As I’ve already mentioned in some prior blog entries, I took some time off from work last week. In addition to spending some more time with my lovely family, one of the reasons that I took time off was so that I could watch the NCAA Basketball Tournament all day long on Thursday and Friday. Just in case you have been living under a rock or just don’t like sports, the tournament started last week. Games start in the morning and go all day long Thursday through Sunday. I’ve been taking those two days off (Thursday and Friday) every year going all the way back to when I graduated from the University of Northern Iowa. That’s also where I met my beautiful bride. I spent some time watching some select games, spending time with Meredith and working in the yard. The weather was spectacular last week. So nice that I sun burned my bald spot. I’ll learn…someday.

I watched a bunch of great games on Thursday and Friday including a buzzer beater with UNI beating UNLV. That meant that we would have the opportunity to get killed by #1 ranked Kansas Jayhawks in the next round on Saturday afternoon.

So the weekend continued with Angela and me getting out of the house on Saturday. My mom and dad were in town this weekend to help out. Along for the road trip this time was my mom’s sister and her two daughters; Janet, Amanda, and Emily. Thank you for the help! These Saturday afternoons are quickly becoming very important for Angela and me to get away from the house. We’ve been going to a movie in the afternoon in recent weeks. A movie seems to be the only thing we can do for 2 hours that takes our mind completely away from everything at home. This last time, we saw “Shutter Island.” We liked it. It was weird, but good. After the movie, we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the second round of the basketball tournament, drink some beers (just me, not Angela) and cheer on our Northern Iowa Panthers. The Panthers took the lead early and never fell behind. It was a very exciting game that ended with a dramatic 3 pointer. Everyone in the building was cheering on the Panthers by the end of the game. Angela even got excited and cheered out loud. Seriously! Needless to say, it was a major upset and I think it’s very safe to say that we’ve never been more proud to be UNI grads than right now.

Our friends, the Rileys, of Decorah, IA gave us a gift for the kids months ago. After the game, Adam called me and wanted to know 2 things. Have the kids had worn their gift yet and do I want to go to the Panthers game next week in St. Louis? I can’t go to St. Louis Adam, but here’s a video so that you can see the kids in their shirts. You can see all of our videos and photos of the kids on our “Media” page and by clicking here. I hope you’ll all join us and cheer on the Panthers in their next game against Michigan State Friday night on CBS.

Until next time…

UNI Fight! Go Cats!

Last week I had the fortune of some time off from work and the freedom to do a little writing. Unfortunately I work harder when I’m at home.

Let’s talk about some of the kids’ developments tonight.

The quints turned 9 months old this past week. 9 months already. Did I just really say that…already. Anyway, they are still a little behind developmentally based on their birth age, but we expect that. They continue to be right on pace for their developmental age of 6 ½ months old. As I’ve mentioned in the past, both Brook and Alex are sitting up. The others aren’t there yet, but getting better every day. They roll all over the place. No one is crawling, but we’re getting there too.

Angela and I took the kids in this week for their 9 month well visit to their doctor. Basically, they’re doing fine. We have a few minor things like the vision issues with Lauren and Emma that we are paying attention to. They have Nystagmus, which is a developmental issue with the eye where they twitch and can’t focus. It’s been getting better as they get older, but it’s still there. We’ll take them back to their opthamologist in a couple months for a checkup in to this issue. Additionally, there may be some other issues with Lauren that we’re gonna investigate that may be related to her eyes and also the flat spot on her head. We’re not too concerned, but we’re gonna look in to it.

The kids were all weighed this week at their appointment and they all seem to be doing well and are right on pace for their developmental age of 6 ½ months. They’re a bit on the small end for a 9 month old. Alex is still the biggest. Emma is still the smallest. The others have been moving around in the middle a bit. So here are the numbers:

Alex – 18 lbs., 14 oz.
Madeline – 18 lbs., 6 oz.
Brooklyn – 17 lbs., 12 oz.
Lauren – 17 lbs., 2 oz.
Emma – 15 lbs., 12 oz.

Before I let you all go, I should finish with the answer to the big question of who had the first tooth. The winner is…EMMA!

A week ago, we had some family visit. The Agesons (Toby, Anne, and Tina) made the 4 ½ hour trip from NW Iowa on a Friday and spent a couple days helping out. Anne is one of my dad’s sisters. Some of you as volunteers were affected by that and we’re sorry. The Agesons like to take photos and do a nice job of it. Tina really has a good knack for it. They took nearly 200 of them and I got all of the good ones that I didn’t have to alter added to the site.

You guys did a great job! Thank you very much!

This particular photo is when dad called a meeting to talk about Big Ten Basketball and the importance of March Madness (foreshadowing to a future blog)

You can see all of their photos by clicking here.

Until next time…

The first tooth has arrived. Lauren Ademic, one of our students from UWRF that helps out, found it and wins the prize.

So who had the first tooth?

Check back soon to see. Feel free to guess. (If you already know, please don’t ruin the fun.) I wanted to have a pool on this with a $5 entry, but momma frowned on that idea.

Until then…

So I promised to write before the end of the week and I haven’t gotten around to it until now. It’s now 4:30 am on Friday morning, coffee in hand. Unfortunately, I only seem to find time to write when I get up extra early to help out with open spots in our volunteer schedule. So here we go.

The weather was absolutely phenomenal this week. (On a side note for you, I just broke a personal rule in that I used a word I can’t spell without spell check. Wanna guess what word it was?) Anyway…I couldn’t have picked a better time to take a week off from work. We all spent some time outside. Meredith in particular got a taste of going outside and she absolutely loves it. It seems like going outside is all she wants to do. On Thursday morning, the first thing she said when she woke up was “Go outside?” Yesterday morning, she was in the yard and saw a robin in the tree. She was yelling at the birdie to come down here. It was really funny. I guess you had to be here. I had a great time with her on Tuesday. We cleaned up some left over dead brush from last year out of the flower beds. She kept calling the sticks “trees.” Meredith “loves trees.” Meredith loves everything these days. She helped me for a couple hours by taking her “trees” to the wheel barrel. That’s right; she helped me for a few hours before she got distracted with sticks, dirt, rocks, and dog poop.

As a parent, have you ever had a moment where you stopped what you’re doing for a minute and thought to yourself, “I hope that I remember this moment for the rest of my life.”? I had one of those moments on Tuesday around midday. We were in the back yard and working with the dead brush was getting a bit old. Meredith said, “Tackle daddy?” She then ran in to me as hard as her little 30 pound body could. We rolled down the hill together as she giggled the whole way down. I really do hope that I can take that memory with me forever.

Angela got out of the house too while I’ve been home this week. Yesterday I sent her to the spa for a little pampering. She seemed to really like the few hours that she was out of the house. I wish that I could give her more time away. She doesn’t get PTO and I worry about that sometimes.

As you saw from my previous blog entry, we took the kids for a walk this week. We actually did it twice. I’m not sure yet how much they really like it. We had to carry Brook and Madeline a bit each time; actually Monica and Naomi did. They just aren’t used to riding in a stroller like most babies. Most regular parents take their kids with them to the store for groceries, out to dinner and everywhere else. We took Meredith everywhere. We just can’t do that with the quints so I’m sure that they just aren’t used to riding around just yet. They’ll get the hang of it.

The kids are doing well. They’re developing nicely. They are 9 months old today! Can you believe that? 9 months. Their gestational age is 6 ½ months. A couple of them (Brook and Alex) have really started to sit up on their own very nicely this past week. The others aren’t quite there. Crawling isn’t far away. Several of them are up on their knees, but just don’t get it yet that they need to move forward. Give it a month or two and we’ll have em crawling all over the place. No teeth yet, and that’s just fine. For as long as they’ve been drooling and chewing on things, you’d think they’d have a mouthful by now. We had and continue to have some concern about the vision development for Lauren and Emma. Things get very technical so I’ll spare you the details. Over the past couple weeks, we can tell that things are getting better. We’re still watching things closely and pray that they continue to improve.

I just love this time of the year and this is one of my favorite weekends of the year. The NCAA Basketball Tournament started yesterday. Angela and I are graduates of the University of Northern Iowa. UNI had a great season and are in the tourney again this year. UNI is a small school in comparison to the other big time programs in the tournament and they won their first game last night over UNLV. They haven’t won their first round game since 1980 when they upset #3 Missouri. They will likely face #1 Kansas over the weekend sometime and we’ll be cheering them on from here. Go Panthers!

In addition to the ball games this weekend, we’ll have some more family in town. My parents, my mom’s sister, and her two daughters will be here. Apparently Janet (my mom’s sister) and the girls have never been to the circus and felt the need to scratch their itch. I hope that we don’t disappoint. Meredith will get to spend some quality time with Oma and Opa. I hear that some swimming may be in her future. Maybe we’ll get away for a while too.

So with that said, I’ll try to get an update next week to follow up on the weekend and how I’m doing with my picks for the tournament.

Until then…

The Tille Kids went for a walk today for the first time as a group. Great Grandma Lucy’s knit sweaters came in handy. Thank you to the four helpers it took to make it around the neighborhood!

I am taking the week off from work so I’ll work on the website. I’ll write a few times, get a bunch of photos updated and added. This past weekend we had some family visit. Angela’s parents were here for another very quick weekend. We also had my Aunt, Uncle, and cousin here for the whole weekend. They spent a lot of time here with the kids and took a ton of pics. Thank you Ageson Family!!!!

There were signs that we were in the clear. The kids have been taking full bottles for a few days. No one was crying all day long. Things were running smoothly. The scheduled napping was starting to go well. Then someone sneezed and I looked around the room…three runny noses. Son of a b—-, we have our third bug in 4 weeks.

Four weeks ago, Meredith woke up in the night crying and feeling very warm. Her temp was 105 and change. That got our attention in the middle of the night, to say the least. An extra aggressive doze of Tylenol and a bath got it dropped under 102 in an hour or so. Within 36 hours the others were starting to show signs. We had the quints on what I’ve been calling a Tylenol/Motrin drip and they still got temps around 102. All six of the kids had a real bad hacky, wet cough. After two full weeks, it had finally run its course through all of the kids.

Two weeks ago, around 6:30 in the morning, Meredith woke up a bit early. She had a cup of juice and was watching cartoons on the couch and wearing her princess dress when she just threw up. No warning; she just vomited in the couch. A minute later, she did it again on the kitchen floor where it splattered everywhere. Angela got her cleaned up and took her downstairs in an effort to isolate her from the other kids. Shortly thereafter, we started bottles at 7:00 am. Within seconds of finishing their bottles, Alex and Brook threw up their entire bottles. We thought it might be isolated in that they throw up a bottle from time to time if they don’t burp well. Turns out that it wasn’t isolated. The puking just continued all day long. I think I did 12 loads of laundry that day and Angela was thrown up on at least 10 different times by Meredith alone. Totally disgusting. That Wednesday will always be known as “Puke Day.” We all had it and it took a week to cycle through the house and a hand full of our volunteers. A big “Thank You” to my manager Jim for how he handled things with me the past two weeks. He even came to the house to meet the family. He had too; I was driving. Very cool guy!!!

That brings us yesterday and our third bug in 4 weeks. Everyone but dad has a snotty, runny nose right now. Mom was in bed before nine tonight with a heavy dose of NyQuil, Kleexex stuffed in her nose, looking totally pitiful. I hope that the kids sleep tonight so that she can get some rest. She needs it so much.

We’ve had some other major changes and developments recently. We got our new table for the kids. I put it together over the past weekend and took this short video of the kids in it for the first time.

You can see all of our videos by clicking here. I fed the kids cereal for the first time this week too. They did pretty well, and I guess we’ll see how it goes. The table was great. I was talking with my brother the other night and he said that it will be one hell of a buffet table soon. He’s right, it will. They really like sitting in it and playing. Meredith has really enjoyed it too.

Now sooner than later, spring is gonna come and we can get the heck out of this house. Cabin Fever is in full effect, especially for Mama. Spring can’t come soon enough. Maybe we’ll have a cool big ass van to take a ride around town soon…

Until next time…