Welcome to the Herd

HERE IS THE UPDATED POST WITH INFO ON MY HERD!2/17/14 Updated Herd Info

Hey everyone! My name is Jessica, and I've been married for almost seven years to an amazing man, the Husband. I'm a Stay-at-Home Mom/Professional Child Wrangler. We have four kids under the age of 6, and because keeping them safe and moving them all from one place to another is a lot like herding cattle, we refer to them collectively as the Herd. Our house is insane. All of the time. Never stops. No break in the craziness. It's just straight up WHACK most of the time. We do our best to keep it all together...  a lot of times all we can do is look at each other and laugh at those people. When we're not screaming.

Allow me to introduce you to the Herd.
Our oldest son, aged 5 years and weighing in at around 50 pounds, I'll refer to as Butch Cassidy, or BC. He is a wide-open, pedal to the metal wild man. He's also wicked good at taking things apart.... and by things, I mean EVERYTHING that he gets his hands on... yes EVERYTHING.... but a lot of times he can actually put them back together. We're hoping he chooses a career in Engineering rather than, let's say a life of crime. More on that later.

Our second son, aged 4, who has the face of an angel, but is usually plotting mischief behind those wide, Precious Moments-esque eyes, will be called the Sundance Kid. Sundance and BC are 14 months apart in age, and are attached at the hip. Sundance usually acts as the lookout for most of their escapades, but here lately he's been taking a more active role in the havoc. He has Radar Ears and hears EVERYTHING. He also has a memory like a steel trap. This is good, for say, memorizing poetry, songs, prayers and such... but not so good when he hears us say something that we don't want repeated. He also argues like a future Clarence Darrow.

Our oldest daughter, age 2 and a half, is the Princess. She is sweet, adorable and loves to play dress up.... but her wrath should never be underestimated. Just ask her brothers. The Princess isn't scared of anything, and is remarkably assertive... she refuses to let her brothers take what's rightfully hers... or rightfully theirs. She's as prissy as she can be, but also plays rough and loves going head-first down slides... which starting at 15 months of age. The older she gets, the scarier her audacity gets.

Our youngest daughter, who is 4 months old, is called the Lucky Lil Lady or LLL. There are a few reasons for this name... to begin with, she was born on 11/11/11. Yep. To a Daddy that LOVES to play craps. Birthdays don't get much luckier than that! She was also born at 11 AM... Crazy, I know. LLL is also lucky in  that she has me for a Mama... because I have been able ( so far, anyways) to handle her craziness and cope with the insanity of a severely colicky/refluxing baby AND the stunts of her older siblings. She's also very lucky to have three older kids in the house that would kill anyone who messes with her.

Well there you have it. More on the Herd and their insane adventures later. Just to warn you.... the next post will involve nine cups of chocolate pudding, markers, a bedroom wall, and indentured servitude to rectify the chaos in which these items played a role.