the QUADS are 21!

So it was just a mere 21 years ago that my wonderful brothers and sisters were born....Happy Birthday Greg, Jordan, Heidi and Amy!

(if you ever read this...greg and jordan you are on missions, you have an excuse)

Most of those who know me know I have quadruplets for brothers and sisters! (not to be confused with quadriplegic, there has been a mix-up in the past) I think back 21 or so years ago having quadruplets wasn't so common, because nowadays people are having like 7 or 8 babies at a time octomom style.....but back then the quads were quite the story, even got a little news time ( Baby X 4 they were called) and a documentary video that was actually still seen in childhood development when I was in high school. Kind of funny....

This picture is so cute, from left to right there is Amy, Heidi, Jordan and Greg. I just have to give my parents serious props. I don't think you could fully appreciate what it would be like to have a 5 year old, a 2 year old and 4 babies (with Tay arriving a mere 2 years later) until you have kids of your own! Seriously, I don't know how in the world they did it! Day by day I guess? What else is there!

Well, we had a fun time celebrating their birthdays this weekend! Greg is currently serving a mission in Lima, Peru and Jordan is serving a sign language mission in Rochester, New York. We were sad they weren't here to celebrate, although we may have Jordans mission cell phone number and we may have called and left him a happy birthday message on his phone because he didn't answer....

We can't wait for them to be home June 17th!

She's 1!!!

Well, the day has come and gone...and Payton is officially one! Can't believe it! We had a great time celebrating her birthday and are soooo thankful for all the wonderful people in Payton's life who helped make this such a special day for her.
Payton at 1 year is.....

-28.5 inches long (25%)
-21.1 pounds (50%)

-Has just a baby bit of brown hair, sadly much less than she was born with!

-8 teeth, 4 on top, 4 on bottom
-just learned how to crawl!
-has ZERO interest in walking
-pulls herself up to her knees, not quite to the feet yet!
-says dadda, momma, heidi, ouch, ohhhhh, hi, and nana (banana)
-loves to blow kisses (well, sometimes) and wave hi and bye
-eats EVERYTHING but hates drinking milk :-(
-loves to dance to music

-likes to hold the phone up to her ear and say "hi"
-copies what you do (dance, shake your head, cough or sneeze)
-she is almost always happy!

We love our little Payton soooo much!

We had a little birthday bash on Saturday to celebrate.....

Grandma Sherri and Grandpa Scott with their most favorite (and only) Granddaughter

Payton just sat in the middle of chaos as Kaden ripped open all of her presents for her

What? It's not my party?


Payton wasn't quite sure what to do with her cake so......

she needed a little persuasion

before she finally dug in. Yummmmm

Since Sunday was her actual birthday my mom made her another cake so we could celebrate 1 more time. You only have a first birthday once...right?

And off to bed after a looooong weekend! Love ya Payton!

And on a different note, hasn't the warm(er) weather been fabulous!!!! I have had serious Spring Fever, but I think I got my hopes up too soon because as I write this it may actually be snowing :-( Anyone want to move to St. George? I do!!!! I am sick of the snow! Kaden looooved being able to go outside and "shoot hoops" and play golf. I loved not having him in the house all day!

Love it.

Payton is {almost) One

I have to say that I love having a girl. I can't deny it. I just can't get enough of Payton and her sweet sweet personality! She adds so much to our family and I just can't believe she is turning ONE! So, in honer of little Pay Pay and her first birthday I had the lovely and talented Lindsay Wright take some pictures of her and they turned out adorable! Check her out at lindsaywrightphotography.blogspot.com she does such a good job and is soooo good with kids (and adults too :-) ) She is wonderful!

Linds gave Payton this tulip and Payton just wanted to chew on the end of it the whole time, tulips are edible....right :-)

There are more I will post later when I get the CD from Linds!

Well...

Ugh, I am sick of looking at my blog and reading about the Holidays, this and that so I must write a new post! I feel like Christmas was 5 months ago (although I still seem to be recovering). Kaden's room was about the messiest thing I had ever seen for about 3 weeks while I contemplated where in the world to put all of his junk, aka "toys". I would say to myself "I really need to clean up Kaden's room, no no no, I need more time to really organize." And I did this for 3 weeks straight. Needless to say, I did break down and clean it once it got to the point where I could no longer see the floor, and Kaden resorted to dragging all of his toys out into other areas of the house and told me it was because he had no space in his room to play...too messy. After cleaning out Payton's room I was thrilled to find a piece to our humidifier that had been missing since we moved in! And I am still working on cleaning out the office...which is what brings me to the computer at midnight blogging, I have become overwhelmed with the task! This year I am determined to be more organized, get caught up on my scrapbook, and perhaps even hit the gym more than once every 2 months. I am going to spend more quality time with my kids, and especially James! I love the feeling of starting fresh, the possibilites are endless!

Kaden just loves his little sis so much! The other day I was in the bathroom washing my hands and I could hear Kaden yell "It's gonna explode, hurry we have to get out!" following by giggling from Payton. I come out only to see Kaden dragging Payton along the hardwood floor by her arm, she was on her back. She thought it was the funniest thing. He just wanted to save her, you know from the exploding room???? I just thought it was sweet. Whenever he hears Payton wake up from her naps he immediately rushes into her room and climbs in the crib with her to make sure she isn't sad. She of course, thinks Kaden is the most wonderful thing and always reciprocates the love!!!

the HOLIDAYS!

My blogging Style lately is........ Playing catch-up! I guess that could be my New Years resolution.....Do Not Procrastinate. Wait, that has been my New Year's Resolutions since I can remember! We did in fact celebrate Christmas and New Years, and yes I even took some pictures. It was a crazy time of year, as I am sure it was for all of you out there. I took on a big Christmas project (like I do almost every year, and almost always am up into the wee hours of the night trying to get it done) and organized all of the Morzelewski family pictures into several albums. That was pretty time-consuming but worth it, although if I did it again I would NOT have done it for Christmas! Too much going on. We spent our weeks shopping, wrapping, going going going to Christmas Parties, enjoying family and friends, Christmas, New Years! Now I am pretty glad to get back to normal life, but I do love the Holidays!

We had a little Christmas party for the "Big" kids during the week. It was really fun to see how grown up they are getting! Tons of chaos but I live off that! We decorated gingerbread houses, ate jell-o, went on a hunt for Santa's presents and exchanged gifts between the older kids. It was so fun to have Jenny in town from Omaha too!

All the cute kids: Lexi, Kaden, Rylee, Ava, Hadley, Josh, Anna, Bo, Payton and Slade!


Kaden with his half-smile and his long-lost buddy Rylee!



The Bell's were nice enough to invite us for a Christmas Party...no kids (we all need a break sometimes!) Payton lasted about an hour with the baby sitter before she had an extreme meltdown, but that hour was sure great for me :-)

Christmas was so great! It was funny to see what gifts Kaden got excited about, the only thing he asked Santa for was this Diego game for the Wii and when he got around to opening it he couldn't have cared less about it! Pretty much he would of been happy with his $9.00 play dough set and some candy. Payton just sat in the middle of the room and ate wrapping paper the whole time.

Kids by the Christmas Tree

Payton in her new Christmas sweater

Alex Kaden and Braxton cause serious trouble as always. Clark and Christine, if you read this I apologize again for the worlds most annoying toy given to your kids and purchased by James (who else!)

Merry Christmas Hun!

My Grandma Ruth (my mom's mom) passed away a year and a half ago and left my mom with her wedding ring. We were all so close with my Grandma and loved her so much, so my mom decided to take the diamonds from the ring and put them into matching rings for all of us girls so we would all have something special to remember my Grandma. It was so special and meant so much, especially because just a few days after Christmas this year my Grandpa also passed away and that was the ring he had given to my Grandma. We feel lucky to have been so close to both of them and know that they will always be a part of our lives! My Dad also suprised my mom by putting the large diamond into a BEAUTIFUL ring for her to wear.

Us girls and our rings

My parent also surprised Payton with her very own pair of earings that hold the same diamonds from my Grandma's ring. It was so sweet, I am praying that we will never loose them!!!! They have twist-on backs but we already had the back of one fall off and nearly lost the earing.

Ash and Fo

My cute brother Greg who is currently serving a mission in Peru sent home a package with gifts for all the family, included these cute hats for Kaden and Payton. He is so sweet! It was so good to talk to both of my brothers, we are so proud of all they are doing to serve the Lord and can't wait for them to be home in 5 months!!!!!!

Greg also sent my Dad and Tay these jackets, he even picked out shirts for my Mom, Heidi and Amy.

The Cowans invited us to their cabin a few days before the New Year and we had so much fun! Kaden Ava and Josh ran around and went crazy on the bunk beds while Payton, Anna and Slade entertained themselves and each other. Tate was a perfect angel, of course and didn't make a peep the whole time! We snowmobiled, went sledding ate and hung out!

The Boys! James, Kaden and Josh, Mark Lawrence with Slade and Devin (minus Tate)

And the girls! Rachel, Me, Jenny and Kaci.

Happy New Years! We celebrated up at our cabin and it was crazy....to say the least. Imagine 19 adults, 5 babies and 2 kids in 5 bedrooms. All kids up to celebrate the New Year. I actually don't think Payton went to bed until at least 1:00 am. We had a blast, I would do it again any day.

Payton, Reese and Slade.

Todd had to make a toast of course. I can't remember what he said, but I think we are hoping for the opposite. Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2009 is the best year thus far.....with many more great years to come!

technical difficulties....

I promise I didn't mean for my background to look like this, but I can't figure out how to get rid of the Christmas stuff on the side! I am clearly not the smartest when it comes to blogging, does anyone know how to take it off? I went to edit HTML in the background, deleted everything and pasted a new one but it only partially changed it.......

For you Jenny....

This is a picture of Jenny in her momma's womb :-) I found it last night going through a bunch of James old pictures and since jenny is hundreds of miles away I am posting it for her to see...James is the little one with the diaper, then Brad Osborne in the red and Mindy Osborne in the dress. Leslie is about 9 months pregnant with Jenny. How funny!

Charlotte, Payton and Santa!!!

Well this past Thursday Mel had her BEAUTIFUL baby girl Charlotte Paula Archer and I couldn't resist posting a picture of the little sweetheart! I took a lot of cute pictures, but turns out I'm not the professional photographer I sometimes pretend to be ;-) ha ha, I am SO glad you hired a photographer to take her newborns Mel.....I am just so happy for Mel and Ryan they are going to have such a great Christmas with this little sweetie! Congratulations!!!!!

And can you believe it, Payton is 9 MOnths Old! She is just the happiest baby ever (well, as long as we are not at the movies, church, or anywhere else that it might be convenient to behave) She really is wonderful though, we love her so much!

Payton at 9 Months.....
-20.5 Pounds, 28.5 Inches
-Just barely started rolling a couple weeks ago so crawling is pretty much out of the question....
-Loves all solid foods, favorite is graham crackers
-Says "momma" "dadda" and "bubba"
-loves to eat paper, the remote, my phone, and small pieces of lint conveniently found in the carpet
-could stare at herself in the mirror all day, but her favorite is to stare at herself when dad is holding her!
-Has 6 chompers, the bottom 2 came in at 4 months and the top for popped through at 8 months
-Thinks Kaden is so funny!
-Is a pretty great sleeper, other than the occasional 6:00 am feeding but I'm not complaining
-still hates the bottle/loves momma
-doesn't have much hair to speak of but we're working on it!
-likes to copy anything you are doing with your mouth, especially if you are eating anything she MUST have it!
-loves to growl at you



Also, we took the kids to see Santa tonight...pictures turned out OK considering Payton was screaming about 15 seconds before this was taken. Kaden was so excited all day to see Santa and tell him that he wanted the Diego game for the Wii (anyone have it? I have been trying to find a good age-appropriate game we could get him for the Wii???) but of course as soon as we got to see him Kaden immediately froze, nothing to say, could barely even move. At least he didn't cry though. So, Seasons Greetings 2008! Thanks Kiddie Kandids for this $20.00 5x7, you are making a fortune!

Grateful

It seems like I am always a few days (sometimes a few weeks) late on my posts these days. That being said, Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful day that included dinner at the Morzelewskis (Clark and Christines). The kids played, fought, played, fought some more. We ate, it was great! We rested our stomaches for 30 minutes then headed to my parents house for round 2. That was equally as yummy, without quite as much room in my belly the second time around of course. It was just nice to spend the day with our family! Also, I couldn't pass up the chance to say how GRATEFUL I am for all the people in my life that I love love LOVE! I love my kids so much and just feel so blessed every day to see them learn, grown, love, laugh, cry, explore, the list goes on and on.......... They are my world! I am also so thankful for James, for being such a loving husband and dad, so unselfish and giving, I couldn't ask for a better partner in my life!!! I am so thankful for caring Grandparents, who love their grand kids with never-ending amounts of enthusiasm! I am also completely thankful for wonderful friends, whom I trust and love soooo much! The best things in life are people....good people! And for those people I am truly GRATEFUL

This was the one shot I got on Thanksgiving.....John and Nila with all the grandkids
Braxton, Payton, Kaden, Jameson, and Alex