Friday, July 31, 2009

Happy 2nd Birthday Kassidy, Rustin, Kyndall, Kaydence and Ryder!!!



Wow, I can't believe it has already been two years since the babies were born! What a miracle! Everyone is happy, healthy and developing right on schedule. Not a day goes by that I don't think about how blessed I am.
Last year we threw a big party for the first birthday. We had lots of visitors and the event was covered by several news stations. This year we are keeping things pretty low-key (not a single news camera in sight), but it should still be a lot of fun! I am sure I will have lots of pictures to post when it is all done!

In the mean time, in honor of their birthday, I thought I would post some of my favorite pictures of the quints from the past year!

July 31, 2008---The quints first birthday!



Our first trip to the Waco Zoo--August 2008




Group shot with my sister, Tiare, who came to help for 7 weeks last summer




Diapers, yeah!




"June" Calendar Photo---I love all their individual expressions.



"January" Calendar photo---this is one of my favorites




"August" Calendar photo



Pumpkin Patch--October 2008




Halloween 2008



Grandma and Grandpa Wilkinson Visit--November 2008




Thanksgiving 2008



Colby (my brother) and Neeha visit--December 2008



"December" Calender Photo taken by Kristen Duke



The boys at Christmas



The girls at Christmas



Typical attempt at a group shot--January 2009




"Book Club"--January 2008



18 Months Old!



Valentines Day--February 2009




Hugs! Kaydence and Kassidy



Kaydence and Rustin



Kassidy and Ryder



Kyndall and Rustin



Playing with boxes--March 2009



We love GG!!



Watching for Riley and Kaiya to get on the bus.



Grandpa with the quints--April 2009




Easter Egg hunt--April 2009




Group Shot (or at least my best attempt at one)




Easter Sunday Clothes




May 2009





Memorial Day with Mimi and Papa




Riley and Kaiya's last day of school--June 2009




Waiting to appear on Fox and Friends Morning Show--June 2009




Splash Park



Flag Tee's on the 4th of July 2009



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Friday, July 24, 2009

Deseret News/Mormon Times Article

The Mormon Times, a subset of Deseret News, printed an article today about the Stansel Family from Houston who is expecting sextuplets. I was interviewed as well and a few of my quotes are in the article. Unlike other recent interviews I have had, this one had a more positive focus--which was a refreshing change! To see the article, click HERE.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009

My Sister-in-law is a Genius

Benjamin Franklin once said, "A place for everything, everything in its place." I LOVE order and organization. I get excited every time I walk down the storage aisle at WalMart. When I go to the Container Store, I feel like a kid in a candy shop. (If it wasn't so pricey, I would be their number one customer.) I probably should have bought stock in Sterilite a long time ago because I own enough plastic storage containers to keep the company in business. As you can imagine, with seven kids, my house is definitely not as organized as I want it to be. I am always on the lookout for new and better ways of keeping things organized and for helping my kids to stay organized.

Getting my kids to keep their drawers organized has always been a constant struggle. Every laundry day, I would help them put their clothes away in neat stacks, but within a few days, they would be back to looking like a tornado had passed through. The problem was that they would decide they wanted to wear a shirt or pair of pants that was in the middle of the stack, but pulling it out would mess up the rest of the clothes.


I tried several things, but nothing was working. Then, on my mom's last visit, she told me about something that my brother's wife, Stephanie, does with her kids drawers. Instead of putting the clothes into the drawers in stacks, she turns the folded clothes so they go into the drawer sideways. This way, all of the clothes in the drawer can easily been seen and taking one item out does not mess up all the others. It is BRILLIANT! I have been using this system now for about three months and I love it!

Kaiya's shirt drawer. I fold the shirts into thirds so that they fit vertically in the drawer.


Riley's shorts and jammie drawer. Riley's drawers are not as deep as Kaiya's so I have to fold his shorts into thirds and shirts into fourths so that they fit.



Kaiya's pants drawer. Instead of folding the pants small, I fold them in half and lay them sideways.


Riley with his shirt drawer. Riley got the organizing gene from me, so he is very happy with the new system.




Kaiya did not get the organizing gene, but she is happy that I no longer have to get upset about her drawers!!

THANK YOU STEPHANIE!!!



On a somewhat unrelated note, I was "organizing" my pictures the other day and realized that there were a few good ones taken over the last few months that I never got around to posting, so I thought I would tack them on the end of this post:



Kyndall, Ryder, Kassidy, Rustin and Kaydence. It is soooo difficult to get a decent picture with all five babies. Riley helped me out on this one by acting goofy and pretending to trip, which the babies all thought was hilarious.



My mom and dad (aka "Mimi" and "Papa") were in town for Memorial Day weekend. The babies were not quite as cooperative on this picture---in fact, I think we had to resort to turning on Sesame Street just to get them to stay on the couch (hence the trance-like expressions on their faces!)



Rustin, Kassidy, Kaydence, Ryder and Kyndall at our Memorial Day cook-out.



Kaiya's Kindergarten graduation.



Ryder, Kaydence, Kassidy, Kyndall and Rustin with Kaiya. I think the babies were more interested in the balloons than they were with getting their picture taken.



My sister, Tiare came to help for about 11 days in June. One of our favorite hang-outs is Costco! (from left to right: Kaiya, Kaydence, Kyndall, Kassidy, Riley, Tiare, Rustin and Ryder)



Riley and Kaiya both participated in swim team this summer and really made some big improvements during the season. Riley came in 8th place in breaststroke at the divisional meet, which was a big accomplishment for him.



At the end of June, Kaiya had her first dance recital. We might be a little biased, but we think she stole the show!


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