Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, dear Luke, Andrew, John Mark, Matthew.

Happy birthday to you.

DRC/Gary Payne

The Compton quadruplets — Matthew, left, Andrew, Luke and John Mark — celebrated their fourth birthday at their home in Sanger on Saturday. Their parents are Mark and Melody Compton; the boys have one sister, 7-year-old Olivia.

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A crowd sings the familiar refrain for the quadruplets celebrating another milestone.

Four years after their birth on June 7, 2004, the four boys born to Mark and Melody Compton are growing up.

Almost two months after moving into their new home north of Sanger, the Compton family celebrated the quadruplets’ birthday with a combination Star Wars-themed party and an open house on Saturday.

Greeting visitors at the door, Matthew grabbed guests’ hands to take them on a tour of his new bedroom, which he shares with his brother Andrew. The youngest by mere seconds, Matthew is the smallest of the four, with the widest smile.

“Matthew is the tour guide,” his father, Mark, said. “Everybody who comes over, he takes them and shows them everything.”

Carrying his purple bag and a box of toy cars, Matthew climbs onto one of the twin beds in his room before jumping down to run to one of two closets.

“This is my closet,” he chirps.

The mostly empty closet was designed to be large enough to carry the boys through their teenage years. Each boy has his own closet, Mark says.

“That’s the one thing that’s theirs,” he said.

John Mark and Luke slept together in their Denton home and opted to keep their roommate status for the new house, which covers more than 3,000 square feet on a 7-acre plot off Chisam Road.

Their parents gave the boys a choice of whom they would room with on the bottom of the two-story house. The Comptons’ eldest, 7-year-old Olivia, has the second floor to herself, complete with a separate bathroom.

“Boys can bunk together,” Mark said. “Girls, well, you know.”

Between the boys’ two rooms, a bathroom sports two sinks, two showers, a urinal and a commode — designed so that two of the boys can be doing a part of their grooming at any given time.

The larger home also allows the seven-member family an opportunity to sit together at the long dinner table without taking time to install or take out leaves before and after each meal. Their Den­ton home was too small to house the table at full length.

A commercial-sized washer and dryer sit inside a separate laundry room with plenty of counter space and a separate sink for putting the dirty clothes that are common with active little boys.

Space for what was initially designed to be a garage was converted into a playroom where the boys can watch a favorite Star Wars movie, play with their plastic light sabers or celebrate their birthdays.

Filled with family and friends, the room was large enough for the more than 30 guests.

Individual personalities

DRC file photo

On July 22, 2004, Matthew, Andrew, Luke and John Mark are united side-by-side for the first time since their birth on June 7.

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As the years have passed, the number of volunteers needed to help Melody and Mark cope with their children’s needs has dwindled.

Nowadays, the Comptons re­ceive occasional assistance from friends and family, but they have their own system for handling the four boys.

Four years ago, as many as 10 to 20 volunteers took two- to four-hour shifts to help feed, bathe, clothe and rock the four new bundles born at Baylor University Medical Center.

From the beginning, Matthew was plagued with health problems, though these days, it’s hard to tell. Since a surgery earlier in the year for his ears, Matthew has settled into being a happy, carefree youngster with few worries, aches or pains, his mother said.

Of the four, Andrew is the quietest and most introspective. As the oldest of the four, he often can be found playing by himself, Melody said.

John Mark is a rough-and-tumble type who enjoys wrestling with his dad and doing just about anything his father does.

“He’s a daddy’s boy, definitely,” Mark says, handing him his own spatula to help turn the wieners roasting on the grill near the back door.

If anyone hears a loud shriek, it likely is coming from Luke, who has powerful lungs and an engaging grin.

As workers began putting air into flattened plastic, it soon became apparent to Luke exactly what was going up behind his house on his shared birthday.

“It’s a bounce house,” he squealed. “Yeah!”

With a curly blond mop, dimples and blue eyes, Luke most resembles his sister, Olivia. The two often play together until she has her fill and sends him downstairs, Mark said.

“They are all so different,” said Patti Pennington, a longtime family friend and frequent visitor.

She looks at the four boys and can’t imagine one without the others.

“They’re all so special in their own way.”

A life choice

Mark and Melody Compton were faced with a tough decision shortly after learning about the pending arrival of the quadruplets. In December 2003, Mark recalled, they were told that it might be safer not to deliver all four.

DRC/Gary Payne

Mark and Melody Compton hand out birthday cake to their sons Luke, left, Andrew, John and Matthew as the quadruplets celebrate their fourth birthday at their home in Sanger on Saturday.

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The couple told their church friends and family about the option, Pennington recalled.

“I’ll never forget that day,” she said, adding that Mark then asked, “Which one would you choose?”

The decision to keep all four hasn’t been easy for the Comp­tons, who have had to buy four of everything and, before their move, struggled to find space in their former small home. Melody temporarily battled postpartum depression — not unusual in mothers of multiples — because of the extreme changes required in handling two or more babies at one time.

But despite the challenges, they have come a long way, Melody and Mark both say.

Practice has made outings quite a bit easier, Mark says, adding they often take the entire family out to eat. Other people have commented on how well behaved the boys are in public, he said.

Melody has a routine down pat with plans for more structure as the quadruplets get older. One day, she says, they’ll each have their own labeled baskets of clothes to fold and put away — yet another example of her organization skills.

Amid the peals of laughter, squeals of delight and momentary cries of what sounds like agony, the noisy household is exactly the way the couple says they want it to be — filled with love.

The love, says Pennington, has been there from the start — when the Compton household was but a glimmer in a young couple’s eyes.

“We’ve been there from the very beginning,” Pennington said, remembering when the couple first met in a church class years ago. “It’s a sweet love story, a growing love story.”

DAWN COBB can be reached at 940-566-6879. Her e-mail address is dcobb@dentonrc.com .