Baptism Blessings

Good Afternoon from QuintLand!

My gracious it's been a whirlwind summer.  I don't think I even have words for how tired yet simultaneously exhilarated I feel.  Exhausterated?  That's exhausted and exhilarated--yep, that's me.

I'd love to tell you more about the baptism of Ava, Clara, Millie, Luke, and Isabelle.  Michael and I always knew we would want it to be a small, private service in the church near our home.  We aren't much for a spectacle and we realized that baptizing five kiddos in one church service would make for quite a long service for any churchgoer.

Michael's friend and college roommate for many years (Nick) decided to begin the process to study to become a priest in 2012.  Nick has been a force of good in our lives.  His kindness, generosity and general love of life have brought such joy to Michael and me.  We have memories of bonfires at Nick's house....memories of playing with Nick's golden retriever George outside under the shade of his front yard oak tree.  I even have a memory of going to dinner with Nick and Michael on the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville.  We could barely walk down the mall without some of Nick's friends (or students) stopping to say hello and offer a hug.  Nick taught Spanish before he became a priest and parents/students alike are attracted to his kindness and genuine care of others.  When it came time to baptize the quints, we could think of no other man to welcome our children into the love of Jesus.

Having studied for several years now,  Nick recently became a deacon in the Catholic church and gladly accepted our invitation to baptize the children.  We realized then that this baptism was going to be one of the most special days of our lives.

Michael and Nick on our wedding day in 2011

Nick is even an excellent dancer!

So now that we had a very special man to baptize our kiddos, I started to think about what they would wear.  You must remember that I'm from Alabama, so christening gowns are truly an art form (and an investment!).  I'm pretty sure you can claim a southern christening gown on your taxes as an asset.  It's that important!

Well, looking at my need for five christening ensembles and our meager family budget, I started to worry.  I wondered about borrowing from friends.  I wondered about renting (is there even a market for that?  Rent the Runway baptism style?).  I wondered about defying tradition and wearing something more casual (my mother would NEVER stand for this).  I wondered about buying one outfit and baptizing them one weekend at a time (so five baptism weekends?  No dice.  My catering budget would be through the roof!)  As I chatted with mom about this, she understood my worries.  We wanted the children to look like the angels they are, but we simply didn't know how we would afford custom outfits for all of them.

Well, God sent us an angel.  A very, very talented angel--a company by the name of Linens by Loraine in my hometown of Selma, Alabama.  Linens by Loraine has done beautiful custom work for my sister's children and one day as Mom was chatting with the creative genius behind the company, something beautiful happened.  Linens by Loraine offered to partner with our family to create baptism ensembles.

Without ever seeing the children in person, Linens by Loraine created five custom ensembles.  All in the course of five weeks.  I measured each of the children and sent metrics to who I called the Angels in Alabama.  The Angels took these measurements and created five masterpieces.  These masterpieces are French hand sewn, complete with French lace.  All of the handwork was done by Sarah Catherine.  If you are ever in the market for beautiful custom work for your children, please check out Linens by Loraine.  They can be reached at 334-872-4467.  They can obviously work with clients from any location!

Thanks to Linens by Loraine,  each child looked absolutely perfect.  We hosted Michael's and my family for a reception afterwards.  It was truly a joyous gathering as we welcomed our children into the Christian faith.

When I was a child, my home church had a very special Easter service.  They would build a cross out of wood and cover it with chicken wire (yes, I'm southern.  I know).  Then, all of the children of the church would bring flowers from their mother's yards and put them into the wire of the cross.  The cross transformed from a cold, wooden monument into a blooming reminder of God's love and redeeming sacrifice for us. I wanted to recreate this for the quints'  baptism.  A good friend built the cross and mom and I covered it with flowers.

I'm thrilled to show you more photos of the children and their beautiful, angel-made outfits:

Clara

My friend Carla with Millie

My friend Claire with Clara

My soon to be sister-in-law Thea with Luke

Deacon Nick with Isabelle

KK and Ava

Ava loves getting dressed up

Millie waits patiently

Millie loving the attention

Michael and Luke

Our blessed insta-family of seven

The Boltons

The Baudinets

Baudinets

Extended family of Baudinets

Isabelle

Millie with her godmother, Aunt Bridget

Yes, we have five sets of godparents!

What a beautifully made bonnet!

Isabelle

Luke

Ava

Luke--love his little boy's hat!

Clara

Millie

Clara

Happy Seven Months

Oh my gracious, it's been SEVEN months.  Seven months since we first heard our first born cry.  Seven months since we sat in the NICU and sang Christmas carols.  Seven months since my fear of a having a family first dissolved.  What a road it's been! Here's a trip down memory lane.  Cue the tears!!

I definitely owe you an update on the baptism from a few weeks ago.  Here's a teaser!

Snoo-Sational!

One of the most frequent questions Michael and I get is "So are you getting any sleep?" Since we've been now been trying to let the kiddos sleep through the night for the last several weeks, I figured this would be a good time to answer that question (read to the end to see how that's going) and tell you our sleep story.

Last fall, as Michael and I began to come to grips with my quintuplet pregnancy, we did what we do best--we studied.  We read books.  We took notes.  We went to class.  We watched videos.  We nerded out on all things multiple birth.  

The sleep class that we attended with Cara of Taking Cara Babies was outstanding.  She now offers this class online, so you can take advantage of her expertise from any location.  I HIGHLY recommend it.  Here's the direct link to the class:  www.TakingCaraBabies.com/newborn-class.  In taking Cara's class we learned about Dr. Harvey Karp and his book Happiest Baby on the Block.  This immediately rang a bell with me because I remember my friend Mairi reading this book when her sweet boy Henry was born.  She swore by his techniques.  But Cara also told us that Dr. Karp recently designed  a product call the SNOO Smart Sleeper   and she highly recommended that we look into it. So we contacted the company and explained our situation. Dr. Karp and his staff were so inspired by our story that they gave us the opportunity to test these products on the quints. Well, Cara was right. This invention is literally life changing!  If you've visited the quints in person, you've seen how much we love (and use!) these bassinets.

These bassinets have a built-in swaddle that makes is SO simple to properly swaddle your newborn. And it ensures that your newborn doesn't accidentally suffocate against the side of the bassinet. Moreover, they have built in white noise and motion.  They also have sensors built into the bassinet so that if your baby starts to stir and/or cry, the bassinet responds and immediately rocks/shush your baby back to sleep. You can connect the bassinet to your phone, so if you hear your sweet babe waking up in the night, you can reach over, open the app on your phone, and increase the rocking/white noise to help your baby fall back asleep.  ALL. FROM. YOUR. BED.  Unfortunately, the bassinet does not have a robot arm to replace the baby's pacifier - you still have to get out of bed to do this - but it wouldn't surprise me to see that in a future version! 

Now, as to how the quints are doing. From the get-go, our biggest concern was letting the kiddos get accustomed to being picked up when they cried at night because we would never be rock them all. Instead, SNOO can rock all of them. And it has been very effective - if the bassinets fail to rock the kids to sleep after a few minutes, we know something else is going on that needs our attention. Since we decided to drop the middle of the night feeding, Clara, Luke and Millie pretty much sleep through the night. Even Isabelle, who has always HATED to sleep (she seems to think she might miss out on something fun if she closes her eyes),  eventually succumbs to the SNOOs rocking action most nights. Only Ava still seems to wake up regularly during the night. But even so, she rarely needs to be completely taken out of bed for long stretches to settle. 

All of this to say, we highly recommend Dr. Karp's techniques and especially his genius-quality product, the SNOO.  We are thrilled that our kids no longer require night feeds and are all pretty close to sleeping through the night.

Here are some photos of our kiddos snuggled in.  The great news is these bassinets come with three sizes of swaddle, so the bassinet can accommodate your growing baby!