This is just a quick note. Right now the kiddos all have a cold and we are enduring long nights with fussy babies right now, so I don't have much time to type. The cold too will pass. Melanie is walking now. It is so cute to watch her go. She is able to stand up on her own and then take off. Oliver was the next one to walk. He just goes at it until his upper body outruns the feet and he falls He has to use another object to pull up to walk. Teddy just started this week. He is able to make it about halfway across the living room. It is funny to watch them all walk. It is as if the feet are in charge of where the baby goes and the body just follows along. Audrey can push toys right now but she is still working on her balance to walk.

The babies had a good birthday. They enjoyed smashing cake all over the place. They made a royal mess in the process and their reward was a bath, which they enjoyed too. They have enjoyed their presents. Audrey was scared of the rocking alligator at first but she ended up liking it now.

One of their favorite games right is chase. They will take off crawling when you chase them. Oliver just rolls over so you can tickle him. They all love it.

Here is a link to an article our local paper. There are some pictures of the babies there.

http://www.ccheadliner.com/articles/2009/11/08/news/doc4af0710121c33628479382.txt

Hope all are doing well.

OMG 1 year gone!

Audrey sleeping

Did I just wake up?

Mr. T get out of the dishwasher

Audrey

The Family

Melanie

Oliver

Teddy

Hello everyone.

Can you believe that the quads are turning 1 tomorrow? I do not believe that they are 1 year old. So much has happened to our lives in the last year. This time last year Naedrie was in the hospital getting IV drips and medications. She was then anticipating a big day the next day with the birth of the quads. The c-section went great. The babies did so well in the ICU and then were all home within 2-3 weeks. They have just continued to do so well in the last year.

My how our lives have changed too. I will expand on the babies in a minute. I passed my boards shortly after the babies were born. We are still getting settled in to our house in Springfield. My job is going well getting established. Naedrie is adjusting very well to being a stay at home mom. She had a nice trip to a knitting convention last month with her mother. She really enjoyed that trip and I survived being a single dad while she was gone. More recently Bonnie and I just got back from a trip to Germany. We went over to see my grandfather who turned 85 and the rest of our family there. Bonnie had so much fun. She is talking about it all the time. She is starting to pick up German. She did really well on the trip. She is really a great traveling partner. We had a lot of fun together. She got to go to an indoor water park. She road on a train. Had several bike rides. She had a blast at the local zoo. She got to pull a monkey in a wagon. She also got to eat lots of brotchen and enjoyed those. She liked to go shopping. The Kirmus (carnival) was lots of fun and just like here in America, they are not cheap. You end up spending about as much as you would going to Six Flags. I had my fun cleaning out the fuel injectors in the VW that I was borrowing from Sigrid and Rolf on the autobahn. I also enjoyed taking Bonnie down the slide at the water park. Thanks to Ice Age 3, she did not mind the long flight either.

Bonnie is now 3. She is a little talker. She is really turning into a little girl. She is very easy to manage these days and she is a big helper around the house. some of her favorite "chores" including feeding the pups and starting the dishwasher. She loves to help all the time. She had a good birthday and got a new bike. She is enjoying riding it. She also got lots of new books as well. She is enjoying school. She got to tell them all about her trip today. She is about to move up to the next class.

The babies are doing well. They are all pushing toys around the living room now. They all have teeth. While I was gone for 10 days, Melanie had 4 teeth arrive. She was the last one to get any at all. Teddy is just getting to be so big. Oliver still leads the pack in the chunk department. Audrey is not far behind Oliver in weight. They are all saying dada. They are doing hand signs for things like more. More is Oliver's favorite thing to say at dinner time. They definitely let you know if you finish before they are done. They are playing well together. They enjoy crawling around the house. They seems to look like a little duckling family crawling after each other. They really enjoy playing with Bonnie as well.

Overall things are doing well with the family.

Hope everyone enjoys the pictures. Will try to not make things be as long for the next update.

Aug 09

August seems to be flying by. Time is just going fast as it was before we had 5 kids. With 5 kids now, time does not stand still. The quads are within 9 weeks of being 1 year old. OMG, where has the time gone. Bonnie will be 3. She has just really turned into a sweet little girl anymore. She is definitely coming out of the toddler stage and entering the little girl stage. She tries to help around the house. She already has her "chores" if you will. Feeding the dogs seems to have become her job. She loves it and does it all the time. She does it twice a day with help of course. She lets the dogs in and out now with our direction. She has even started taking a liking to the dishwasher. Wen I was emptying yesterday she came up and started putting away the silverware. She did a really good job. She has figured out how to start the dishwasher now too. The quads are doing well. All 4 are crawling. Audrey was the last one to figure out the crawling thing. Oliver still does the Army crawl. He is pretty fast at it and I think he is going to stick with it. Teddy is the fastest and loves to move. Melanie has fun too running around the house.

Last night we took everyone on the deck and let the babies swing. There are pictures of the swinging fun they did. Everyone really enjoyed it. They also enjoyed exploring the deck.

Naedrie and I are doing well. She has her activities with the church and a mom's group that keeps her busy. Jim has his work which is going really well. His practice is filling up nicely.

Not much else. Still have summer here in the 90's.

Hopefully will blog again soon.

-the bonucchi's.

Conversation with a 2 year-old

Just a short one:

Bonnie: Daddy, me have an owie.Jim: Say, 'I have an owie.'Bonnie: No, Daddy, ME have an owie.Jim: Yes Bonnie, you have an owie, say, 'I have an owie.'Bonnie: NO DADDY -ME- have an owie!Jim: Yes, Bonnie you have an owie.

Background: Jim and Bonnie went to the grocery store on the way home and Bonnie spotted some pudding, which Jim told her she could have if she ate a good supper. At the dinner tableBonnie: Me ate my noodles and wedgetables all gone. Now me have pudding!Jim: Well, Bonnie, we just happen to have some pudding on hand. Bonnie: No Daddy! Not in my hand. Me: Where do you want your pudding, Bonnie?Bonnie: In the cup.

July 09

Greetings everyone. It is that time again. Time for another blog update. It has been a while since the last one. I'll try to give the general roundup.

The quads are getting big. Teddy is CRAWLING. He is here, there and everywhere he wants to be now. He has become quite good at it. He is pretty fast when he puts his mind to it. Oliver is doing the army crawl now. He is pretty fast for not getting his tummy off the ground. Speaking of tummy, he was 1 oz shy of 20 pounds last week when he was at the boys check up. He is definately not missing a meal. Audrey is now 2 oz heavier than Melanie. Audrey was the runt but has made up for it. Audrey is our little miss chatty Kathy. She is working on sitting up. Melanie is doing the army crawl as well. She is also doing pretty well with feeding herself crackers. Speaking of that, we found out last week that she can do pincer grasp. I was sitting on the floor with the babies eating some popcorn. She crawled up and put her hand in the bowl. I didn't think anything of it because we had not seen them pick things up yet and put them in their mouths. Well, I was wrong. Popcorn went right in. She really loved doing that, although not for long because of the choking hazzard. Daddy had to put it away.

Bonnie is getting bigger than ever. She is very talkative. She is a great commuting partner in the morning. We talk the whole back and forth to school. Speaking of the drive, I have to admit I am an NPR junkie. I listen to it pretty well daily driving back and forth to work and dropping Bonnie off at school. I like their world perspective on news and the more in depth analysis you get than on CNN and the likes. Anyway, this week, Bonnie asked Naedrie if she could watch Public Nation Radio. I thought that was cute. She has been listening enough that she knows I listen to National Public Radio.

Bonnie has become the little swimmer. She is very bold in the water. So much so that I had to get her a life jacket. She was starting to scare me running off in the water. None of the pools let you use swim floaties down here. Only USCG approved life jackets. So she has one now. She loves going down the little slides at the kiddy pool. She is brave enough to go down headfirst now too.

We took the family to the zoo last weekend. It was a great day, highs only in the upper 70's. Hard to believe that in SW MO in JULY! It was fun. We wore littleBon Bon out. She was so tired when we left. All the babies took a nice nap when we got home. Mom and dad too.

Work is getting busier for me but that is a good thing.

We have survived our first household GI bug in the house. It really threw us for a loop for a while. What do you do when both mom and dad are sick and you have 5 kids at home who have not contracted the bug yet? Thank goodness we had helpers from the church who did not mind coming over and exposing themselves to the GI plague.

Naedrie and I still get occasional date nights. It is nice for us to get the chance to do that every now and then. We are really grateful for all the help we have been receiving.


Hope everyone is doing well. I'll leave some more pictures later

Jim

pager and a cell phone

I have just a short blog update for tonight. Let me preface this update with, there are things you say around the house without realizing it. Sometimes these things that are said are picked up by very perceptive ears. Without realizing it, I guess I have a tendency in the morning that I need to grab by cell phone any my pager. I am usually in a hurry in the morning and at least twice a week I get to the truck before realizing that either the cell phone or the pager are somewhere in the house still.

Bonnie loves to mimic things that mommy and daddy do. Tonight, she was outside playing on the deck. I was grilling but had stepped into the house to get something. She was outside alone. Then we heard the door open. Without coming in, Bonnie yelled, I need my pager and my cell phone. She then shut the door and went on about her business playing. I just thought that was cute how she said I need my pager and my cell phone.

Speaking of her cell phone. Her toy cell phone is broken right now. Really it just needs new batteries but we are out of AAA size. I had to tell her that it was broken and needed new batteries. She then told me to go to mommy's closet to get some. I knew there were none in there. I told her so. A minute later she comes toddling out with a set of AA batteries and asked me to fix her cell phone. I thought it was very cute.

All for now.
Off to bed.
jim

May 09, barely anyway

The Quads

Teddy and Melanie

Teddy

Really, in Ozark, MO????

The Oriole

Melanie and Oliver


Let's wrestle

Time to eat

Diana visiting from New Jersey

Dancing shoes

Bonnie and the boys

Audrey, Melanie and Oliver

Audrey, Melanie and Oliver

I thought I would put in a May 09 entry before May ended. Seems that I barely made the cutoff. May has been a busy month for us, but then again what month isn't busy since Oct. Bonnie has become even more cute. Her vocabulary is growing exponentially. She is talking in complete sentences and holds conversations well now. She has gone through a testing the limits stage here recently but is getting better about that. She likes to help with the babies. She has even started changing diapers. She does not like to change poopy diapers though. She does a pretty good job, but you do have to double check to make sure both butt cheeks are in. Otherwise, you may get a wet surprise. She likes to help with the pups too. She has pretty well taken over doing the dog feeding now, with supervision of course. She loves to go shopping. We went through Sams this week and of course she ate her way through on the samples. She really likes to go to Sams, but I think just for the food samples.

This week she and I were outside after the babies were in bed. We had just given the dogs fresh water. We also put out a wading pool for Tank. She decided to jump in. I thought she was just going to get her feet wet. When I turned around and looked back at her, she had stripped down naked and was getting into the pool. When she sat down in the water, she announced she needed to go piddle. I guess it was the reaction to the cold water. So I brought her inside so she could go. Speaking of piddle, she is fully potty trained now. We are so happy about that.

Naedrie mowed most of the lawn this week for the first time since we moved down here. She really likes my mower. She says that I am going to share the riding mower with her. It is very peaceful when you are on it and fun to mow the lawn too. We'll see if I let her use it again. :)

The babies are doing well. They are all rolling over including our Pillsbury Dough Boy Oliver. He has finally decided to start rolling over on a regular basis. He also found his feet this week. As soon as you get both feet out during a diaper change he grabs onto them with his hands and pulls back. It is very cute. Teddy is trying to crawl. He has figured out how to get across the room by rolling. Melanie is close to being able to sit up. Audrey has started talking. She is saying da da da da da. Very cute. Someone said dada before momma for once.

The Babies are eating solids now too. We are making our own baby food at home. Much cheaper that way and better for them. No preservatives and the like. They have had squash, peas, cauliflower and bananas so far. Not sure what the next one will be. Maybe watermelon.

Naedrie and I had a nice dinner out with friends last night while grandma watched the kids. We had put everyone in bed before we left for dinner. Although a late dinner, it was very nice. Naedrie just had a friend from undergrad in town last weekend from New Jersey. Naedrie will be flying out to Jersey for a momma's weekend out without kids or husband in June. She is already excited about that. I'll be home with the kids. My family is coming to town to help so should not be too crazy.

Not much else is going on here. Clinic keeps me busy and off the streets. Will try to make the next update not so far away.

the bonucchi's