Family(:

            It is only two days until Christmas in case you didn’t know.  To celebrate, my family went up to visit my grandparents two hours away, along with all my aunts, uncles, and cousins.  My family is a little unique in many ways, and well today it became very obvious when after many years at my grandparents, someone announced that next year we were buying them a bigger sofa so family pictures would be easier.

            I have a large family, in case you didn’t figure that out from the sofa reference.  However, in recent years it has increased tremendously.  My grandparents got married and had my mom shortly after high school, and total had four kids.  You wouldn’t think their few kids would really amount to all that much, but well my aunt was like her parents and got married right out of high school and had my oldest and only other girl cousin, Jessie, and two other kids.  My mom got married a few years after Jessie was born, and had me between their two boys, and for a while the kids came rolling along.  In a span of two years my aunt had her last kid, my uncle had his first son, and my mom had my brother, and my remaining uncle adopted 3 kids…. Then everything stopped.

            About four years ago, the cycle of no kids that had been going on for over six years suddenly ended.  It all started with my cousin Jessie who had her first son, the next year my uncle had a son then another the next year, and then my other uncle started to foster a boy who he adopted this past summer, and along came two more boys that are being adopted on Friday.  To end the recent outgrowth, my cousin Jessie had a baby girl (FINALLY) on 12/12/12 and today I finally got to hold her.

            Holding the little girl in my arms after 17 years of boys in my family really got me thinking today.  My family might be crazy (like 6 kids under the age of 5 crazy) and all, but we are all family.  We may have our ups and downs, our fights and disagreements, but we all love each other.  Every few months we come together, no matter which person is no longer talking to whom, and just hang out.  We won’t all be here forever, and we want to make the most of this time while we can, and create the best memories.

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