"We Tried Not To Have An Ugly One."

The quote in the title was my parents usual response when random people would see all of us kids together and exclaim, "What a family! Every single on of them is beautiful!"

I mean how else were you supposed to respond to that? 

I come from a large family. But growing up it never felt that way. Even though, yes, people stared at us or asked silly questions at times. 

(Like when some kid was talking to us about how many siblings we had and wanted to know how we could remember all their names. They weren't joking. No lie.) 

Eight children in one family. All from the same parents but all so very different. 

From oldest to youngest, all unique.

The tall, crazy one. 

The hard-working, driven one.

 The wistful, distracted one. 

The fierce and loyal one. 

The charasmatic, giving-hearted one. 

The intense curls and personality one. 

The quiet, awkward-in-a-cute-way one. 

And the the humorous and dramatic one. 

I love them all. Every single one of them.

No, we don't always have the smoothest of relationships. 

Do you honestly think we would with all these vastly different personalities meshing together? 

Some of us are thinkers, some are doers. 

Some cry easily and some hardly cry at all. 

We are dreamers and schemers. 

Opinionated and stubborn. 

And mostly just a whole lot of crazy. 

And I'm ok with that. In fact, I kinda like it that way.

My mom told me the other day that she had asked my dad why all their children are so independent. He replied, " Because they're confident. That's the way we raised them. We taught them to think outside the box and do their own thing. "

I agree. And you know what? We're all indebted to them for that. Knowing how to think for yourself, be diligent and not go with the crowd are all traits taught to us by our parents. And the only reason they did all that for us is because God has powerfully and grace-FULLY worked in their life.

All praise to Him, amen? 

These my brothers and sisters. My original playmates and friends. They're some of the few who've known me all my life. I wouldn't trade the years I had growing up with these seven people for anything. It's part of what made me who I am today. And I count it a true blessing from God to have the privilege of calling these people my family.

 I just honestly want to know how our parents made it through raising us with their mental capacity still intact ;) 

"To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds. and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time." 

-Ortega.