Me and My Crew

If you're wondering who the crazy chick is who writes all this silly stuff, well then this page is for you. My name is Brooke and I'm 34 years old. I've been happily married to The Hubs since 2003. We have 5, yes 5, kids:

• Mr. Man - Who, by the way, would absolutely hate it if he knew I was calling him that. But, hey, he's 15 and he hates almost everything right now :) Ah, teenage angst, we meet again.
• My Girl - She is 12 and she's really trying to figure out her place in the world. In case you were wondering, she knows way more than I do about pretty much everything and if you don't believe me you can just ask her. She'll be happy to tell you.
• Hot Shot - He's 9, and, wow, 9-year-old boys pretty much live on their own planet! He's a lot of fun, though. He still likes me...because he hasn't caught the teen angst yet.
• Little CC - She's 8 and sweet as pie. She is the quintessential "girly girl." Ribbons, bows, ruffles, ballet. She loves art, crafts, fashion, and adding bling to anything and everything.
• Baby K - She's 4 and technically not a baby anymore, but she'll always be my baby! She's sweet, but she's tough. Nobody crosses her and lives to tell the tale. A stranger once approached me and said, "No man will ever be mean to her." True story.

Right about now, you may be doing a little math and wondering how The Hubs and I have a 15-year-old when we've only been married since 2003. And the answer is simple: magic. The magic of adoption, that is. It's awesome, you should try it! Oh, I should also tell you that it's hard, too ;-) But I figure that anything worth having is going to be challenging, and my zoo crew is definitely worth having. Someone asked me quite politely the other day if we are a blended family.(It's pretty obvious from looking at all of us together that we don't share DNA, so I think it's natural for people to be curious about our situation.) Yeah, I guess you could say that we are a blended family. Some days we blend a little better than others, but that's part of what it means to be a family, right? That we love each other anyway and keep trying?

My favorite definition of "family" comes from a woman named Nancy Thomas: A family is a group of people working together to make a house a home.

So that's me and my crazy crew! Do share about you and your family!
~Brooke