Family - Guest Blog

Todays blogger is a sorority sister and friend.

She is someone I admire and always have.

She has a beautiful family & loving husband who clearly adores her!

I am so happy that she is happy!

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When my dear college friend and sorority sister, La Tache, asked me to guest blog for her about family, I thought, easy! If you read my blogs (aogdaily.com, babygomers.com), or follow me on Twitter or are friends with me on Facebook, you know how much I am obsessed with my little family. But what made me take pause about this particular topic was what family I would be referring to. Yes, I have my own family (mother, father, stepdad, brother - well brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.), but when I think of the word "family" the first thing I always go to is my husband and children.
Growing up family had a very different meaning for me that it does now. I have always had a lot of people to love me and take care of me, but things changed a lot when I was a kid and I was often around adults. What I wanted more than anything as a kid was siblings! Someone to play with, share with, empathize with and yes even argue with. When I was a couple months shy of my 10th birthday, I finally got my wish and my mom had my baby brother. Don't get me wrong, I love my brother a lot and I cherish our relationship, but 10 years is a big age difference! By the time he started middle school I was moved out and in college. We never really had the sibling relationship that I had envisioned when I was a young kid.

When Justin and my relationship began to get serious, many many years ago, we started sharing our visions of what a future family would look like. I knew one thing for sure; that because I was an only child for so long, I knew I wanted my children to have siblings. Siblings close enough in age that they could grow up together, but not so close that I was having babies every year! Haha. I also knew that I wanted a large family. I wanted my kids to have the crazy, busy, fun, close family that I had always wanted. Luckily, Justin, who is one of three kids agreed that a large family was what he wanted too. Seeing Justin and his brother and sister and how close they were/are really affirmed my belief that a large family is really what I wanted. We also knew that if we wanted three or four children that we'd have to start in our twenties. Luckily, when we were 25 and 23 years old, we were unexpectedly surprised to find out that our journey to having a large family was about to begin! You can read more about that here. I am so glad that we started so young because after my first pregnancy I was like, 'man, this is hard! I don't think I can do this two or three more times!' Luckily, time passed and we were able to spread the age gap between Belle and the next one three years, still leaving us plenty of time for more kids. In late summer of 2011, we were so excited to find out that baby #2 was on it's way. One step closer to the large family we envisioned.

I always pictured myself with a gaggle of little girls, but I knew right away when I was pregnant with #2 that it was going to be a boy. I thought I would be disappointed to confirm the news, but once the ultrasound technician said the words out loud, I couldn't help but cry tears of joy. A boy! You can read more about that  day here. Now we have one of each so it won't matter what gender any of our other kids are because we will eventually experience it all.

When I tell people that I want three or four kids, I often get looks like 'are you crazy?!' Just casually saying, 'eventually when we have more kids', people respond, 'oh, you want more?'. I guess now-a-days it's most common to wait until your thirties to start a family and one or two kids is about the norm, but for me, I have always envisioned myself surrounded by children, in a big, loud, crazy, hectic family. Besides, the more kids we have, the greater the chance of at least one of them being super successful and taking care of me and Justin in our old age, right? Ha!

But in all seriousness, I think the reason that I want a large family is because it's always been my dream to give my children the family that I had always wished for as a kid. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change anything about how I was raised and my extended family is very important to me, but there's something about a large, loving, stable household that has always appealed to me and I am so excited that we are right in the middle of making that dream come true, because for me, there's nothing more important than family.

our little family in it's current form: a family of four