Welcome to The Nut House

My motto is “There is nothing wrong with a little crazy in your day” and I completely believe it. I think if I didn’t allow just a bit of crazy into my daily routine I would go completely bonkers.

The Nut House consists of my myself, my husband, my 4 boys ages 7, 5, 2 and 1 yrs old and we are expecting another baby in July! We still don’t know if this one is a boy or a girl, I love the surprise. Some would say that it is better to be prepared…like if this one is a girl, they say it would be nice to know to get ready. I feel that with all the crazy things that I could be surprised with, waiting to find out the sex of the baby is a happy surprise anyway you put it.

My 1 yr old was born last year in May with a Congenital Heart Defect that surprised us – and that is one of those bad surprises that I could do without. His congenital heart defect is Double Inlet, Single Ventricle with Pulmonary Atresia, and Malpositioned Great Arteries, and Ventricle Inversion. At 6 days old they tried to put a Stent in his PDA to keep it open, and found that his arteries were too twisted and couldn’t get to the duct. So at 9 days old he had the BT Shunt, which is an Open Heart procedure, and just in time. We had a very scary day and even scarier night not knowing if he would survive. When he was 5 months old he had his second surgery that was a Bi-Lateral Glenn procedure. He turned 1 yrs old just a few weeks ago and by looking at him you would never know what he went through his first few days and weeks of life. He is my hero and always will be.

My oldest is almost 8 yr old! Holy Moly how the heck did that happen! He is going through some issues, among other things and we just recently – as of this week, decided that we would start Homeschooling him as of next year. I just found out about a Homeschool convention in Richmond coming up in a few weeks and we are going to go and find him a curriculum that works for both him and me. I always wanted to homeschool my kids, but as we kept having more kids, we decided to wait a bit longer, now there is no denying that I am ready to homeschool at least one of my kids.

My second child is 5 yrs old and for years thought that if he jumped off the couch high enough he would actually fly – and he tried many times. He is a wicked sweet boy and loves to play with his brothers. If it were up to him he would pick up his 1 yr old brother and run off on an adventure in the backyard, teaching him ninja moves or going on a heroic knights quest. He is getting to that Ah-Ha! moment with reading and shocks himself when he realizes that he can actually read the book in front of him, although he still prefers to have me read to him…which always makes me happy.

I have to say that my 3rd child freaks me out a bit – in a good way though. He is almost 3 and is learning to read already. He knew how to read all of his letters and many of his numbers up to 20 by the time he was 18 months old. When I realized that he was actually reading the letters and could bring me any letter block that I asked for I was floored. At first I thought it was just a random thing, but then I started to notice that while I was teaching my 5 yr old to read, he was soaking it all in and will sometimes tell his big brother what the word on his flash card is. I think I am going to have a hard time keeping up with this one!

The little baby in the belly is due on my 3rd boy’s 3rd birthday – I am hoping, as I always so with my summer babies especially, that the baby comes early, but it might be fun to have 2 birthdays on the same day. I am sure it will have its ups & downs as they grow up, but I still think it might be fun – but I also think by the time the hot July rolls around I will be ready to give it all up.

Myself, I am a jeweler by trade, taking a bit of a break still trying to recover from Owain’s heart surgeries, and even after a year, trying to pick myself back up and move on with my life. A few years ago I started freelance writing and have picked that up quite a bit more in the past 4 months or so to make up for the fact that I am not a jeweler everyday anymore. I have a few other blogs, one for my articles and a few for my business if you want to read my articles and see what is going on with my jewelry – which honestly is not nearly enough for my sanity right now.  I have a tendency to work way more than I should and feel like I am still not working nearly enough, somehow there is just never enough money.

Well I guess that is The Nut House in a Nutshell. There is so much more to our crazy little house than that, and I guess that is how this blog came about…