Update on Will and Seth

I keep forgetting to mention that Seth is doing better as far as weight gain (He gained a whopping 7 ounces in just two days on continuous feeds!) and also with vomiting, but he did empty his tummy onto the cement overlooking the fountain in the cute picture I just posted. :} I think all the excitement got to him! So please keep praying he'll continue gaining weight and will be able to go back to bolus (all at once) feeds so he doesn't need to be hooked up to a plastic tube all day long. The other babies are WAY too mobile and interested in it! And please continue to pray he stops vomiting altogether.

Will remains kinda sorta sick, mostly just feeling warm to the touch, and now David and Marcie do too. I bet it wouldn't even register on a thermometer. I woke up with a slight scratchy throat and stuffy nose, so I guess that's what the babies are fighting too. The good news is it's extremely mild. I don't feel sick at all, and the babies are all really happy - hooray! :)

So thanks for praying! Prayer works, I am reminded over and over again - or rather, our loving, all-powerful and holy Father works through and in (and sometimes even despite) our prayers.

Love and gratitude,
Carrie

P.S. David's favorite place to be is under the glass-topped wrought-iron kitchen table. There must be a lot of scope for the imagination down there. I can see his little bald head as I type. :)

Another precious picture from yesterday

Marcie, Seth, Will, David 

It was sad not to be able to include Gracie, but no doubt she'd rather be in the mountains with her grandparents and Daddy. People kept asking if we had two sets of twins, or triplets, or quadruplets (clearly good guess), depending on how many of the babies they saw at once. 

Sunday morning cuties

Will and Marcie are sitting on their mat in the kitchen playing with my nesting measuring cups and "talking" to and laughing at each other. SO cute!!! I love the little delighted squeals and huge grins. They each think the other one does/has the most interesting thing. At first Marcie acted a little threatened that I was bringing Will over into her territory (her territory at that moment being the large lower drawer with baby safe cooking/baking utensils in it), but then she decided two was more fun than just one at the game of "bang the measuring cups together and squeal." I can't stand how cute my own babies are. I remember loving this age with Isaac too.

We had a very fun time yesterday at the Gaylord Texan Resort Hotel with its huge indoor atrium: like being outside, but with air-conditioning on a 100-degree day! Beautiful walkways, Texas-themed areas (like an Alamo facade) and fountains all entranced the kids. The shops were also entrancing to us adults. :)

Samantha with Marcie and cousin Chloe with David enjoying one of the smaller fountains

Marcie took a little snooze on the Riverwalk

David was not in the snoozing mood. He was all over the place!
Aunt Bev and the rest dealt marvelously with the craziness. I thought it was a blast!
(My brother says I write too much like Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, but I can't help writing with all capitals and adding exclamation marks. I think in all caps and exclamation marks!)

Marcie LOVED my dad's rice

My poor mother somehow always gets left out of my pictures. Isn't that a lovely shirt she's wearing? ;)

Two more cute pictures of Will (this one is for you, Jenn!)

Taken by Lynnette, who was keeping him. Clearly, this child suffered in our absence. ;)

And a praise: He woke up today happy and with no fever, thank God! Thanks for praying.

Love and gratitude,
Carrie

Being good in church

We have hair!

Look how much at least Marcie has gotten in the past week or so! Seth, too, is getting increasingly hairy, just very much strawberry-blond and less noticeable than Will's. David is S-L-O-W-L-Y getting more hair. Same with Grace. She is still almost completely bald. I was bald until I was 2. :}

Marcie pulls herself up on everything now

It takes a village! Gavin's Aunt Bev, cousin Julie and her daughter Chloe bathed Will, David and Marcie tonight. David is the one in the towel.

Please pray for Super Will

Baby of Steel has something going on. Not only is he STILL cutting 4 teeth on top, he's got a fever and is just miserable when his Advil wears off. He had an awful blow-out diaper. Maybe he'll feel better now? Last night he cried inconsolably and didn't go to sleep finally until midnight, then was up crying off and on again from 6 until 7. We really don't want him to suffer, and we really don't want the rest of the babies to get it!!

Also, I should have directly asked for prayer for Seth to regain the weight he's lost and stop vomiting. He sure seems happy and is VERY vocal nowadays, so he doesn't act at all sick, although his eyes look more red and have visible bags under them. I think he might have gotten dehydrated. I'm praying he keeps down his continuous feeds tonight. That will get him well on the road to rehydrated, Lord willing.

Thanks!
Carrie

I've been in blog withdrawal!

Hi all,

We've been super busy on "vacation" and up in the mountains and readjusting to life back here in the Dallas area, so I feel like I've not had any extra time at all to blog. We had a wonderful trip to CA, though, and loved, loved, loved getting to introduce at least two of the quints to Gavin's family and home church out there. We were ultra blessed by our time there and by the response to the babies and assurances of all the prayers over all these months and ongoing.

I have to put the word "vacation" in quotes because our time in California was so non-stop! The three babies who stayed here did just superbly with their caretakers. In fact, I was a little bit put-out that they weren't happier to see me! They sure were happy to see each other, though! Marcie and Will squealed and flapped their arms and ended up bumping heads (and crying) in their glee. Seth just smiled and laughed over and over again.

David and Marcie are bumbling and crawling all over each other, and Will gets in to the action pretty well too with his forward scootch. Seth is getting so frustrated at watching them be mobile, he started bouncing on his little rear-end today trying to move himself while still sitting. He's doing better at being up on all fours, though, so Lord willing crawling won't be too terribly far away.

Our trip back was a bit more eventful than our trip out to CA as just after take-off Seth emptied his very full stomach all over my clothes and his. The sweet flight attendant actually took him from me and dressed him in fresh clothes while I tried to minimize the smell on my soaked clothes by using paper towels and baby wipes. Yuck!! I think he got motion-sick. But he's been vomiting a lot more in the past few days, which is frustrating, so we're back to continuous feeds until he can regain the weight he's lost - 9 ounces in 3 weeks! Thankfully he's improved a lot in his eating and physical therapy. He ate an ounce of sweet potato baby food plus lots of whipped cream today - pretty amazing for a kid who hated having anything go down his throat at all! We pray that continues and increases. He was distracted by someone sweeping the floor around him, so it seems to be largely a mental issue for him. If he's not thinking about the food going down, he can handle it going down a lot better.

Gracie, Gavin and Isaac are continuing to enjoy time at the family cabin in the Sierras. I am a bit jealous but mostly just glad to be home with my babies. I love them so much! They are TOO cute and fun! To make things more easy and enjoyable, God provided Gavin's great-aunt Bev and cousin Julie and her daughter Chloe to come help out for five days. I'm so grateful! They worked nearly 12 hours straight today - I think they have more stamina than I do!

Time for pictures:

Gracie in her cousin/uncle's pool on the 4th. She was just gleeful about this baby tube!

Gavin's grandma, Murmps, with the kids and me

Seth and Gracie

Just the grown-ups (Gavin, his cousin Grant, and me) on a pack-trip to Ragged Peak in Yosemite

The view from near the top (Young Lakes down below)

The view from the top facing the other direction. I was feeling a bit silly. :)

Gracie at the family cabin a couple of days ago

Grace enjoying Marmi's yummy cake. Most of it ended up between her legs!

The traditional Camp Sierra bath photo. All of the babies over the years have had this photo taken.

Couldn't choose between the two photos. Figured you wouldn't mind seeing two!

Those eyes of Gracie's!!

Taken after I left for TX with Seth: Gracie is clearly laughing at something she finds funny!

On the shores of Shaver Lake (Grace again)

Isaac, his cousin Levi and his grandpa "Papa" on a rented jet-ski

Gracie conked out in the shade right there on the beach

Gracie with Uncle Jared

Just hanging out in her playpen!

Sleepy Seth with his Marmi/grandma (taken before I left, obviously)