Some Visitors and a Bar-B-Que!

FYI: THIS IS A VERY LONG POST WITH LOTS OF PICTURES!

We knew that going up north,we were in for a busy ten days with quads since we had many visitors in Florida to visit us, but I can't believe how many people we saw, just even in a 48 hour period. On day two, July 5th we woke up as if our day was any other day. We ate breakfast and then played a little.

Nana Trullinger was in heaven.....................

and then the doorbell rang!

My girlfriend from college, Alicia, and her daughter Sophia came to visit.

(College Photo of Katie, Me & Alicia)

Sophia

Alicia with Luke, Sarah & Ava

Alicia & Luke

Luke & Sophia playing

Shortly after, my Grandmom and cousin Danielle and her son Nate came over. I had been contemplating surprising my grandmother, who recently had a pacemaker put in. I thought about not surprising her, only for a second, and then I thought.....she's a trooper. She can handle it. It's what keeps her young! Plus, I knew she would be so excited and happy to see the kids. So I surprised her. Here was her reaction...............................



She seemed like she knew what was going on at first and then seemed a little confused didn't she? That's Grandmom for ya! I wouldn't expect anything less and that is one of the reasons why we all love her so!
Nate, Danielle, Lily, & Granny

Nate loves to kiss the babies!

Granny & her favorite, Ava....but, SHHHHH, we won't tell!

Our next visitor came about five minutes after Granny came. Great Grandpop (Nick's Grandpop)came in. He was so excited to see the babies and they seemed fascinated with him, especially Luke! He wouldn't stop staring at him. They had a great time getting to know each other. Grandpop talked to them so sweet in his Tennessee twang.

Lily, Grandpop, & Luke

Lily, Ava, Sarah, Great Grandpop, & Luke

Sarah, Nana, & Great Grandpop (Nana's Dad)

Luke is having a blast!

AWWWWW! How cute!
Luke says, "I Love you Grandpop!"

Later on in the evening. My friend Laurie and her daughter Camille came over for a visit to play with the quads.

Me & Camille

Me, Camille, Laurie & the kids!

Nick, Camille, Laurie, & the kids!

Ava & Camille

What a wonderful first twenty four hours! It can't get any better, can it?

June 6th 2009 : Bar-B-Que at Nick parents house! Fun for all family and friends and a chance for everyone to meet the Quads. Were Nick and I a little nervous about all of the germs since there were about 60 people coming? JUST A LITTLE! Never fear! Nana's here and she went to the store and got the goods to keep people as germ free as possible.

VOILA:

She put Purell hand sanitizer on each table inside the house and outside the house! It gets rid of 99.9% of germs. It certainly helped.

So, we are all ready to go!

Let the games begin! Pop Pop began grilling!

And the visitors began to arrive!

Great Uncle Dave (Nick's Uncle) was the first to arrive....
Ava & Great Uncle Dave (Nana's Brother)

Then Uncle Dave's daughter Laura and her family came....

Laura, Jonathan, Anna, Daniel, & Dennis

Then came Nick's Aunt Lisa and her daughter Jessica......

And then everyone else came!

My friend Kara's Mom (Susan) with Luke

Nick's Dad's friend Dave, Grandpop and Nick
My friend Laurie's son, Tyler (in white) and Nick's cousin Laura's son, Jonathan
My friend Laurie's husband, Joe and their daughter, Camille (you've seen her before and you'll see her again). She loves to visit the babies.

Nick's Uncle Steve and Aunt Kelly

Kara holding Lily & Susan holding Ava

Martha, Noah and below Greg (missing are Morgan & Else)

Bergit & Ron Marino
Melissa & El

Kara (holding Ava) & Shawn

The Sharpe Family L to R (Ashley, Chris, Cody, Frances, & Jaime)

Nick, Chris, & Dan

Nana, Tyler, Uncle Dave, & the kids

Irene & Sarah, Jessica & Luke, Nana & Lily, & Uncle Dave with Ava

Anna & Dan

Ava, Luke, Sarah & Lily feeling grass for the first time!
One of my favorite pictures ever!

What a wonderful, but long day. The kids went to bed early, 6:30pm ish and slept late, 7:30am ish. Nick and I really didn't sleep! We were so excited to spend time with friends and family. I just wish I had taken some more pictures! It was a wonderful reunion, but overwhelming! Thank you everyone for coming and thank you especially Nana & Pop Pop for making it such a wonderful day! You really went above and beyond and we really appreicate everything you did!

Stay tuned for the next post: Part 3 - A Visit To Aunt Susanne's & More Visitors

Our Trip up North Part 1 - The Plane Trip 6/4/09

Hello all! I never found my camera case......it will haunt me forever, but we are back up and running thanks to Nana! She found replacement parts for my camera and had them shipped here! Thanks Nana!

Well the day started out perfect for the plane ride up north. Everything was packed the night before, we knew how we were going to work it and the day began! The kids ate in the early morning and then went back to sleep for a few hours. We left for the airport at 9am. Grandpop took us to help us feed the kids at the airport. While MomMom stayed behind and began the task of Summer cleaning!


It's an hour drive to the Fort Myers airport.

The car ride was great. The kids were awake, but good. When we got to the airport we put them in two double strollers and each had one infant car seat hanging on the stroller we were pushing. We each carried a diaper bag and we checked our baggage at curbside check-in. We were on our way to ....dant dant dant.....security! I was really worried about it. Thank GOD my dad was with us. We had to take all the kids out of the strollers, take of their shoes, put the strollers and the car seats through the x-ray machines. Talk about a hassle! The kids were fabulous through the whole thing though! Not a peep. I think they were just so amazed by everything that was going on. The TSA people did help us out though and were very friendly when they realized they were all ours! Speaking of which, Nick did wear a shirt that said (on the back) "Yes they're all mine". I thought it was funny! I can't believe some of the things that people ask...Like "Are they all yours?", Do you have 2 sets of twins?" The list goes on and on! My Quad Mamas know what I'm talking about!

We were finally off and running to the gate. We timed it just right. Our plane left at 11:30am and we got to the gate at 10:30am. Just enough time to get them fed and settled to load up on the plane. Luke and Lily ate like champs, as always and we put them in the car seats so that if they fell asleep before we loaded on the plane, they would not have to be disturbed.

Sarah & Ava on the other hand.....as we all know, are not good eaters and of course gave us a hard time. As if we didn't get enough attention walking through the airport, Ava started her screaming and tantrums because she didn't want to eat her food. Our doctor called her a pterodactyl because that's what she sounds like when she screams. Sarah could just care less about eating because she was to involved in people watching.




We had help from the flight attendants loading on the plane. We went first, of course, and the plane was not full, so we got to spread out and had a whole isle to ourselves. That was nice. I don't think anyone would want to sit with four babies anyway. Stay tuned for the flight home story for more on that. Luke and Lily slept the whole flight and woke up when we touched down. Nick and I took turns holding Ava & Sarah who slept on and off the whole flight. Sarah's ears bothered her a little, but she was still very good.

Luke sound asleep on the plane


Sarah wants to know "Are we there yet?"






Lily sleeping in her car seat and Daddy & Ava sleeping.


We landed safely and Daddy and Ava are very excited. Laurie is waiting to pick us up.

After all the commotion of loading everyone back into the strollers, I didn't get to take pictures of Laurie and our stroll through the Philadelphia Airport. Thanks to Laurie who crammed 4 car seats, 3 adults,3 suitcases, 2 strollers, and 2 diaper bags into her Chevy Trailblazer. What a champ. Thanks for keeping me calm! Thanks for getting us to Nana & Pop Pop's safe and sound. The kids really were very good! You would have though that there was maybe one baby on the plane, not four!

After all the commotion of the day, we set up Nana & Pop Pop's house as best as we could to make the kids as comfortable as possible. The Quads were very excited to see Nana, Pop Pop & Aunt Tara when we got in. When we all calmed down and it was time to eat. The kids ate and watched some Baby Einstein and we ate Cheesesteaks and Hoagies! YUM! What a wonderful first evening.

The kids really were amazing on the flight! No exaggerations necessary. NOW, the flight home, we'll talk about later! Stay tuned for Part 2...Some Visitors and a Bar-b-Que!

Till next time!
Kelly

Missing

Hi everyone....

I know some of you are anxiously waiting for an update on our trip up north and some of you want to see pictures, but somehow, somewhere I have lost my camera case...not the camera, just the case which had the battery charger and the wire to connect the camera to the computer and now I can't charge my camera battery or upload pictures to the computer!!!UGGGG!

I'm trying to track it down, so just be patient! If I can't find them, I guess I'll be forced to buy new ones!

Check back again soon!

30 Weeks Old

Hello!

This week we had a visitor. My friend Kara came down from Philadelphia to visit. She spent a lot of time with the babies and helped out a lot! Thanks for your help Kara!We had a good time.

 

I also took Lily to the speech/feeding therapist this week because I thought she might have an issue with spoon feeding. I thought maybe that something was wrong with her tongue because sometimes she just wont eat from a spoon......I was wrong. The therapist said there is nothing wrong with her tongue! WHEW! I was worried. She said that she is just not hungry. She said to take out the cereal in their bottles, except for the nighttime bottle, and they may eat better! So far so good! Who have thought? Not me. I'm just so used to making them eat....which was grilled into me in the hospital since they were preemies. I need to re-adjust.

 

We had a barbecue on Memorial Day and Uncle Jay came over and cooked on the grill for us! He has been a great help too, coming over to help out with feedings when he can. He has recently moved here to Florida and we are glad to have him....any more takers?

I can't believe how fast babies actually grow. I can't tell you how many clothes the kids have already gone through not to mention the ones they never even got to wear! I have so many boxes of clothes now, I don't know what to do with them. Mostly girls clothes, of course!

My issue this week.....What is the right kind of diaper to use? All of them seem to leak! What am I doing wrong? When they lay on their backs at night to sleep, it seems to leak up the back. When they sleep on their stomachs, it seems to leak up the front! I've even tried putting them in a bigger diaper to sleep because it holds more!

I haven't forgotten about my quad sisters! I'm so sorry that I never got to make a post about our trip. I have not been able to find any time.....please forgive me girls! I'll get you back soon!

We are leaving in 2 days for our trip up to Philadelphia with the kids! We are flying...not sure how Nick and I are going to do it, but we are! Get out the disinfectant wipes and Germ-X cause the Trullinger Quads are comin'. Southwest Airlines, watch out! I'm so nervous, I feel like I'm gonna get sick!

We are looking forward to the trip....I'm just mentally exhausted. There is so much to do and a lot of preparation when planning for four babies! Not to mention the preparation and planning on the end of the people who are taking us in! Thanks Nana and Pop Pop! We're coming with bells on! BE PREPARED! Make sure you are well rested...THERE IS NO REST FOR THE WEARY!

DETAILS OF THE TRIP TO FOLLOW ON THE NEXT BLOG POST!

Till next time!
Kelly