Show Us Your Life : Parents/Siblings

So I featured my family back in October for another carnival, so for the most part, this is copy-and-pasted from then :)

Meet my mom...

[Christmas 2009]

...The woman I have to thank for my hard head! For most of my childhood my mom stayed at home with the four of us, while keeping kids for extra money. Once we were older she went back to school and then to work in IT. Now she's on her way to getting her Master's!


[Enchanted Forest - Christmas 2009]
My relationship with my mom has changed and evolved a lot over the past few years, but at the end of the day she is still MOM. She's who I call when I have a bad day, need some mommy advise, or just need to cry. She's also who taught me lots of great little domestic skills that I thought I'd NEVER use, much less enjoy... Sewing, namely!

And most of all, I know she's the closest person who will ever love my children in the same "motherly" way as I do. (Because Mommy and Daddy love, although equally great, are still different.) They LOVE their NaNa!

I was fortunate enough to grow up in a home with both my mom and dad, but times change and when I was in college they got divorced...


[Dallas Aquarium - 9/2011]
Now meet my Dad. The ULTIMATE family man! Haha - seriously. There's nothing he enjoyed more when we were little than playing with us in the backyard and coaching us in every sport. It was a while before I realized what a big deal that was. Most daddies are content going to work and coming home to rest. If he could have quit his job and just played with us all day I know he would have!


[Christmas 2009]
Needless to say, he's LOVING being a Poppy and Knox is always asking for him. They're big buddies :) My Dad got remarried a year and a half ago to my setp-mother Melinda (SHOUT OUT, because I know you're reading this right now!) and MiMi's been known to spoil my babies too! They are definitely blessed with grandparent love :) Now my 3 siblings...

(Guess who did NOT get the tall genes...) Random fact : We've always gone by Nick, Jess, Mandy, and Kim when our actual names are Nicholas, Jessica, Amanda, and Kimberly. (Which only our grandparents use.) And I don't think my mom ever planned for us to go by nick-names.

Here's my brother, Nick...


[Several Christmases ago. Like 2006, maybe?
At 28 - he's 4 years older than me. Although we're all pretty athletic, he's the jock. Well, he's also the only boy. Growing up he picked on me relentlessly, yet was always the protective big brother. (And still is!) I idolized him. As prissy as I was, he kind of always tried to force me in to a tom boy streak since he didn't have any brothers... He'd dress me up in full pads and blades to play street hockey, teach me how to play Nintendo, drag me out in to the woods behind our house to "explore", and pin me down in a scissor hold until I was screaming and crying for mercy. In fact, it seems like our days always ended with me tattling on him in tears. This is also the same guy who used to shave my Barbies heads and amputate their limbs, shot me in the eye with a bow and arrow, and used an apple on top of my head for sling-shot target practice...

[Pale is the New Tan 5k - 2008]
But I learned to be tough and some how survived ;) Nick played football in high school and college at MTSU and now he's married to his high school sweetheart - Erin and they have one furry child, Vegas. I'm hoping they'll give Knox and Hadley a few cousins here soon... (No pressure, y'all!) He runs a landscaping business back home in Tennessee and is starting the Memphis Fire Academy soon!

Next is my little sister, Mandy...


[Christmas 2009]
She just turned 21 and is 3 years younger than me. The two of us are probably the most alike of the 4. Both overachievers and people-pleasers - classic middle children... Although where as I tend to be a "perfectionist," she's more the "absent-minded genius". And she's always been over-the-top dramatic. Everything's a crisis! When we were little I could sucker her in to doing ANYTHING... Being my slave for a week. Giving me foot massages. Paying me quarters to "rent" books from our family bookcase. (This goes for both of my sisters, actually. I was horrible!)


[Christmas 2009]
Now she's 20 and in school at the University of Tennessee studying her 3rd year as Pre-Med. I'm pulling hard for her to come to med school here in Texas! We have the exact same sense of humor and have always had sort of an E.S.P. thing going on... She'll call me 2 seconds before I pick up the phone to call her, tell me about a dream, and I'll be like Ummm yeah that actually happened yesterday! So wierd, but it happens all the time.

And the youngest of us all, Kim...


[Senior Pictures - 2009]
She is 18 and 5 years younger than me. I was always trying to "mother" her when she was little. Actually - I still do, she just probably doesn't appreciate as much as she did when she was 5 ;) I used to love dressing her, fixing her hair, teaching her ABCs, etc. She and I probably look the most alike out of the 4, except she favors my mom a little more and I favor Dad. And she's probably a good 4 inches taller than me!


[SBA senior mother-daughter tea.]
Now she's a freshman in college at Memphis. I don't think she's decided on a major yet, but she is VERY artistic. Like I'm talking she did an oil painting of one of Knox's newborn pics for my mom. (I need to get a picture of it, it's awesome!) She's also the "rebel" child of us all... Anything to break the mold and shake the waters. See what I mean about her not appreciating my "mother henning" ;) But she sure does love her nephew and niece! I also gained 3 step-brothers when my Dad remarried... Matt, Philip, and John. And once I married James I of course gained two more parents, a sister and brother-in-law, and 3 nephews! Yes - I'm blessed :)