The Luckiest No Matter What!

 I am a writer. As I type that out, I immediately want to erase it, take it back, and blush with embarrassment. I am not classically trained, or frankly, trained at all. Until a year ago, I had no idea what passive voice was (or how much I liked using it). I struggled to teach my own students writing conventions because I often didn't know them myself. I have learned more about prefixes and suffixes as well as Latin and Greek roots from my second grade sons this year than I ever remember learning in school. I hated my linguistics class in college. My writing was called "too fluffy" by a professor in one of my masters classes.  Yet, somehow, for as long as I can remember, I've always written. Writing has actually been a HUGE part of my life. I love it. I fall in love with it in different ways as time goes on. Because this time of year is full of love and thinking about our loved ones, I thought I would write a love note of some kind to writing. These are the loves of ...

The average American tosses 4.4 pounds of trash every day. You multiply that by the six people that live in my house and that's a whole lot of trash!  The Hundts are really trying to reduce our waste footprint. This isn't easy and takes a lot of intentionality and thought. We are surrounded every day by things trying to make our lives 'easier,' but the opportunity cost is usually that easy equals more waste: frozen meals, take out, plastic silverware, buying things in bulk, online shopping, etc, etc, etc. I am so guilty of every single one of those things (especially the take out and the online shopping- does it make anyone else's head spin how much packaging is in both of those things?!) Over the last year or so, especially, we've really been trying to reduce and also buy products that are better for the environment and less wasteful. Here are a few products that have been really successful for our #halfdozenhundts crew: 1.) Glass Straws:  My boys love d...

I am currently a busy mom of 4 little boys.  I am swimming in art projects, buried in papers coming home from school, busy chauffeuring, packing lunches, and cheering from the sidelines of a soccer game while I chase smaller children around. Things are often chaotic, overwhelming even. My mind spins at all hours with how to get things done, how to challenge someone about this, how to support someone about that, and how to give each child individualized love and time and energy and experiences. But not for one single second do I forget where I came from. Not too long ago I was discouraged and sad after getting bad news after bad news as Josh and I tried so hard to be parents. I have never been more hopeless, but also never been so tenacious in my life.  We struggled for years to create a family. We suffered two miscarriages before any of our four rainbow babies were born. We were parents long before we actually got to hold and snuggle and kiss a baby (or in our case babie...

I pride myself on being pretty on top of things: I'm obsessive, a worrier, a planner, and a control freak.  I work very hard at remembering like everything all the time.  This is a perfect cocktail. #MyCrazy To be honest, I rarely forget things, miss things, show up without things, or do anything without being as prepared as one, who is all those things above, might be.  You should see me (or Josh, frankly) plan trips.  It's kinda a freak show of Excel spread sheets, research, top ten sightseeing books, and notes and plans written down and placed in a manilla folder we carry everywhere.   I say all of this not to embarrass myself, although I'm sure I have a bit, but so that you can understand how active my brain must be.  It is full all the time- full to the freaking rim. I hate  it, HATE  it when I forget things or don't know things I should know. #MyCrazy is my greatest strength and my Achilles heel. However, these last several months,...

Preston Huron Hundt made his arrival, scheduled arrival I should say, on May 2nd, 2018 at 9:16am.  He weighed 8lbs 12oz and was 21.75 inches long. This baby, like all my others, was not in a 'head down' position.  This baby, like all my other others, was not breech either.  I have delivered four babies that were in the transverse  position.  Babies who present in the transverse position are laying sideways.  For me, that has seemed normal, but apparently, when I looked it up, only about 1% or less of babies are positioned that way at birth making that actually quite rare. I didn't think anything of this position when I was pregnant with twins- I had two large babies in there and of COURSE they found room wherever they could.  Although I was hoping to deliver vaginally, I wasn't terrible surprised or terribly disappointed when it turned out that two babies were not where they needed to be.  I accepted my scheduled C-Section with grace.  ...

5 years ago, I was writing about being the crazy lady who cried (like a lot) during our birthing classes at Sparrow.   I was also the strange women who wiped tears walking through the baby section of Target trying to do our baby registry and had to go home.   I was carrying twins, wonderful, amazing, miracle twins after suffering years of infertility and two miscarriages.   Not that this is a surprise to anyone reading this, but even though pregnancy is a beautiful experience, it is not the easiest ten months for me and my crippling fear. If I even go back farther, 6 years ago, I was writing, right around this time of year, about being told our second pregnancy would not make it- writing about having to have two surgeries to clean out my body since it did not take care of things naturally, feeling so helpless, yet again, as we were starting over.   Lots of tears there too, certainly. Going back even one year farther, (7 years ago) I was blogging about Josh wr...

During these three pregnancies, I've been competing for fan fair, paparazzi exposure, press coverage, and general cultural obsession with Kate Middleton,  Her Royal Highness  the  Duchess  of Cambridge. Although my pregnancies have produced many similarities and many differences, one constant has been that this gal has been right on my tail every.single.time.  Our stories and timeline have been corresponding all the way back before either one of us had any children...  I remember, as I was struggling with infertility, reading headlines in the gossip magazines about Kate and William and when they were going to have kids.  Is she pregnant?  Does she have reproductive issues?  Magazines were speculating a lot, because they had been married for about one minute without producing any children (insert eye roll).  There were a lot of rumors published about her having issues getting pregnant.   I remember thinking, Geez....

I have been blessed to know Josh since the first day of 8th grade.  While I did not realize that meeting him in Mr. Martin's 1st hour math class would be the start to actually quite a love story, looking back, it is incredible how woven together the two of us has become.  I have now known Josh for over twenty years, first kissed him eighteen years ago, have been dating him for fourteen years, and married to him for over ten.   After meeting each other, we spent the rest of middle school being good friends- liking to be around one another, getting to know each other and making each other laugh... a lot!  Well, actually Josh spent it making ME laugh a whole lot.    Our first picture together- signing each other's yearbooks at the end of 8th grade- 1998 We spent high school with a lot of back and forth, back and forth- trying to figure out how to make our friendship work as more than that.  Thankfully, as we would date and stop dating, da...

For basically this entire pregnancy, I've been pretty sure this baby is a boy.  I'm not sure if it's because I swear I heard an ultrasound tech say, "Oh!  Look at HIS big hands!" Or if it's because the baby's kidneys have been monitored because they've been dilated (something much more common in boys than girls) or if it's because that's all I know or if I've got mother's intuition (I have correctly predicted the gender of all three of my boys)... maybe a combination... I don't know.   Honestly, I also think I'm trying to prepare to allow myself to grieve never having a girl.  Although I am truly at peace if a girl is not in my future; I LOVE and adore my boys and being a #boymom, but I know there will be times I will feel like I'm missing out.  I think it's natural to feel that way from time to time.  I imagine lots of people, when planning their future children in their heads, picture both genders.  There are certainl...

End of October: 13 weeks pregnant with #HundtBaby4 In case it hasn't been made obvious enough, you can probably tell I might not be the easiest pregnant person to live with.  Especially during first trimester (or let's be honest, basically until a baby continually gives me reassurance with kicks or actually let's be REALLY honest, until the baby is in my arms), I am a DI-SAS-TER.  #MyCrazy is in full swing during this time. You can go back through old blogs while I was pregnant with Nolan and Judah and also when I was pregnant with Carter to see the pattern- losing sleep, checking to see if I'm bleeding a million times a day, constantly worrying, etc.   In October, I hit a really rough patch- mentally.  I had my 12 week appointment to which I did not score an ultrasound (even though I tried and actually also cried) and I was going to have to go another four weeks until I was next given any reassurance that things were okay.  That feels like ETERNITY T...