We BOUGHT our New Gazebo and Memories From Four Years Ago......

You KNOW Louis Dean and I are NOT 'Morning People!'

However, we got a phone call from the tree trimmers at 9:00 AM! We are using Baker's Tree Service and James called to say he was on his way over to look at our elm tree! You should have SEEN us move!!! We jumped out of bed and threw on our clothes so fast even WE couldn't believe it!

We are all set now to have the tree work done on Friday which is perfect! That gives Louis Dean more time to take up that old deck and deal with other back yard clean up operations he is in the middle of finishing!

So! Since we were UP!!! - we finished our coffee and reading and headed out to Lowe's to purchase a new gazebo!!! We are going to LOVE it!!!

Since I was THERE, I might as well buy a couple of Indian Hawthorne bushes for the front flower bed and some herbs and flowers.....and potting soil and mulch!

We racked up a pretty good bill!

I'm afraid the train trip we had planned to celebrate Louis Dean's 80th birthday this fall - and MY 68th - is not going to happen. The tree trimming and gazebo will eat up all the money we had put up for that trip. But on the bright side, we will get SO much use from our gazebo - YEARS of enjoyment - as opposed to 10 DAYS of the train trip! Perhaps next year!

We are tired tonight! We came home and LD worked on the back yard cleaning out space to put the chairs and such from off the deck and then taking up more of the boards.

I cleaned up a flower bed and I must warn anyone planting MINT!!!! Do NOT put it in the GROUND!!! ONLY use containers!!! I pulled up a HUGE black garbage sack FULL of mint and mint roots!!I LOVE mint but after I am long gone, the people who may come after us here will no doubt ask - WHAT were they THINKING??? So MUCH mint!!!

After we had worked and planted and watered and then sat and admired what we had done, I noticed how the roses are laying on top of a bush by the kitchen pond. I knew I was the Queen of Layering - but I was pretty impressed with how pretty this looks!

Every April I begin to think of the memories and events of 2012.

Four years ago today, Amber and I were playing a Wi game. She would be going into the hospital just 4 days later and stay there for the next 55 days. She would put up a monumental fight to keep her babies inside her womb for as long as possible. We have known and loved these babies since before they were born!! Amber and Mike had already named them and we knew and recognized them in sonograms and 3D sonograms.

We do not have many 'photos' of Trystan as she was Baby A.

AKA the Gatekeeper and an excellent one she was!!!

We called this photo 'Power to the Gatekeeper' and Their Granddad later coined the phrase 'BABY POWER' which they STILL cheer and yell!!!

Can you tell who Baby B is???

I would recognize that face anywhere! It's our dear Kailey!!!

She has Amber's profile!!!

Here she is with her hands up pushing on Harrison!!

They were in very tight quarters!!!

And then HERE is Harrison!!!

I guess I will never get over the awe and amazement of these multiple birth grandchildren of mine.

Every spring I relive the whole thing in my mind and memory!

We nearly lost Harrison 10 days after he was born. I vividly remember that day on June 10th when I literally begged God to give Harrison the strength to LIVE!!! I literally felt like I was pulling on God's sleeves! And then after I could NOT stop thanking him and I am thanking him still!!!

And HERE is Baby D!

The baby the doctors advised Amber and Mike early on to selectively manage or abort in order to give the others a better chance at surviving. This is our dear sweet Logan. She was the tiniest little thing throughout the pregnancy. They called her the little peanut because that was the shape of her tiny little baby sac. I applaud the faith of my daughter and son in law as they chose LIFE for ALL their children! And God granted that it be so. Thanks be to God!

Logan was tucked up high under her mommy's ribs.

I think she felt safe there.

Here is Logan with her feet over her head! We thought she might be a gymnast then and we still think it now!

The amazing thing about these four quadruplets is that we feel like we have known them since they were conceived. Louis Dean and I have been part of their lives starting from the day Amber and Mike came home from the doctor's office to deliver the news that Amber was pregnant with FOUR!!

It's been a wild and glorious ride and it's not over!!!!

For as long as we live, the quads will be such a HUGE and special part of our lives!

When Louis Dean and I married in 2005, he said, "Linda, I think God has a plan for us. A plan to be of HELP in some way." We thought then it would be in a nursing home ministry. God had an even  better idea!