Welcome to the family Roger!!!

Sometimes I feel I am living in my very own zoo, between a husband, 5 kids, 2 dogs, and a bunny yep I think we have our very own zoo!
Some friends of ours are looking for a home for their guinea pig "Roger" and our kids are already great friends with Roger, he is cute, sweet and wonderful with the kids so of course I jumped at the chance to welcome Roger into our home! And I had to do almost no convincing of my husband!
So this afternoon when all of the kids got home from school I did the usual "how was school?" and then announced that I had big news! Makenna immediately shouts, "your pregnant!!!!". Okay, okay I can understand how she might come to that conclusion considering we have a rather large family and about all it takes for me to get pregnant is to think about it or sneeze! "Sorry Makenna, but no I am not pregnant." I replied. "But we are adding to our family!" I said. The confused look on the kids' faces was priceless and then Makenna says, "so we are going to adopt someone?". "Well, I guess we kind of are, remember Roger the guinea pig?". And within about a second the room erupted into screams of excitement, it clicked and the kids knew exactly what was going on, we were adopting Roger the guinea pig!!!
So now our family consists of 7 humans, 2 dogs, a bunny, and a guinea pig!
Our zoo is growing :)

Kids NEVER forget anything!

I have 4 girls and 1 little boy, but don't worry my husband is my biggest child and my son's best playmate! Our little boys name is Reece Allen but since he was about 2 if you asked him what his middle name was he would tell you "Pieces" because we would call him Reece's Pieces.

So last year Reece was really getting into Star Wars and he came to me one day out of the blue and asked if we could change his name to Darth Vader, I asked him why? He told me he thought it would be a cool name to have! It was almost time to register for kindergarten so I asked him if that is how he wanted me to register him for school and he said, " yes, Darth Vader Pieces Smith." I also asked if he would go just by Darth and he said, "sometimes just Darth and other times Darth Vader." He had really thought this through.

I told him that I would have to think about this for a REALLY LONG time, in hopes that his 5 year old brain might just forget about this idea.

I called my husband who was on his way home from work and told him about Reece's idea and how I told him I'd have to think about it for a really long time in hopes that he would forget about it, so what does my husband do? He walks in the door from work and says, "Hey Darth!" and Reece looks at me with a huge smile on his sweet little face and says, "so we can?"

"So we can what buddy?" I asked. "Change my name to Darth Vader!" he exclaimed! "Oh, well I'm still thinking about it buddy, I'll get back to you." I told him.

Needless to say my husband was in the dog house for that one!

So days go by and I've totally forgotten about this name change thing and Reece hasn't said another word either. And then about a week later Reece comes to me and says, " so are you done thinking?". "Um about what buddy?" I ask. "About changing my name to Darth Vader!!!" He says. And at that point I realize there is no way he is going to just forget about this!!!

The Binky Debacle

A few months ago I decided we really needed to get our almost 3 year old to give up her most precious friend, her binky (pacifier). We decided we would go about it the same way we had with our oldest 2 girls 8 years ago. We started with talking alot about the "binky fairy" coming and how big girls who were 3 couldn't have a binky. Then about a week before Macey's 3rd birthday we cut the nipples off of all of her binkies, all 30+ of them! My husband didn't know at the time that I had kept a "secret stash" of 5 binkies in a drawer, just in case! So that evening we were getting Macey ready for bed and collecting binkies and she realized they were all "broken" so she decided they needed to go into the garbage and Rick and I held our breath for the possible rough night ahead of us. When Macey got in bed she discovered that the "binky fairy" had come and left her a pee wee pillow pet to replace her binkies, she was so very happy and went to sleep and did great! Macey did absolutely amazing, she was already potty trained and this was the last "baby battle" and now we were done with that and so easily too, or so we thought...

A couple of days later our sweet, pleasant, compliant, easy-going almost 3 year old turned into the crabbiest little thing you've ever met! She whined all day long and was driving everyone in the family crazy!!! Even our 4 older kids who usually fight over who is going to play with or hold sweet little Macey were avoiding her at all cost and begging me to "please make her stop whining and fussing all the time!!!" Our entire family was on edge but my husband gets to go to work and the other 4 get to escape her for 8 hours a day when at school but I get to be with her all day long and my patience was beyond wearing thin! When the kids would get home from school I would ask them to play with her just so I could get a break and they did not want to, I even bribed them with $!

So after 2 weeks of missing our sweet, pleasant little girl and with my anxiety levels through the roof and my patience non-existent anymore I went to my secret stash and gave her a binky and magically the whining and fussing stopped!

I know, I know I should have just stuck it out and eventually she would have worked through it and she would have been fine and I know we shouldn't hinder our child's progress just to make ourselves feel better and I know that Dr. Phil would have some stern words for me about this, but I don't care I was desperate!!! I had to make the whining stop and it worked so here we are with a 3 year old that still has her BFF ~ her binky. Oh well, maybe she will give it up by the time she goes to kindergarten ;)

Going Retro

I don't know about the rest of you but every time I walk into a clothing store I am literally smacked in the face by the blast from the past retro 80's and 90's styles!!! Every year I think what in the world am I going to wear and where am I going to shop???

The funny thing is that with every new appearance of the retro styles I swear up and down that I will NEVER be caught wearing those styles again, they were bad the first time around and I will not do it again! But every time I seem to eventually find myself wearing these trends!

It began with the skinny jean and I swore that no way would I ever wear those awful pants, they reminded me way too much of my 80's days of "tight-rolling" my jeans and I was not going to make that fashion mistake again! Well, now I have a couple of pairs of skinny jeans and I love them!

Next came the "jeggings" and there was no way I was going to wear those, but then I bought a pair for my then 2 year old and she looked so cute in them and then my 3 other girls (7, 10, and 11 at the time) were wearing them and I decided maybe I should try a pair, maybe I could pull them off and now yes, I own and love my jeggings!

Well, today came the biggest fashion shock! I bought, wait for it....... leg warmers! Yes I know, I am stunned and a little disgusted too! Leg warmers are the fashion from the past that I've sworn off the most, I think my exact statements were, "I would not be caught dead in leg warmers, and when hell froze over" and yes today I went against all of my fashion standards and as I sit here blogging I am wearing leg warmers and of course my favorite jeggings!!!

My life as an OC housewife...organized chaos that is!!!

Organized Chaos seems to be the story of my life since becoming a wife and mother.

I am 38 years old married to an amazing guy and have 5, yes, that is not a typo, 5 wonderful children that keep me on my toes every day! Oh, and can't forget the 2 dogs and a bunny!

I spend my days cleaning up messes, putting out fires, playing referee, being a doctor, chef, chauffeur, party planner, psychologist, and my favorite job, cuddling expert!

There is never a dull or quiet moment at my house!

And then as if my plate isn't full enough there is life that happens without warning, in August of 2010 I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a major blow to our entire family.

Since my diagnosis I've made adjustments to my life to improve my quality of life and am doing incredibly well. I am a proactive patient, I do my homework and will try anything to slow the progression of this disease to maximize my quality of life.

Don't worry, this blog isn't going to be me boo-hooing about MS all the time, I may vent from time to time but I am a very optimistic person and will most likely be blogging about exciting new things I'm doing to kick MS's butt, the wild and crazy antics of my kids that keep me laughing, and other fun stuff like the adventures of motherhood, friendships, husbands, and anything else that may come up in my life as an "OC housewife"!