Welcome to My Crazy Life

Hi,

I'm Marta Black and this blog is about me and my family and all our crazy adventures. We live in Sultan, Washington (State). I have 1 wonderful husband, David, 5 happy and healthy boys, 1 fat orange tabby cat, Kit Cat, and 1 little white puppy (ish) dog, Sassy.

Today I thought I'd tell you a little about myself:

One of the funniest things about me is that I have five boys. It is so funny to watch people's expressions when I say I have 5 boys. Their eyes widen with shock, their mouth falls open and normally one of a couple questions pops out before they think about it:
1. "Are they ALL boys?" : Yes! They are all boys. Active, healthy, sarcastic, sports playing boys.
2. "How many?": That would be 5, and yes I know that makes my own basketball team. Or at least would IF my boys were taller and closer together in age.
3. "How do you do it?": Well, by the grace of God! I couldn't do it without him.
4. "Well at least you get a couple hours off while they are at school.": Yeah, we homeschool. I homeschooled 4 of the 5 last year because the youngest is 4 and not ready for school. There are no breaks in homeschooling.
5. "Wow you must have a lot of laundry! ": Yeah, you have NO idea!
6. "How do you feed them all?": I'm still working on that! We went camping recently and I cooked 3 meals a day and did dishes. That took up about 1/3 of our time, and sleeping took up about 1/3 of the time, so that only left 1/3 of my time for all the fun stuff! Eating is super important at our house. We plan our days around it. I clean up after one meal, only to be asked what's for the next meal. My two "littles", Sully and Finn, often ask for second and third breakfast. (I'm raising Hobbits) And snacks and treats don't last an afternoon.
7. "Do you have twins?": We get asked this all the time and finally my oldest boys are taking it in stride. It used to hurt their feeling. My 2 oldest boys are 20 months apart. However #2, Garrett, has always been tall for his age and #1, McCrea, has always been average height, so to the casual observer they look close in size. Then to make things worse, there is Sully and Finn, my littles or #4 and #5. They are 1 year and 15 days apart. People just don't like to think sane people have kids that close together. (And I don't think sane people do have kids that close together.) And it doesn't help that all my kids look alike, a lot alike. I have baby pictures and I can't always tell who is who. (Backgrounds help a lot!) I'm guessing that's because all 5 of my boys have the same mom and dad.

Something else you should know is I'm not from the Northwest, I'm from Texas. So how did a 7th generation Texan end up living Northeast of Seattle? Love! My husband is from Redmond, WA. (You know home of Nintendo.) You see, David was in the Army and stationed at Ft. Hood, TX. One wild night out in Austin changed both our lives forever. We spent the first 10 of our marriage in Texas, before he decided to move back to Washington State. (I'm still working on forgiving him.) It was shaky at first. I mean talk about culture shock! The Northwest is nothing like Texas. First it rains 300 days a year. Which is fine, I like rain. However with rain comes clouds and clouds mean you can't see the sky or the Sun. You can go 300 straight days without seeing the sun in this part of the world. And when it comes out, you are blinded by the brilliance of what seems like a thousand suns. All of this 40 degrees and drizzling makes the people up here a little crazy too.  So when the Sun finally does peek out from behind that thick layer of grayness, people emerge from their houses and the streets fill up with loud children and men with no shirts. And we aren't talking about "good looking cowboys" with no shirts. No the men up here are 1 of 2 types: office workers or rednecks. Neither which you particularly want to see shirtless.  And since 40 degrees and drizzling is the weather for 300 days a year, the houses don't have air conditioning, well at least most of them. And they are built to capture and maintain any heat, which is great in the winter. However when it  85 degrees (which is not hot outside BTW.) my house is 85 degrees too. 85 degrees, no air movement, and sticky. (85 degrees in your house is HOT!) I've googled and bing'ed keeping your house cool without air conditioning and tried 312 ways without success! Luckily for me, the front of my house faces the West, so my backyard and patio are nicely shaded and cool in the afternoon. With the BBQ smoking and a kiddie pool, it makes it almost tolerable here in the heat. (An a/c would make it tolerable, and I mean tolerable.)

Another thing that make people shake their heads at me is I'm a doll collector. (Gasp!)  You can imagine with 5 boys my life is filled with trucks, robots, animals, funny smells, and other "boys" things. Honestly I love boys! I love sports! I'm a huge football fan. If you come to my house and even mention football in a tiny whisper, I will talk your ear off about it. However I'm not a boy, and I can't do boys things 24/7. So I have my hobby: collecting and creating One-Of-A-Kind dolls. (I have a blog about that too. It is sadly out of date though. Homeschooling 4 boys doesn't leave a lot of time for creating dolls or taking pictures of dolls.) My dolls are mine, trust me, little boys run in fear at Barbies and closet full of pretty dresses. Nothing ruins their day more then when a huge package arrives full of "stinky doll stuff". So I have something that is just my own. I don't have to share or explain. I get to just sit down for a few hours a year (exaggerating slightly here) and do something that doesn't involve sweat, dirt, smells, or anything else related to boys. I collect Barbie dolls, Silkstones and DOTW, Fashion Royalty dolls and  my newest obsession, Monster High Dolls.

I'm also a HUGE reader. I love to read and so do my 3 oldest boys. (My littles love to be read to.) We have 5 kindles and 9 bookcases and several boxes full of books. (And that doesn't include ebooks). I read every night before I go to sleep.  I only re-read books at night now, because I've been known to stay up all night reading.  And since I have 5 boys (though to be honest 3 boys and 1 white puppy dog, because teenagers don't like to get up,) all bright eyed and bushy tailed waiting for their 3 breakfasts and school to start, I can't stay up all night. So you can expect to see book lists and reviews from to to time.

David and I have also been attempting at decorating our house. Before we purchased our current home, our decorating style was "little boy" chic. For mother with small children, I'm sure you know the style: toys everywhere, juice spilled on the carpet, laundry thrown in every which corner and crumbs everywhere. Five boys in a small space never seemed to work. I have tried and tried, however I can't not keep up with the destruction, it takes the full time job of 2 adults to keep up with our house and chores. (Which I found out when David was out of work for a few months.) With the help of a neighbor and a few decorating magazines, I finally figured out my decorating style: Country, almost Primitive. Being frugal and without much money, I have learned to search second hand stores for items that I can refinish or repurpose to fit into my decor.