door to our exam room, Kylee immediately yelled "AAAWWMOSE? AWMOSE?" Bless her heart! She knew he was there to mess with her.

After a thorough examination, we found that Kylee has a single ear infection and a rough cough (although her lungs are clear yay!) she was given a shot to help bring down her fever as well as antibiotics. Miss Baxlyn wasn't as lucky. Although she seemed to be feeling better than Kylee, her case was a little worse...pneumonia and although they didn't do an RSV swab to prove it, RSV is a possibility after listening to her lungs. That's two babies within 2 months being diagnosed with pneumonia. Gotta love those premature lungs (ya feel my sarcasm?)! So Baxlyn left with a prescription for steriods, antibiotics, as well as making this Mommy a not so proud owner of a nebulizer. Once we got home, Baxlyn puked the little lunch she had had up all over me and the floor and within minutes poor Kylee was BEGGING to go night night. Although it sucks that they're sick, I'm SO THANKFUL this crud hit us this year and not last year. Sure their little lungs are not the best of the best, but they are much stronger than they were and this diagnosis last season could have easily landed us in the hospital.

Non stop coughs and tears from my poor baby girls :(

Baxlyn did GREAT with her first breathing treatment!
My hopes are high it's all uphill from here but realistically there's a good probability we will be seeing Dr. Reyes again sooner than later. If Kylee's fever returns and is high tomorrow, we go back. If Baxlyn is still wheezing on Thursday, we go back. If either of the boys spike a fever in addition to the minor coughs they already have, you guessed it, we go back. So if ya could, please say a lil prayer for our sweet babies and that they are as good as new in no time!

The Best Birthday Yet: Part 3!

After a fun filled day at the pediatrician's office and the zoo, Nana met us at our last stop - a place called Going Bonkers! It's the biggest jungle-gym I have ever seen, I mean HUGE and it's open to people of ALL ages which means Mommy & Daddy can climb and have fun too! We got there at about 4:30pm and I thought we would be lucky if the babies lasted 2 hours. Boy was I wrong! we finally had to drag them out at 8:30pm! It was 4 hours of straight FUN!

There's a small area blocked off for kids ages 3 and under. Completely padded with no super high areas, the babies are totally safe in there (with parents supervision of course)! While there it was just our 4 plus one other little boy (who towered over our little squirts). His mom and I got to talking and it turns out it was his 2nd Birthday too and he was born just 45 minutes before ours - small world! Below we have the Bro-man peeking around the pole...Brody and Baxlyn at the top of the slide. Look at these faces, seriously, they loved it!
Baxlyn

My handsome Mr. Korbin (their awesome shirts by Designed For Babies of course!)

Sweet Kylee Mae

Lil' Miss B

Kylee & Daddy

My Cheeser Brody!

There was one point I looked towards the back of the toddler play area and saw what looked like my babies FLYING up in the air... I went back to find this...

Scared the heck out of me, but once I saw they loved it I agreed to go grab the camera and snap a few pics. By the way, this area was NOT made for bouncing on, there was hardly any give at all to this weaved tunnel type thing but somehow, Bret got them to soar high...

More beautiful smiles from my beautiful 2 year olds!

Kylee and I after Korbin bit my lip and drew blood - ouch!

After hours of play we lit the candles on the cake Dr. Reyes gave them earlier that morning. THANKS DR. REYES! (The cake was MUCH prettier before we moved all of the candles around so all the babies could see!)

After 4 rounds of "Happy Birthday" we let them dig in!
Our lil' family - after surviving 2 years!

That about sums it up for their 2nd Birthday! I know they'll have a blast at their real party once RSV season is over!

The Best Birthday Yet: Part 2!

Part two of the Quad's 2nd birthday we spent at the ZOO! Big Surprise, huh? I'm teased by everyone all the time on how often I take these kiddos to the zoo, but we LOVE it! Last week was one of the best trips so far. Daddy was with us, the weather was a perfect 68 degrees, and it just happened to be the same day our local moms of multiples group went too so we met up with a couple of triplet friends to spend the afternoon! Below we have the Ballew Triplets, the Tew Triplets, and our lil' clan ready to roll...

Angela and I go to the zoo often together and completely wear ourselves out pulling the choo choos around everywhere and up and down hills, Bret did most of the pulling this time....ahhhh thank you Bret! Pretty funny to walk 20 feet behind him and watch the reactions from others when they see him and his parade of babies!

Another first for Bret was keeping track of a 7 toddlers and a 4 year old while us moms did the diapee changes after lunch. He had an audience watching him from the cafeteria windows!

The babies' favorite stop at the zoo is the goat pen. It's a small area that the kids go into to pet (or in Kylee's case ride, pull on, poke, smell, kiss...etc.) the "Doats". This was our best shot at a group pic...

Baxlyn and Daddy

I would seriously consider getting a goat if I had to... they are SO patient with kids, it amazes me. The first time we let the babies in with them, I was a little nervous I would be with an unfamiliar dog. Now days I swear you could drop em off, go for lunch, come back and they would still be there having a bawl and the poor goats would just be sitting there like they always do. Here's a picture of Korbin playing with this poor guy's ear flinging it back and forth over and over and ovverrr... he thought it was hilarious.

Sweet Kylee is in Heaven when she's around animals and cares nothing about anything else surrounding her. She loves (almost) any animal and doesn't hesitate to touch! Here's my sweet girl getting up close and personal with a "Doat"..."Doat? Doat? Eat? Doat?"

Korbin, Kylee & Brody

Before heading out after a long day at the zoo, we decided to let each one ride the horse. We paid $2 for each baby to walk in a 50 foot circle one time. Really? It's their birthday, nobody else is waiting in line, you have nothing else to do, ya can't take em around twice?! Anyways, Brody was up first and enjoyed every second of it, he would have stayed on all day. The entire time I could hear him yell "Woohooo Woah! WOW!" it was ADORABLE!

Next up was Miss Baxlyn, a little more cautious and still, but had a good time none the less!

After B was Korbin. Love this picture of Baxlyn watching him through the fence!
Poor Kylee, as surprising as it is, wanted NOTHING to do with that horse. Each time we would put one back to grab another she would cry and say Nooooo. Once the other 3 had gone I asked her "Ky Ky, do you want to ride the horse?" to which she quickly replied "Nooo Nooooooooo Buh-bye Buh-Bye NOOO!!!!!". It broke my heart that she was so terrified. Here she is waving and yelling "no". My poor doll!Once we chuggalugged away from the horse Kylee was fine and the rest of our day was nothing but smiles. We packed up and the babies napped on our way to our final destination to end our day of celebrating their 2nd birthday. Stay tuned for Part 3 of The Best Birthday Yet!

The Best Birthday Yet: Part 1!

The quads had a GREAT birthday, seriously nothing but fun for them and us! Bret and I decided to postpone their birthday party until May hoping we will have better weather as well as lessening the chance of sickness and germs. Bret took the day off work so we could all be together on their our special day. We didn't do birthday hats, balloons or even presents. Instead we just had fun and reflected on the past two years and how thankful we are that our sweet babies are here with us today. We thought about the first sonogram when we first saw our little black blobs, our second sonogram when the doctor said the terrifying words "There might be a fifth....", the day I was admitted at 26 weeks, the moment my doctor said he would be back around 5pm to take them, and the exact moments they were born.... their b i r t h d a y .

First thing in the morning we went to see Dr. Reyes for their 2 year check up! This was the first time they could all walk into the office on their own, nobody being held, no strollers... that alone was amazing. We were greeted by all of the nurses who showed us to our room and started taking temps, measuring heights and head circumferences and taking weights!

This was also their first check up that they were able to stand on the big big/girl scale!

Dr. Reyes, being the phenomenal doc he is, even had a 3-tiered birthday cake waiting for them with "Happy Birthday" written with candles! THANKS AGAIN!!

Brody's Stats:

At birth: 3lbs At 2 years: 26lbs 8oz (30th percentile for full-term two year olds)

At birth: 15inches At 2 years: 33inches (15th percentile)

Baxlyn's Stats:

At birth: 2lbs 10oz At 2 years: 23lbs 1oz (7th percentile)

At birth: 15inches At 2 years: 33 1/4inches (33rd percentile)

Kylee's Stats:

At birth: 2lbs 7oz At 2 years: 24lbs 4oz (18th percentile)

At birth: 14 1/2inches At 2 years: 33 3/4inches (47th percentile)

*Kylee's head circumference is looking much better than before. Still not on the charts, but the docs are not as worried now!!!*

Korbin's Stats:

At birth: 2lbs 11oz At 2 years: 26lbs 4oz (27th percentile)

At birth: 14inches At 2 years: 34 3/4inches (59th percentile WOW!)

Our next rounds of tests were hearing and vision. I had a feeling we would need to check these two areas and was a little apprehensive... hearing and vision tests on 4 two year olds can't be fun, or easy. To my surprise it was a breeeeze, SO easy! The pic below shows Brody going first at the eye exams... it was like a camera that flashed a few little lights for a few seconds and that was it!

Kylee was next...Then Korbin, who immediatley flashed a smile thinking it was just another picture being taken!

Then it was Baxlyn's turn. If you know this girl, you KNOW she is different, in a good way, but different. Very independent and always does her own thing, she doesn't follow the crowd, she leads the crowd. At this point in time she was "cuh-lah cuh-lah"ing and didn't want to be disturbed. "Baxlyyyynn... look at the camera Miss Baxlyn....here Baxlyynnn..." the nurse tried and tried to get her to cooperate (and by cooperate I mean look at the camera for like THREE seconds) like the rest of them. Baxlyn would look up for .2 seconds and then go right back to coloring. After a few minutes of begging, we had to give up. This lil' girl didn't get her eye exams done.
Sooo GOOD NEWS - the eyes were easy, quick, and painless. BAD NEWS - they all failed multiple tests on their left eyes, Brody's being the worst. Nothing to be too worried about, but we will be making an appointment with Dr. Leffler in the near future... and that one, Miss B will be attending as well. After the eyes we went for the ears and again they all (even Baxlyn) cooperated and all passed with flying colors!

The Quads at their first year appointment with Dr. Reyes!
Much happier Quads at their 2nd year appointment with Dr. Reyes!

Thanks so much to Dr. Reyes and the staff at Stonebridge Pediatrics for being so good to us. We appreciate everything you have done for us over the past 2 years!

Stay tuned, readers! The Best Birthday Yet: Part 2 is next!

Happy Birthday My Beautiful Babies!

February 16th 2009

Two years ago today, four tiny babies were born and had already beaten the odds that were stacked against them in an extremely high risk pregnancy...

The next few months they literally fought to live and by God's grace, all pulled through. A day has not gone by, and never will, that I don't thank our Lord Jesus Christ for these precious gifts.

Happy 2nd Birthday Brody Baxlyn Kylee & Korbin, we cannot believe you are TWO already! There are no words I can type that will make you know just how much you mean to us. We have enjoyed every day with you and look forward to so many more and seeing what else God has in store for your little lives! We LOVE you and are so so so so so so so so so so so PROUD of you! You will always be our babies!

-Mommy & Daddy

Valentine Quads!

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