So the “rule” is…

All my brothers came into town for Thanksgiving. It’s my mom’s favorite holiday, so the “rule” is that everyone must be together. Christmas? Everyone can do their own thing, which may or may not include our mother. But Thanksgiving is hers, she claimed it, and as long as she has breath, you best be sittin’ at her table for Thanksgiving dinner. Period.

The guy in the green shirt standing behind me is David. We have the same mother and the same father. Of all my siblings, we’re the most closely tied with shared genes. And yet those genes are one of the few traits we have in common. He’s 5.5 years younger than me and our similarities are few.

The guy in the plaid shirt in desperate need of a haircut is  Richard, who is 10 years younger than me. We called him Richie from the time he resided in our mother’s uterus until sometime in high school when we decided that was a “baby” name. Since then he’s been simply Rich. He’s in graduate school in Maryland, so money is tight for him. Understanding the importance of Thanksgiving, David and I paid for most of his plane ticket to come into town. Why? Because he HAD to be here.

The guy in the gray jacket is Ben. David and I are products of our mom’s first marriage. Rich and Ben are products of her second marriage. Although not technically a baby anymore (he just turned 20), Ben is the baby of our family. He’s moving to Gainesville right after Christmas. His first apartment – all grown up!

One thing that David and I have in common is that we both married our high school sweetheart. He and Valerie will celebrate their 7th wedding anniversary three days after Christmas. They have one daughter (Ava) and are working on a sibling for her. Since all their names have a V, Valerie and I are trying to think of more V names they could use for the baby. (Yes, V is for Vendetta, but that’s not really a name.) They like Olivia for a girl, but are having difficulty thinking of a boy name. Their last name starts with an N, so first names ending in N don’t really work well (Gavin, Evan, etc). Valerie likes Oliver, but it’s too close to Olivia (would only work for twins, she says). I suggested Levi, but they’re not big fans of it. I also suggested Travis or Trevor. If you have any suggestions, please leave them in a comment.

Ava had the worst cold when we were taking these pictures. Poor baby! Thank God snot rockets can be removed with photoshop. For example:

Don’t be jealous of Ava’s amazing hair…

Also, don’t be jealous of Jonah’s faux-hawk…

I really need to trim his faux-hawk again. It’s looking rough. He’s adorable, but that hair… wow. It isn’t pretty! His brother Nathan (a.k.a. helmet hair) never had this issue, even as a baby. He had seven hair cuts before his 1st birthday!

There’s just something about dads with their little girls. Melts me!

And those little girls turn into big girls seemingly overnight.

And then you try to convince your husband that you deserve another little girl. Oh, wait. Maybe that’s just me.

Not that you don’t simply adore your little boys…

It’s just that tiny dresses and tiny hair bows and baby dolls and little Mary Janes are so much fun to buy! And… and the grandparents want more grandbabies!

I’m sure everyone cringes each time I break out my camera. They can put up a fight, but I’ll always win. Like it or not while it’s happening, the pictures will be treasured at some point. Maybe for my brothers, that point will be years from now. Or maybe these pictures, which decorate the pages of my kids’ scrapbooks, won’t be treasured by my own children until they’ve made me a grandmother. But I know that someday while reflecting on their lives and contemplating all that really matters, they will all be thankful for my insistence upon documenting each family gathering through pictures.