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

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.

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!

Moments of Cuteness

I often get asked if things are getting easier. The answer is yes…..and no. If you look at things on the “easiness” scale from the very beginning, I would say that for the first 18 months, things continually got a little easier, with some big jumps in “easiness” around 6 months when we got everyone sleeping through the night, and again at 8/9 months when all the babies were taking two naps a day on the same schedule. For the past six months, the line on the “easiness” scale has fluctuated a lot---up for a while then down for a while, then up for a while, etc.

In some respects, things are definitely getting easier---the babies are getting a bit more independent and are able to do more things for themselves. Their vocabulary is expanding and they can understand more which means they can use words to tell me what they want, rather than just crying.

On the other hand, all these feelings of independence mean that the babies are doing all kinds of things, not all of which are good. They are curious about everything and now they are tall enough and smart enough to actually act on their curiosities. They have no concept of things being dangerous, which is a little scary. They interact more with each other, but don’t understand the concept of sharing, so there is a lot of fighting going on. In a nutshell, they act like typical two-year-olds.

Some days I feel like I run from one problem to the next. Fortunately, there are many cute moments to make up for the mischief and mayhem. Yesterday we had one of those moments. It was Monday, and all of us were a little grumpier than usual. (It seems like it always takes a day or two to recover from the weekend when the schedule is thrown off.) The morning was filled with fights and tantrums. Things improved a little bit after their naps, but it was still a pretty rough day. At one point, everyone looked fairly safe for the moment, so I decided to make a quick trip to the restroom. When I left, Rustin and Kassidy were fighting over a book in one corner of the room, and Kyndall, Kaydence and Ryder were playing with toys in different parts of the family room. When I returned, this is what I found:

Kassidy, Rustin, Kyndall, Kaydence and Ryder

Total Cuteness! I raced for the camera and took a few pictures. To my surprise, they got mad when I stopped taking pictures and they asked for more! They are so funny sometimes!

Where's your nose???

Where's your head???

Here are a few more cute and not so cute moments that I managed to get pictures of:

NOT SO CUTE: Somebody left my bedroom door open, and within minutes my entire wrapping paper collection was spread all over the room.

CUTE: Virginia leading the quint train (minus Kyndall) around the house

NOT SO CUTE: Kaydence got into one of Kaiya's bags and had a great time with the markers. Rustin (not pictured) was a willing accomplice, only he decided to see if the marker was as fun to eat as it was to color with.

CUTE: The babies love books and Kaiya loves to read to them.

NOT SO CUTE: Our entryway has a table surrounded by a gate. It is supposed to be a place where people can put things like shoes, bags, keys, etc, to protect them from the babies. Somehow, Kyndall not only got past the gate barrier, but she managed to climb into the table. Kyndall is also the first one to climb out of her crib (it was at nap-time, so it was a pack-n-play in Kaiya's room, not a regular crib). I went to get her up, and found her asleep in the middle of Kaiya's floor, surrounded by all of Kaiya's CD's, CD cases, dolls, and stuffed animals. (I wish I would have gotten a picture of that one!)

CUTE: Kyndall can squeeze herself into the smallest spaces.

NOT AS CUTE: Kaydence turned a small crack in the TV into a gaping hole.

CUTE: I was trying to take a picture of Riley on the last day of school, and all five babies ran over and wanted to be a part of the picture too.

NOT AS CUTE: Ryder climbed up onto the desk in the kitchen (which he knows is a no-no) and tried to close the laptop so he could reach the phone (also a no-no). At the time, the mouse was sitting on the computer keyboard, so the result was a broken computer screen.

CUTE: Five babies all dressed up for church! The girls especially love to get dressed up on Sunday. They get really excited when I bring out the dresses, and they fight over who gets to have their clothes put on first. When they get their dress on, they spin around and say "so pretty!"

Fortunately, the "cute" moments outweigh the "not as cute" moments at our house. Life with (nearly) 2-year-old quintuplets and two older kids might not be "easy", but at least it isn't boring!

4th of July

Our 4th of July festivities were pretty typical: Riley and Kaiya rode their bikes in the neighborhood parade and we had a few friends over for dinner. We all tried to look festive for the occasion in our matching Flag Tee's. At our house, matching shirts = Kodak moment, so here are a few pictures from the day!

All the kids: Kaydence, Kassidy, Kaiya, Rustin, Riley, Kyndall and Ryder

Kaiya and Kyndall

Kassidy

All 7 kiddo's playing together (and no one is fighting, so it was definitely a picture worthy moment :-) )

The Wilkinson Fam: Rustin, Kaiya, Kassidy, Rachelle Kyndall Jayson, Kaydence, Riley and Ryder

Our Traditional 4th of July Porch Picture: Rustin, Ryder, Riley, Rachelle, Kassidy, Jayson, Kaydence, Kyndall and Kaiya

The Quints "Secret" Language

Do the quints have a secret language? Find out in the newest WQ+2 Super Short.



If you missed the first WQ+2 Super Short, you can see it HERE.

We are also working on another Quint Olympics....more on that in a future post. To see past events of the Quint Olympics, check out the links below.

Event 1: Toy Wrestling
Event 2: The Cheerio Eating Competition
Event 3: The Crawl Race
Event 4: Gobble, Gobble Competition

Happy viewing!