A Little Trivia About This Brood​

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I never thought I'd ever say this being a lanky 5'9" 'n all, but I'm actually starting to be a bit of a shrimp in my family! It's kind of hard to tell in the pic with such tall goons for sons, but our three oldest children are the girls (each holding a precious grand baby), followed by the crew of five strapping boys. 

 

Hubby Mark is an author and Catholic singer/songwriter (www.markmallett.com), and when we used to travel as a family in our tour bus from church to church all over North America, the running joke when we introduced ourselves to the crowds was "Yes folks, we had the babysitters first!". Not actually a stretch... those girls were, and continue to be, amazing helpmates.

 

I remember before they hit the teen years, people would sometimes say "Watch out—teenage girls are going to give you a run for your money!" Truth be known, we never did hit those years... and I consider my three lovelies to be my dearest friends on earth to this day.

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With them all grown and moved on to raise their own families, I'm now into the years of being surrounded by men... not unfamiliar to me, as I was surrounded by boys growing up on the farm. And once again, we find ourselves just loving the teen years. Mark and I were just marvelling the other day at how fun-loving and peaceful these five boys are... such a gift! 

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Okay... can I brag for just a wee bit? 

 

Holy Smokes, there's something about his golden gene pool of a musician and artist combined! In one form or another, our kids are all turning out to be ridiculously talented in music & the arts... with very little "formal" training of any sort. I suppose that's the product of homeschooling combined with remote country-living for ya! :-)

 

Tianna, our oldest (far left daughter in the pic) is an extraordinarily accomplished graphic designer, photographer and painter. Her beautiful art can be seen here: www.sacredartbytianna.com.

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Our second daughter Denise (2nd daughter from the left) is a phenomenal writer with her debut novel "The Tree" that will knock your socks off, as well as her soon-to-be released sequel "The Blood": www.denisemallett.com. Nicole (3rd in from the left) is our only college grad so far, and an industrious interior decorator (with an amazing flair for making gorgeous Christmas wreaths!).

 

And the boys are all super-talented musically and otherwise as well;  Gregory (3rd in from right at the back) is a very creative woodworker and promising actor, Levi (2nd from right and the tallest so far!) is ridiculously gifted at composing music scores (Levi's YouTube Channel), Ryan (far right) is naturally gifted at guitar & drums, a medal-earning sprinter and budding leatherworker, Kevin picked up the guitar at about eight & is our parkour athlete (as in leaping from rooftops—Lord help me!), and lastly, our "baby" Bradley loves to write fictional stories, dress up as SpiderMan... and hug me constantly. Yep, I'll take it while I still can :-)

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Needless to say, there really is never a dull moment to be had around here!

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