Now's the time to roll out the barrel. . .

. . . because the gang's all here!  A week ago today we were able to bring home our youngest and smallest, Magnus Arthur.  What a thrill to be done with that phase of our life and have all of our children home with us.  Mags was still having his little breathing spells, so they put him back on caffeine and released him with a home monitor.  They said that was the only thing keeping him there, and we'd get him home a lot faster if we were willing to use the monitor, so we agreed.  We attended a special training to learn how to operate this thing, which monitors his heart rate and breathing.  So far it's only beeped at us a couple of times when his heart rate went either high (getting his diaper changed and a little peeved) or low (just very relaxed, I guess).  Oh, and if we accidentally unplug it or the leads come loose - that's usually the case.  And this thing is frickin' loud, so we try not to do that.  He'll do the caffeine for two weeks and the monitor for a month, and if things are looking good he can be done with that and go on as just a regular wireless kid.

We made our first public appearance with all three of them on Sunday, attending church.  It required us to get up a good hour before we usually would to make the 8:45 service twenty minutes away, but we made it.  There was a mini assembly line of feeding, undressing, bathing, redressing, etc., and once we had that system figured out it went pretty well.  Today we took them to their two month check-up already; can you believe it?  Me neither.  Anyway, we seem to draw attention to ourselves everywhere we go with a crazy-haired three year old hanging off one of us and three infant seats, plus a diaper bag and Magnus' monitor.  We probably won't be venturing out too much for awhile!  There's no extra room in the Escalade, that's for sure.  We'll be heading down to New Richland for Easter this weekend, so we'll test their long range pleasantness on the road.  Will be interesting. . .

Check-ups were a process but everyone is fine.  Eero is up to 7 lbs 7 oz, Rex is 7 lbs 2 oz, and Magnus is 5 lbs 7 oz.  He doesn't care if he eats as much as his older brothers, so the doctor suggested we wake him up sooner than he requests and feed him more often so he can continue to gain and catch up.  Both Eero and Magnus prefer to lay with their heads on the right sides which is causing them to be a little flat, so we've been given some tips for physical therapy that will encourage them to use both sides and round out their heads again.  And a public health nurse is coming every Friday to check their weights and make sure they're growing so we don't have to repeat the process of bringing them to the doctor once a week.  Nice.

Having four kids under the age of three does rearrange a person's world quite a bit.  Housework suffers, as does personal hygiene occasionally.  We are definitely sleep-deprived.  After Axel was born I remember marveling to myself on how little sleep I could actually function.  In college I totally would have skipped all my morning classes with this lack of rest.  Shout out to Eric and Heather Hendrickson, people from my hometown who also welcomed triplets in November - their feature in the New Richland newspaper quoted them as saying they'd be bored with just one baby.  I laughed then, but they've got a point.  I don't know if we'd be bored, but we have kind of adjusted to chaos as the norm.

Axel is a terrific big brother.  I would have bet with confidence that he'd put pillows in their faces when they cried, but it's quite the opposite.  The other morning as one of them lay on the floor crying for a bottle I was preparing, instead of yelling himself or trying to shut them up, he just lay down next to him and looked him in the face.  It was like an unspoken, "I'm here for you."  Super sweet and frankly unAxel-like.  He's full of surprises.  Lately his life is a musical; he sings half his words, albeit offkey, but still hilarious.  He also repeats commercial jingles, e.g. "Save big money at Menards," and "We are Farmers, bum buh bum bum bum bum bum."  It's possible we watch too much TV.

Jesse is, I think, really going to enjoy having four boys here with him - what a great excuse to play video games and watch sports.  The unfinished basement will probably turn into a boy zone soon, and they can all head down there and fart and talk about boobs and cars and I will never have to hear any of it.  Hooray!  I am actually loving the idea of having "a boy house", as one of my nurses called it.  I can have more of the haircare and clothing budget to myself.  Plus, as my uncle Curt so wisely advised me, if you have a boy you only have to worry about one penis; if you have a girl you have to worry about them all.

Last night I ventured out alone for the first time since having four kids in my house.  It was such a treat just to be in the car by myself and blast the radio!  I went to get a much needed haircut, my last one being in December (yikes).  My usual stylist is on maternity leave so I had someone else do it.  It's just a trim, I thought, pretty much anyone can do that.  This woman, who had clearly spent a fair amount of time in the tanning booth and was a lovely shade of orange, told me her motto is "The higher the hair, the closer to God," then literally backcombed that theory on to my head.  After sleeping on it, I was able to tame it down this morning, and it's not as scary as I originally feared.  Whew.

If you've called, emailed, or texted us in the last couple weeks and we have not returned your message, please do not be offended!  Just try us again if you would.  We're getting better.  I'm going to try to be better at this, too, as the story is not over.  My goal is once a week, and since this is Wednesday, I will try to write on Wednesdays.  I get the feeling people are checking the blog for progress reports which I have not kept up on the last little while, but promise to improve.  Wednesdays.

Here are some new pictures - first the peaceful sleepers. . .

Eero

Magnus

Rex

Then you can see what a time we will have over the next several years trying to get everyone to look at the camera for a decent picture. . .

Not bad . .

 Axel's been our little guy for so long but compared to these squirts he's just a big kid.

Thanks again to everyone for all the well-wishes and prayers the last few months - surely they've helped us and we're grateful for everything you've done.