Are you guys workin on a ballteam?

Are you guys workin on a ball-team? NO! We are working on a reality show!

I really get so angry when people ask me this. I recently have had my share of these comments here lately because we found out he week of my youngest 1st birthday that we were going to have baby number 6. This was not a decision of our own but a blessing from God because we were taking all means to prevent this, but obviously God has different plans.

I honestly have had a worse reception with this pregnancy because of the size of our family, worse than when I was 16 and pregnant. I am beyond sick of hearing "you gonna get your tubes tied" or "why haven't you gotten fixed!" No one realizes this was not our decision and God has answered a pray from years ago. When we had only Hannah, in the 9yr gap between her and Abbi I prayed for a large family. I have always wanted many kids, I wanted the quiver full so to say. God answers in HIS time, not ours. I call this baby my surprise blessing and he/she (we do not know just yet) will be here in January 2011...God is good! And if he blesses me with many kids, He will provide for them too. He is in control!

Don't you guys have a tv???

Well, this past June number 5 arrived. We named him Tuff. There is a story behind the name and since Tuff isn't very old to be doing the wild things the others are I will tell you a bit about his name. Tuff Oliver Abel Holmes, Abel is the biblical name we chose for him, Oliver was my daddy's and gran-daddy's middle name and Tuff was a "t" name like all the boys in our house have but it was also because we had such a tough pregnancy. I was having a great deal of stress during this time, the doctor was warning me about it. My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she had a mini-stroke and we were in school full time. Our oldest was graduating from high school, we were having financial difficulties, just basic everyday life troubles. Family and everyone we came in contact with would ask us these questions that would just make my skin crawl, "Don't you guys have a TV" or "Are you getting your tubes tied" or "Is this your last?" We started telling everyone it wasn't our last, we were trying to keep up with the Duggars. Or better yet, we were no longer Baptist, but now we were Catholic or Mormon who are known for their large families.
Up until the time when we went in for the section (3 weeks early) we were having tough things happen. The main water line broke in the city and the hospital had no water when they came to get me for surgery, there was mud running out of the faucet in our room. Then there was a power outage and we didn't have a/c for 3 hours in the room. That is were the name Tuff originated from.
We were going to call him Abel, but my mother said, "I don't care what you call him, I am calling him Tuff." It stuck.

The Wild Man!

Number 4 got here in April and things have never been the same. Titus "Ty Brady" has always been wild. He didn't crawl, he just went from sitting up to walking. He had to keep up with the others. He broke his foot running in church at 17 months old, got his first stitches around 19 months. At this age he could throw a ball and tag you in the head with it, he would hit you when you weren't looking and ran wide open from daylight to dark. By 2 years old he could throw a ball (or anything) up in the air and hit it with a bat (or coke bottle). Our teenager's friends would come over and play with the 2 year old like you play with babies and he would pop them right between the eyes with the ball. What an arm!!! By now we had discovered that Ty is a southpaw, he is definitely a lefty! He is 4 now, has not slowed down a bit. He thinks he can ride it if it has 4 legs or 4 wheels. He loves to help his dad and is really dangerous with tools. He was about 2 and a half and we had to hide the fencing pliers from him because he was tearing holes in the sheet rock in the house. He had a toy tool set from Christmas we had to get rid of because he was prying the walls apart. My mother wasn't a help either, she would let him play with screw drivers and he took one of her cabinet doors down in her kitchen. It actually was amazing to watch him do this because no one had ever shown him how to use the screwdriver and start a screw.
Ty is also bad about picking up colorful language. When you have a 2 year old beating on things with a hammer yelling "Son of a..." you got a problem. One question I had was, "Have you been helping daddy work again?"
He is a handful and everyday is no where near dull with him. I don't think it is no where near slowing down either.

ITS A BOY!

We have so many things that I will share later on about each kid, but I want to introduce each of them and give you an idea of what their personality is like. We had our first boy in 2003. He was named Kyzar. I went in the night before to be induced and during the night he flipped over and was breech the next morning when they broke my water and I had an emergency section. He is my snuggly little man. We would wrap him up in a blanket, head and all from the time he arrived. That is the only way he would get still and rest.
He is 6 now and still wraps up like that to sleep. I went to check on him one night and he had only a sheet around his head. That is just how he is. He thinks with the logic of an adult at times. He over thinks things and processes things on a level we don't even think about. There is no gray areas with him it is only black or white. As to say, all his pecans have to point in the same direction (no, he's not ocd....)
He was very different than what our experience was with our girls, he drove everything around on the floor, with or without wheels, and always made a car noise doing so. Nobody taught him this, he just did it. He would throw things and climb on things and hit things. Definitely ALL BOY!

The Abbi experience

Hannah was really a laid back, quiet, did what she was told type of child. She was so easy. Then comes Abbi, and you had not lived until you had butted heads with a 3 year old. When she started getting around and getting into things we should have known we would be in for it.
From picking up dead horseflies in church for her daddy, putting a lizard in her pocket to go to big church with her, chasing the pastors wife with a frog, and "Going to bible school to shake her booty" we should have known things had began to get interesting in the Holmes house.
When Abbi was 2 she got her first stitches and slept through the whole thing. Then in kindergarten she broke her pinky finger. It was that night at church when we realized something was wrong after we had been to ball practice, grocery store and church. Her finger was black, but she never complained about it. Then in first grade Abbi had to get a stitch in the back of her head because a swing got her. By this time we have transitioned from the parents who take their child to the doctor/ER for every little bump and bruise to the parents who ask "Is this an ER moment or a band aid moment?" It has always been the same, something hurts her and it is ALWAYS followed by the same sentence, "I'm alright!" That's a for sure sign we are going to the hospital.
The accidents haven't been what the Abbi experience is mainly about. Abbi even today is a child that will spend more time trying to get out of doing something than it actually takes to get whatever it was done. From when she was old enough to talk it has been this way. Abbi is extremely smart, but if the TV is on she is in a different world. She has literally walked into a wall watching television. (Now that is blond!)
An amazing thing about Abbi is that she has a heart that is enormous. She had this beautiful long blond hair. I had no intention of ever cutting it. She saw a picture in the paper for a lady donating her ponytail to "Locks for Love" and she wanted to do this in 1st grade. I wouldn't let her, mama just didn't want that hair cut. Well, over the course of the summer she asked a few more times and I gave in the weekend before school started. They cut 24 inches off and donated it. The local newspaper had stopped by and took pictures and that Sunday's paper had her on the front with these large eyes that looked as to say, "What have I done?" Not the case, Abbi was excited to donate it and loved the short hair now.
When I refer to the Abbi experience its her as a whole. Its just an interesting thing how two kids could be so different, Hannah and Abbi, even though they come from the same genes. My grand mother in law said once, "Your first child is a direct opposite of your second. None of them will be the same." She was definitely right.

History lesson 1

I grew up basically an only child even though I have two older sisters and an older brother. They are really old enough to be my parents with the closest one to my age having a 15 year difference. I always that I missed out on having the sibling rivalry that others had and the closest I came to that problem was with my nieces and nephews. Christmas was not a really big ordeal with just me being the only kid in the house. We did the tree, dinner and gifts but that was it for years.
Fast forward a few years, I am now 16 and pregnant. I was starting my own family now. Me and Tim were very young (and dumb) with very limited finances and resources. On December 24, 1990, introducing baby number 1, Hannah Elisabeth. We had said after we had this baby that we would wait until we had enough money before we would ever venture down this road again. Nine years later we realized that there is no way we would or could ever have enough money for a child. So in comes baby number 2, Abigail Grace. By this time we had decided we wanted a large family. When we were grandma and grandpa we wanted a house full. Kids, grand kids and eventually great grands. Sounds wonderful.
In 2003 we had our first son, Timothy Kyzar Holmes. We figured the spacing was a good thing. Timing was right, we weren't getting any younger. God knows what He is doing in these matters, He is the giver of life and not us.
Two years later, in 2005, we have Titus Brady Holmes or as I like to call him Ty Brady. He is the wild man. Joking with people we would say, "If we woulda had him first there woulda been no more!" Deciding that this would more than probably be out last we called it quits. Or so I thought. In 2008 we learned that we were expecting number 5, through no fault of our own. (wink wink) Talk about people and their comments that must have sounded good in their heads but not coming out of their mouth. We heard everything from,"are you guys Catholic" to "don't you have a TV?" People can be so rude! We didn't see this much rudeness when we had Hannah in our teen years.
In June 2009 with an already large family waiting on his arrival, in strolls Tuff Oliver Abel Holmes. Yes, you read it right. His name is Tuff (that story is another blog for another day).
Now we are a family of 7, not counting the pets that my kids think should be added into that equation. So begins life at The Crazy H....