absolute perfection day 7

I have been dying to blog about this thankfulness that I have in my heart for this topic. I am sooo thankful for my family. I have waited a week for this blog, because 7 is the number of perfection, and I feel like my family is perfect for me. I do not by any means think we are perfect, we are far from it, but I do mean that life seems the most perfect with them, than without them!

The craziest thing is, I think this is actually the last picture we have of all of us together. We are always saying that when all of us kids are home that we need one, we just never remember to take one. It's OK though, we have never been one for group shots. I feel like we all bring such a different thing to this family that makes it work. I mean, when one person is off, we can all feel it! It just doesn't feel the same! With each person, I am going to put a quote, so you get mega quotes tonight :)

My mom. To the family she brings comfort and peacefulness. Whether I am here at school, or at home, I feel like a call or a talk with mom will make the day better. For the most part, we talk every single day, even if it is just for a few minutes! I have come to treasure these calls more than anything. Especially on tough days. Also, growing up, my mom mediated many arguments. The rules in mediation were simple: no name calling, be fair, and tell the truth. I feel like she is Dr. Phil, only a woman, and she has better advice. So I guess in essence, I think she is like Dr. Phil, only totally different! She used to tell us nearly every day before we left for school, up until the day I graduated high school, to have and be a great day. I used to think it was so cheesy, but now I find myself thinking it throughout the day and wishing I hadn't rolled my eyes after I turned around most days. Growing up, mom could make anything fun. Even math! I love math now, and I am good at it, but it didn't always used to be that way. Mom did so many math problems using candy. Best part of candy math......you get to eat your pieces when you are done! Hmmmm, maybe that is why it took so long for me to learn math, maybe it was because I just kept wanting reasons to get skittles. Which, skittles by the way, are very good for teaching children colors! :) I thank God everyday for my mother's heart of gold, and that I was blessed with two awesome parents. I also thank god that, because of how I was raised, mom and dad have the opportunity to be my friend now, more than a parent. They will always be mom and dad, but I can honestly say that my mom is one of my best friends right now! I wouldn't trade that for the world! :) (in the picture, my mom and dad are the two in the middle. My aunt and I are on the outside right and my cousin and his wife are on the outside left.)

"Mommy love is the love that makes the impossible, possible."

My daddy, oh goodness....so many things to say about him. I guess overall, he gives me a good example of what it means to be the leader of a household. Him and mom work as a team, and he does a very good job of leading our family without making any person seem any more or less significant. This is definitely a quality I will look for in my future husband. He also is a firm believer in teach it, see it, do it. A concept I will rely heavily on in the future. He says that you can teach people to do things by telling them how to do it, showing them how to do it, and then offering them the chance to do it. The trick though, is allowing mistakes and advice on how to fix those mistakes. We can't win them all, and not everyone gets it on the first try. I have been blessed to have this philosophy in my life. Before I got my license, I had to know how to change my own tire. This has saved me on many occasions here at school. As well as being a saving grace to others as well. I thank God for all I have learned, and all that I am learning, and all that I will learn from him. So many times, he opted for a project to take ten times longer, because it meant that us kids could get in on the action of fixing things, or building them, or whatever. I still remember building in the basement with him when I was way little. I wanted to put a bolt in to hold the wall up and so he told me how and about the time he asked me if it was tight enough, I broke the bolt off and got it stuck in the ratchet I was using to put it in. He didn't yell or anything, he just knocked the bolt piece out, and we moved on to the next one, and he just told me not to break it. Later that week, after we had put walls up, us kids wanted to mud the walls, and so he let us. I remember one of our group home kids smearing mud all the way across the wall, and dad didn't get mad or anything, he just showed him again and again how to do it. That room would have taken my dad maybe an hour to do on his own, but with us kids' "help" it took all afternoon. However, I would never have remembered that room at all. To this day, I still don't remember what color the walls were, probably pink, but I don't know, but I can tell you that under that primer and that paint, lied a lot of mudding mess ups because one guy took the time to let a bunch of kids try their hand at mudding. I remember those times that my parents spent twice as much time with me and half as much money.

I feel like my dad lives by the quote that "sacrifice [in his case, it was mostly time] is giving up something good for something better."

Josh. Where do you even begin when you have a big brother like Josh. We never went through that phase of hating each other. In fact, I think it was just the opposite. Josh used to go out with me when we were younger and practice throwing the softball so that I could get better. The bump that is a permanent part of my head proves that sometimes he missed the glove. At any rate, he never intentionally tried to hurt me as far as I can remember. My parents told em a story about the day I was born one time, and I think about it quite a bit actually. Apparently, when I was born, my parents called and told Josh that he had another sister, to which he responded "another one?!" My parents informed him that a couple down the hall had just had a boy and asked him if he wanted them to go see if they would be willing to trade me for their son. Josh told them that they could go ahead and bring me home. I often wonder to myself, how many times growing up he had wished they would have traded me. I also often wonder what my parents would have done if he would have told them yes. I mean, I wonder this because I am sure I annoyed my brother a lot growing up, but it was because I looked up to him....a lot! I don't know though, that I have ever when told him that. So Josh, if you are reading this, I have and still do look up to you! I mean, my brother served in our country's military, and that meant giving up seeing his family, his friends, and everything that he knew as normal....for 6 years. I mean, a lot of the men, and a few of the women, in my family have had that insane courage to answer the call of Uncle Sam. I could never do that.....I would miss my family way too much! I commend him, and all the others in my family who have proudly served our country.

This is definitely Josh and I: "Our siblings. They resemble us just enough to make all their differences confusing, and no matter what we choose to make of this, we are cast in relation to them our whole lives long." ~Susan Scarf Merrell

Krystal. No one could ask for a better big sister. We may have fought all the time growing up, but I know that come whatever....she has my back. We don't talk as much as I would like, but when we do....I leave feeling so much better than I did before our talk started. Growing up, there was always something we were fighting over....boys, clothes, car keys, the computer, all of the above. However, compared to her....none of those things mattered. I would give all of them up for her. I mean, we are sisters first and foremost, but I also have the pleasure now of calling her a friend. Plus, she gave me the world's cutest nephew, so who could complain there? This picture of us is old, and I am giving her two pictures, because one is of our backs. I just particularly like this shot, and I love that I got to stand up there with her on her big day! It was a big honor and I cannot imagine anyone else that I would rather stand at the altar with. I found out today, that her and Isaac are coming with to pick me up on Friday! I am excited. Both about going home and about seeing them!

"If you don't understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child." -- Linda Sunshine. All I have to say to <---is true that!

Isaac. He isn't a sibling, but he is the child of a sibling, so I am listing him, anyway. Plus, this is my blog, so I do what I want. Isaac has taught me so much already. He is only two. He has taught me about the unconditional love, and about what it means to have childlike faith, and about how important it is to take the time to slow down and enjoy the little things, about how sometimes, no matter how much life hurts us, we go back to the same people and same situations, never really learning our lesson. Isaac loves to be anywhere that people are. He also likes to do what everyone else is doing. This is good and bad. Tasks take ten times longer, but one day, he will have stories to share like what I shared about my childhood. Just the other day, my sister sent me a picture of him with a tool in his hand because he was helping grandpa (my dad) to fix my car. Anyway, Isaac loves to be outside and gets really excited every single time he gets to go out, not matter the weather. Anyway, we have a cat named Twix and she has claws, that being said, he always tries to play with her. If there is one thing that cat hates more than other cats, it's people. Yet he continually goes back to her and tries to play with her, even though she tries to bat at him with her clawed paws. I think about how many times I do that in my life. I go back to the same friends and the same situations that are trying to hurt me emotionally and spiritually, and how God then has to step in and redirect my attention to things that are better and less dangerous for me. I think about how many times he has been sick or hurt or something, and finds his comfort in the arms of those who love him. I realize that I too, need to do this with my spiritual father. I need to find comfort in his arms when life has knocked me down and hurt me. I also think about how active that child is, but when he gets tired, he will often eventually just lay down and cuddle. I love these times with him and they are unfortunately going to begin to get less frequent as he gets older, and I think knowing that is why I cherish them so much. I know that Isaac doesn't know he is teaching me about life and spiritual things, but he is. I pray that one day he will come to love the Lord and will start to intentionally teach spiritual lessons!

"Only an Aunt can give hugs like a mother, can keep secrets like a sister, and share love like a friend.” ~ Spanish Proverb

Finally, Christopher Ryan. I think of all of my siblings, him and I are closest. This probably comes from the many times banding together as the youngest two and defending harmless shenanigans from the older two. One of the first times I remember really truly admiring my little brother, was the same day I raced him home from the town square with blood on his face, smiling all the way....proud to call him my brother. Some boys had picked on me and threw a basketball at me. I brushed it off, but apparently Christopher HAD been listening all the times that my parents said that our brothers are there to look after us. I say this because the next thing I saw was my brother sail through the air to beat up a kid that was older and bigger than him.....in my honor. He wasn't big like he is now. That happened back when we all still called him shorty. More recently, I have loved his very regular facebook messages asking me how my foot and knee felt. Right after surgery, it was a message or a text every single day, and now it is still happening more days than it's not. I love knowing that three hours away, I still cross his mind. I just love seeing him with Isaac. I mean, it is like the biggest one in our family, and one of the smallest. And Isaac loves all the Christopher Ryan attention he gets too! I love the close bond that I have with each of my siblings. They are all so different, yet so much the same!

"Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero." Marc Brown

I will let you all get back to what you were doing before now! If you toughed it out and read this until the end, I want you to know that I am thankful for all of you as well! My prayer and my hope for you is that you are as lucky as I am to have family as amazing as mine. Maybe it is biological family, and maybe it is just those people around you that you that you call family. Either way I want you all to remember this final piece of advice from Lilo and Stitch: "Ohana means family, and family means that no one gets left behind!"