Enjoy....
Dear family and friends,
My parents say it is ironic & bizarre that I am writing this year’s letter, but I don’t know what they mean. Then again, I am only 4 months old, so I don’t understand a lot of stuff. But I am learning & I am finding out about this family I was born into. Due to space limitations and my own abilities (did I mention I am only 4 months old?), I’m going to have to keep it short…
Jackson: My oldest sibling out of the 4. He is in his final year of elementary school despite being only 9 yrs. old. My parents said he skipped a grade a few years ago and this is why he is so young for his grade. But that hasn’t stopped him from having success in school and loving sports. He is getting ready for a Lego League competition and loves being in 5th grade. He is playing 5th/6th grade basketball right now where most of the kids are 2 years older than him, but not too much taller. He is also taking piano lessons and getting ready for his 2nd season of tournament baseball with the Red Rock Rebels. He has found time to take up percussion in the school band, read lots of books, and create some pretty amazing things on something called Minecraft. He loves me and has been a great help to what seem to be worn out parents of mine.
Abby: Oh boy, my 2nd mother. She spent my 2nd night of life sleeping side by side with Mommy and I at the hospital. She has changed more diapers than Daddy. And she never asks where anyone is going anymore, just where is Claire going…and she goes with that person. I think this makes Daddy sad because usually I am with Mommy, but Abby doesn’t care. She just loves me. She also loves 2nd grade, writing, drawing, and singing. She is trying piano lessons and basketball for the first time this year too. She loves to read and learn and even reads to all of her younger siblings. Her Carlisle softball team won the league tournament this summer and Abby hustled every where she went each and every game. She is high energy and high emotion and I just adore her. I can’t wait to grow up with her as my big sister!
Quinn: This big guy (who now has an older sister, older brother, younger sister, and younger brother) is now in school. He started preschool this year and goes 4 half days a week. He LOVES it. But he loves coming home to Courtney, our nanny as well. Our daycare provider retired (Thank you Tracy for so many great years!) so we were unsure of who would take care of me and my brothers, but Courtney has been a Godsend. Quinn loves her (so do Sully and I!). Quinn loves pretty much everything in life. He proclaims his love of things out loud almost daily. He has loved making new friends and loves kissing me and kissing/hugging our new cat Gizmo. He fights with Sully about half of the day, but he of course, loves Sully the other half of the day. He can’t wait to learn to read and is getting close. For right now, his parents would be fine with him just learning to zip his coat or tie his shoes. But at least he is potty-trained.
Speaking of….
Sullivan: My last older brother, Sully, also loves me. I get lots of kisses & hugs and sometimes some kicks or wrestling moves. But he can’t help it, when he sees how adorable I am, he has to smother me. Sully might be the biggest of my older siblings and he holds his own when it comes to family wrestling matches or baseball/football games. He has learned to run “hot routes” as a wide receiver in “Indoor football”. He likes to help feed our cats/fish. He loves books, Ninja Turtles, and has gone to a few of his first movies in a theater this past year. He loves participating in church and doing anything big people can do. However, he is not potty trained, but maybe by the time you get this card, we’ll get that done. I am supposed to learn from him, so I hope he figures it out before I am two. My family calls him the “Bull” and me the “Bear”, so we may be partners in crime when we are older.
So, who is left? My parents? Me? How much space do I have? Well, I will try to be quick. I was born July 30th, 2014 at 2:32 in the afternoon. Just like all my siblings, I was born 2-3 weeks before my due date, but I was the smallest at 8 lbs. 5 oz. I got to meet several family & friends not long after. That was when I realized that I was truly the youngest of our family and of our extended family. Some family and friends came just to see a baby because they hadn’t seen or held one in awhile! Since then, I have been eating, pooping, and growing a lot. I love my parents even though I tend to cry with anyone but my mother. But I also love Courtney, my nanny, I don’t cry with her either. I have not yet rolled over, crawled, or started eating solid foods, but those are all goals of mine for 2015. My parents have not missed a beat since adding me. My mom took 11 weeks off of work just to be with me and my Dad got to spend 2 weeks with me before he went back to school. Mom works at Mercy East in Pleasant Hill as a Physician Assistant. She was glad to be back at work and her patients were even more excited to see her back. But she says she misses me each day. Dad is still at Carlisle Middle School counseling students and teaching a Guidance-based class. He says he’s enjoying his last year before 13 straight years of having one of us in the same middle school as him. He says he might need counseling during these years. I’m not so sure he doesn’t need counseling now! But my parents are very happy together and have been married for 12 years now. Although they get stressed at times, they seem to genuinely love our big family. It makes for some crazy days, especially remembering backpacks for schools and practices for after school, but we wouldn’t trade it for the world. I think I am a miracle and that each one of us is a miracle when we are born. And with Christmas approaching, isn’t that what it is all about? The miracle of birth? My parents weren’t expecting me. Mary wasn’t expecting Jesus. But both my parents and Jesus’ parents opened their hearts to this miracle and loved each moment. And because of the miracle of Christ’s birth, we all get to live and experience all of life’s miracles. When I wake up with my four older siblings Christmas morning and wrapping paper is flying everywhere and screams of delights fill the air, I might show a big smile. That smile will be because of the miracle of my family, families everywhere, and Christ’s birth. Merry Christmas to all of you! Enjoy life’s miracles!
Merry Christmas and God Bless this Holiday season!
Claire Marie Barry (Ben, Reagan, Jackson (9), Abigail (7), Quinn (4), Sullivan (2),
Gizmo,Bo, Blizzard, our fish
Sadly, Jangles passed away this year and Avus, our black lab, ran away. We foster cats from the ARL and adopted Gizmo
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Friday, September 26, 2014
29 Years in the Making
President Reagan, Michael Jackson, and Pope John Paul walk into a bar. So, are you wondering where this joke is going and what the punchline is? Well, it's not a joke, at least not these three guys. The scary (some would say funny) part is that these three guys were alive and well and were three of the biggest figures in the world in 1985. And that just so happens to be the same year the Royals last made the playoffs. Until now. As I type, the Royals have been qualified for the postseason for just eight minutes. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't misty-eyed as I type. But I am almost 37 years old and this is really the first time I have experienced a Royals team making the playoffs. But what about 1985??
Well, I was 7 years old. I don't remember any of the Royals playoff games, but I am sure they were on our black and white TV that sat in the kitchen. That TV was always on, because it was our 2nd TV and not many people had a 2nd TV yet. Who cares that it only got 5 channels and was only 13 inches. And who cares you had to walk up to it every time you wanted to adjust the channel or volume. Everyone's TV was like that. We had a "big screen" TV in the livingroom. It was huge! If I remember right, it was a 23-inch TV and was in color. It had the prettiest (and heaviest) wooden box around it, which was great because that allowed us to rest our VCR on top of it (much later of course!). But if I did watch a World Series game that year, I would likely remember the turf fields in Kansas City and St. Louis and would look at the backs of my baseball cards to see how many stolen bases Willie Wilson or Daryl Motley had compared to Vince Coleman and Willie McGee. Who cared about Home Runs, they were rare and they were not how you win games. This was 1985 and the championship teams were built on pitching, speed, and defense. Sure Steve Balboni could hit 25 or more HRs if he had a good season, but that was only a bonus.
So while the game was on and my oldest brother watched each game of his favorite Royals team, I looked at the baseball cards (okay...stole them from him) and when I got bored, I grabbed He-Man, Man-At-Arms, and Skeletor and staged an epic battle in my Castle Greyskull. Didn't matter which toy was built better, I could control who would win and that was always He-Man. Baseball wasn't like that as much, but up until 1985, my newly adopted Royals won a lot more than they lost. In 1985, they even won the World Series. This was a pretty good team to latch on to. Winning tradition, great young pitching, hitters in their prime, and a guy named Bo Jackson winning the Heisman trophy (over Chuck Long...what??! By 45 total votes??) would soon sign with KC. Who wouldn't sign up for that fandom? Well, I did. I drank the Kook-Aid (only thing I could legally drink at that age) and started collecting baseball cards on my own, ripping open the packs and finding the Royals and knowing they would be valuable because, well, because they were "Royal".
And much like the farm we were growing up on, I learned nothing in life is predictable. After a few more successful years but just missing the playoffs, the decade called the 1990s happened. The prime of my life....age 13 to age 23...the perfect time to support your favorite teams and mock your friends who liked the losers. But my friends mocked me. I was a fan of the loser now. Ripping open baseball card packs wasn't as fun anymore because the Royals were the cards you tossed in the box because they had no value. And since packs were now over $1 a pack, I couldn't waste money on these guys anymore. Sure I might get a Jeter rookie, but what if he never amounts to anything? The Royals were who I wanted and even that want was gone. The Royals never lost 100 games in the 1990s, but they sure tried. And they continued to spend very little in hopes of becoming very good. It didn't work. It almost worked in 1994, but then the Strike happened. And while the Royals came back from the strike trying to play "small-ball", the rest of the league magically grew bigger and stronger and hit the ball a lot farther. The Royals pitchers have tried to forget the steroid era ever since then, but they likely will grow old with neck pain from whipping their heads around to see how far those hits actually went and if they cleared the fountains beyond the fences entirely. And if the economy crashed in 1999, somehow the Royals crashed even more.
The turn of the century brought an even worse losing streak to the point the Royals became the butt of many jokes. I entered the work force and even with KC being the closest MLB team, no one was really a fan of this team anymore. Eight of the first ten seasons of this new century found the Royals losing 93 or more games each season. But this decade wasn't all bad. My wife and I started adding to our family. With our first child being a boy, he was destined to be a Royals fan. We added four more kids since then and Jackson has grown into a 9-year old Royals superfan despite more years of losing. But he went to bed tonight knowing that I would hopefully wake him up tomorrow morning with the news that KC is in the playoffs. He will be excited, he will tell his friends, and he will make fun of his friends who like other "loser" teams. But I will have to sit him down and caution him about the last 29 years and how he needs to enjoy the ride for now. And even if the ride is only one game, it is still a ride he has never been on, and really a ride I have never been on. And we can't wait!
So, the Royals are in the playoffs. They traded away several of their best prospects to get a couple veteran pitchers. They brought up their entire farm system and took their lumps. They brought in a couple other players here and there. And then they played a brand of baseball that the league hadn't seen in nearly 30 years. Their players don't walk and they don't hit HRs. They don't strike out either. They simply hit the ball on the ground and run as fast as they can. If they happen to be called safe, they start running around the bases every time the pitcher tries to pitch. And their pitchers...well, they are unique too. The starters have a goal to get to the seventh inning and then let any one of four relievers who throw 100 mph or more take over. Two of these pitchers at one point didn't give up a run for over two months!! And despite this unique brand of baseball, they still found themselves in dead last place after the first quarter of the season. They took over first place a couple times this year and fell well behind first place a couple times this year. But they didn't give up....they never gave up. And now with three games left, they know they are in the playoffs. But they won't give up yet as they still have a chance to win the division. And when it is all over, the playoffs will begin and the players will play this time. They won't head home. They won't go on vacation. They won't go play in the fall league. They will play October baseball. And the fans get to watch fall baseball.
A lot has happened in the last 29 years....a lot. If you sit there and think what life was like in 1985 and what life is like now, it will blow your mind. I grew from a crazy boy who wanted to be an author to a father of five who counsels teens for a living. But one thing hasn't happened...a Royals playoff appearance. And one thing hasn't changed....my love of the Royals. And tomorrow I get to share that excitement with my son. And he gets to sit beside me on the couch next week and watch our first playoff game together. If I did this with my brothers or Dad in 1985, I can't remember it. I just hope my son remembers this moment when he is a father someday. I know I will. Go Royals!
Well, I was 7 years old. I don't remember any of the Royals playoff games, but I am sure they were on our black and white TV that sat in the kitchen. That TV was always on, because it was our 2nd TV and not many people had a 2nd TV yet. Who cares that it only got 5 channels and was only 13 inches. And who cares you had to walk up to it every time you wanted to adjust the channel or volume. Everyone's TV was like that. We had a "big screen" TV in the livingroom. It was huge! If I remember right, it was a 23-inch TV and was in color. It had the prettiest (and heaviest) wooden box around it, which was great because that allowed us to rest our VCR on top of it (much later of course!). But if I did watch a World Series game that year, I would likely remember the turf fields in Kansas City and St. Louis and would look at the backs of my baseball cards to see how many stolen bases Willie Wilson or Daryl Motley had compared to Vince Coleman and Willie McGee. Who cared about Home Runs, they were rare and they were not how you win games. This was 1985 and the championship teams were built on pitching, speed, and defense. Sure Steve Balboni could hit 25 or more HRs if he had a good season, but that was only a bonus.
So while the game was on and my oldest brother watched each game of his favorite Royals team, I looked at the baseball cards (okay...stole them from him) and when I got bored, I grabbed He-Man, Man-At-Arms, and Skeletor and staged an epic battle in my Castle Greyskull. Didn't matter which toy was built better, I could control who would win and that was always He-Man. Baseball wasn't like that as much, but up until 1985, my newly adopted Royals won a lot more than they lost. In 1985, they even won the World Series. This was a pretty good team to latch on to. Winning tradition, great young pitching, hitters in their prime, and a guy named Bo Jackson winning the Heisman trophy (over Chuck Long...what??! By 45 total votes??) would soon sign with KC. Who wouldn't sign up for that fandom? Well, I did. I drank the Kook-Aid (only thing I could legally drink at that age) and started collecting baseball cards on my own, ripping open the packs and finding the Royals and knowing they would be valuable because, well, because they were "Royal".
And much like the farm we were growing up on, I learned nothing in life is predictable. After a few more successful years but just missing the playoffs, the decade called the 1990s happened. The prime of my life....age 13 to age 23...the perfect time to support your favorite teams and mock your friends who liked the losers. But my friends mocked me. I was a fan of the loser now. Ripping open baseball card packs wasn't as fun anymore because the Royals were the cards you tossed in the box because they had no value. And since packs were now over $1 a pack, I couldn't waste money on these guys anymore. Sure I might get a Jeter rookie, but what if he never amounts to anything? The Royals were who I wanted and even that want was gone. The Royals never lost 100 games in the 1990s, but they sure tried. And they continued to spend very little in hopes of becoming very good. It didn't work. It almost worked in 1994, but then the Strike happened. And while the Royals came back from the strike trying to play "small-ball", the rest of the league magically grew bigger and stronger and hit the ball a lot farther. The Royals pitchers have tried to forget the steroid era ever since then, but they likely will grow old with neck pain from whipping their heads around to see how far those hits actually went and if they cleared the fountains beyond the fences entirely. And if the economy crashed in 1999, somehow the Royals crashed even more.
The turn of the century brought an even worse losing streak to the point the Royals became the butt of many jokes. I entered the work force and even with KC being the closest MLB team, no one was really a fan of this team anymore. Eight of the first ten seasons of this new century found the Royals losing 93 or more games each season. But this decade wasn't all bad. My wife and I started adding to our family. With our first child being a boy, he was destined to be a Royals fan. We added four more kids since then and Jackson has grown into a 9-year old Royals superfan despite more years of losing. But he went to bed tonight knowing that I would hopefully wake him up tomorrow morning with the news that KC is in the playoffs. He will be excited, he will tell his friends, and he will make fun of his friends who like other "loser" teams. But I will have to sit him down and caution him about the last 29 years and how he needs to enjoy the ride for now. And even if the ride is only one game, it is still a ride he has never been on, and really a ride I have never been on. And we can't wait!
So, the Royals are in the playoffs. They traded away several of their best prospects to get a couple veteran pitchers. They brought up their entire farm system and took their lumps. They brought in a couple other players here and there. And then they played a brand of baseball that the league hadn't seen in nearly 30 years. Their players don't walk and they don't hit HRs. They don't strike out either. They simply hit the ball on the ground and run as fast as they can. If they happen to be called safe, they start running around the bases every time the pitcher tries to pitch. And their pitchers...well, they are unique too. The starters have a goal to get to the seventh inning and then let any one of four relievers who throw 100 mph or more take over. Two of these pitchers at one point didn't give up a run for over two months!! And despite this unique brand of baseball, they still found themselves in dead last place after the first quarter of the season. They took over first place a couple times this year and fell well behind first place a couple times this year. But they didn't give up....they never gave up. And now with three games left, they know they are in the playoffs. But they won't give up yet as they still have a chance to win the division. And when it is all over, the playoffs will begin and the players will play this time. They won't head home. They won't go on vacation. They won't go play in the fall league. They will play October baseball. And the fans get to watch fall baseball.
A lot has happened in the last 29 years....a lot. If you sit there and think what life was like in 1985 and what life is like now, it will blow your mind. I grew from a crazy boy who wanted to be an author to a father of five who counsels teens for a living. But one thing hasn't happened...a Royals playoff appearance. And one thing hasn't changed....my love of the Royals. And tomorrow I get to share that excitement with my son. And he gets to sit beside me on the couch next week and watch our first playoff game together. If I did this with my brothers or Dad in 1985, I can't remember it. I just hope my son remembers this moment when he is a father someday. I know I will. Go Royals!
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Our Big News!
By the way...if you are reading this before Friday night at 7 p.m. on January 31st....keep it a secret until then!
I apologize ahead of time for the length of this post, but it is important news. But for my friends and family members who just want the news and not the story behind the news, I will mention it first so you can go back to playing Candy Crush or Bejewled. Reagan and I are expecting another child. Our 5th child. This August.
So....you are likely going through the following reactions right now: First you thought "Holy Crap!! 5 kids!?". Then you immediately pushed that aside and thought "Congrats to them, that's awesome, but holy crap....5 kids?! Are they crazy??". I know you are thinking these things because we thought the same thing. In fact, Reagan is only 6 weeks pregnant as I type this and I still bounce back and forth between these thoughts. I was kind of numb for a week or so and I am pretty sure I went through all the stages of grief, despite this being quite a blessing and a miracle. I was still shocked, angry, in denial, and finally acceptance. For a couple who almost didn't have any kids and gave up again trying for kids when we had 3 and wanted to have a 4th, this 5th child is quite the surprise. Reminds me of the time I used to like to buy the 5th pitcher of beer at a bar in Council Bluffs because if you bought 4 pitchers....the 5th one was free. However, I don't think this 5th kid will be free...far from it. In fact, the latest report says it takes over $200,000 to raise a child from 0-18....so we are now in this thing for over a million dollars. But....it is all part of the plan, just not necessarily our plan. We were not planning on this and in fact were attempting to prevent it. But when they say certain types of prevention are 99% successful, someone has to be the 1%. Too bad my lottery tickets still don't win me anything!!
So, if you made it this far, you get rewarded with details. We are due in August and we don't know if it is a boy or girl. We are finding out, but likely not telling. Okay, so not many details, but at least it is some. We HAVE to find out as we SOLD or DONATED everything baby related that we used to own. We didn't even keep any of our name ideas!! So we will need the full 6 months to think of names and try to remember what types of things it takes to raise a baby and try to buy them all back. You can bet that I will be active at garage sales this summer again. But we also need the time to mentally prepare. I have been having a countdown to a diaper-free house for months. I have started planning my retirement party in the year 2034 (which will now double as a high school graduation party for our 5th child!!). I have been dreaming of what life will be like once our kids sleep all night. Now, simple math tells me that about the time our 5th child will sleep all night long, our oldest child will be getting close to dating and staying out late! It is best if I don't type any more of these mathematical things that I have figured out about having 5 kids age 9 and younger. It can't be good for my short or long-term health.
In the end, Reagan and I were highly shocked and surprised, but very excited. We know this new life was given to us for a reason and we know we won't be given more than we can handle. Someone must have thought we could handle 5, so we will. It will not be without its challenges, but it also come with many joys, experiences, stories, and endless moments of happiness. With that said, my vasectomy has already been scheduled and I hope and pray that this is the last time I will use some form of technology to announce our pregnancy (little known fact....Facebook and Twitter weren't even around when we announced we were pregnant for the first time!). Thank you for all the love and support....stay tuned for next year's Christmas card, likely written by the 7th and newest member of our family.
Love&Prayers,
Ben and Reagan
(Did you happen to read the first paragraph of our Christmas card?? I wrote it over Thanksgiving and found out we were pregnant about 2 weeks later. That whole first paragraph is hilarious now!!)
I apologize ahead of time for the length of this post, but it is important news. But for my friends and family members who just want the news and not the story behind the news, I will mention it first so you can go back to playing Candy Crush or Bejewled. Reagan and I are expecting another child. Our 5th child. This August.
So....you are likely going through the following reactions right now: First you thought "Holy Crap!! 5 kids!?". Then you immediately pushed that aside and thought "Congrats to them, that's awesome, but holy crap....5 kids?! Are they crazy??". I know you are thinking these things because we thought the same thing. In fact, Reagan is only 6 weeks pregnant as I type this and I still bounce back and forth between these thoughts. I was kind of numb for a week or so and I am pretty sure I went through all the stages of grief, despite this being quite a blessing and a miracle. I was still shocked, angry, in denial, and finally acceptance. For a couple who almost didn't have any kids and gave up again trying for kids when we had 3 and wanted to have a 4th, this 5th child is quite the surprise. Reminds me of the time I used to like to buy the 5th pitcher of beer at a bar in Council Bluffs because if you bought 4 pitchers....the 5th one was free. However, I don't think this 5th kid will be free...far from it. In fact, the latest report says it takes over $200,000 to raise a child from 0-18....so we are now in this thing for over a million dollars. But....it is all part of the plan, just not necessarily our plan. We were not planning on this and in fact were attempting to prevent it. But when they say certain types of prevention are 99% successful, someone has to be the 1%. Too bad my lottery tickets still don't win me anything!!
So, if you made it this far, you get rewarded with details. We are due in August and we don't know if it is a boy or girl. We are finding out, but likely not telling. Okay, so not many details, but at least it is some. We HAVE to find out as we SOLD or DONATED everything baby related that we used to own. We didn't even keep any of our name ideas!! So we will need the full 6 months to think of names and try to remember what types of things it takes to raise a baby and try to buy them all back. You can bet that I will be active at garage sales this summer again. But we also need the time to mentally prepare. I have been having a countdown to a diaper-free house for months. I have started planning my retirement party in the year 2034 (which will now double as a high school graduation party for our 5th child!!). I have been dreaming of what life will be like once our kids sleep all night. Now, simple math tells me that about the time our 5th child will sleep all night long, our oldest child will be getting close to dating and staying out late! It is best if I don't type any more of these mathematical things that I have figured out about having 5 kids age 9 and younger. It can't be good for my short or long-term health.
In the end, Reagan and I were highly shocked and surprised, but very excited. We know this new life was given to us for a reason and we know we won't be given more than we can handle. Someone must have thought we could handle 5, so we will. It will not be without its challenges, but it also come with many joys, experiences, stories, and endless moments of happiness. With that said, my vasectomy has already been scheduled and I hope and pray that this is the last time I will use some form of technology to announce our pregnancy (little known fact....Facebook and Twitter weren't even around when we announced we were pregnant for the first time!). Thank you for all the love and support....stay tuned for next year's Christmas card, likely written by the 7th and newest member of our family.
Love&Prayers,
Ben and Reagan
(Did you happen to read the first paragraph of our Christmas card?? I wrote it over Thanksgiving and found out we were pregnant about 2 weeks later. That whole first paragraph is hilarious now!!)
Top 10 Reasons We Are Having a 5th Child.....
As we have learned over the first few months, if we don't have a little humor and fun with the idea of having 5 kids in our house, we will go insane. So with that in mind, I give you the top 10 reasons we are having a 5th child....
10. Tax purposes....show us the money!
9. Exposure therapy for Ben. His fear of loud noises, clowns, and stepping on toys in the middle of the night will get even more years of exposure. This should finally cure him. Or drive him more insane!
8. Just to scare the workers at the All-You-Can-Eat Chinese Buffet.
7. Speaking of food, a 5th kid means a 5th kid not eating all of their food and Daddy gets to clean everyone's plate. And everyone's birthday cake that they are too full to eat.
6. Okay, forget about food....this means 5 Happy Meal toys each visit!! Can't have enough tiny Disney toys that are made of hard plastic lying around the house!
5. Both being the youngest in our families, we wanted to finally win at something. Although our older siblings just laugh at us now.
4 Makes Halloween easier now: 7 Dwarfs. Ben gets dibbs on Happy, Reagan gets dibbs on Doc. Kids will fight for the rest. Last one to choose gets Dopey. Or maybe Grumpy.
3. Speaking of Halloween, can you imagine the candy haul the next few years? Sweet! (notice the pun?)
2. Because we don't like to go out of the house. Ever. Especially not just the two of us. Say, on a date. And even if we did, we won't get to anymore anyway.
1. No form of birth control is 100% effective. Apparently that stat is true.
10. Tax purposes....show us the money!
9. Exposure therapy for Ben. His fear of loud noises, clowns, and stepping on toys in the middle of the night will get even more years of exposure. This should finally cure him. Or drive him more insane!
8. Just to scare the workers at the All-You-Can-Eat Chinese Buffet.
7. Speaking of food, a 5th kid means a 5th kid not eating all of their food and Daddy gets to clean everyone's plate. And everyone's birthday cake that they are too full to eat.
6. Okay, forget about food....this means 5 Happy Meal toys each visit!! Can't have enough tiny Disney toys that are made of hard plastic lying around the house!
5. Both being the youngest in our families, we wanted to finally win at something. Although our older siblings just laugh at us now.
4 Makes Halloween easier now: 7 Dwarfs. Ben gets dibbs on Happy, Reagan gets dibbs on Doc. Kids will fight for the rest. Last one to choose gets Dopey. Or maybe Grumpy.
3. Speaking of Halloween, can you imagine the candy haul the next few years? Sweet! (notice the pun?)
2. Because we don't like to go out of the house. Ever. Especially not just the two of us. Say, on a date. And even if we did, we won't get to anymore anyway.
1. No form of birth control is 100% effective. Apparently that stat is true.
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