on the sister thing...

Although my youngest two sisters are no less dear to me, I'll always see us three oldest as the originals. Simply because they are the only ones who have known me from the beginning, aside from my parents. Whenever we are able to all get together, it feels like home.

There's just something about sisters. You love them, you sometimes think you hate them, but they're always there to cheer you on. And these two girls are the only ones in the world who shared those moments with me. And every time I'm lucky enough to have us all together, I want to just hold onto them and refuse to let them go.

This photo was taken at the baby shower last weekend. And I just love how it turned out! You should see how long it takes to take a photo that we are all satisfied with, by the way. After every photo there is some outcry of some sort.

"Wait! I like the left side of my face better! Can we switch sides?"

"My hair looks weird. WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME MY HAIR LOOKS WEIRD?"

"Ewww! I have a double chin!"

"Why does my arm look fatter than yours?"

It is great. It's fun times. But, vanity aside, I've always felt like we're the same exact person at the core. We're just different versions of the same person. One of us is more outgoing, one of us is more creative, one of us is more serious. We've done different things and led different lives, but when we're all together, we still laugh at the same things and can look at each other and know what the other is thinking without saying a word.

They understand me completely when I talk about the small town we lived so many years in, when I speak of old boyfriends and best friends, when I call our dad 'Gray Jean Man', when I proclaim that raspberries taste best when picked out of your own back yard. They understand the importance of a Christmas stocking, and can appreciate a good quote from an Abbot & Costello movie. We danced around to Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, Amy Grant, and Mariah Carey cassettes. We built nests out of grass in the backyard. We played cops & robbers with the kid's next door. We went on family vacations to Disneyland and Lincoln City, Oregon. A couple of us pretended to be Harriet the Spy for a good, solid six months, and probably creeped out our one and only neighbor on many occasions.

We grew up, spent too much time doing our bangs, had irrational crushes on too many boys. We argued a lot, raided each other's closets, ignored each other, leaned on each other, laughed until we cried. Our mom carted us back and forth between art classes and dance classes and youth group and theatre auditions and dress rehearsals and somehow managed to stay sane and absolutely amazing. We were blessed one Christmas, through foster care, with a tiny little girl with big blue eyes - she was destined to be the fourth sister. Lucky for us, a couple years later it became official! Not long after, a fifth sister arrived into our home and hearts. Once again, a perfect fit. We were now an absolutely amazing, happy (yet slightly hormonal) family of five sisters, mom and dad.

We moved away from each other, sometimes oceans between us, and sometimes a month would pass between phone calls. One of us got married, then another. We would make time for a visit, but really, nothing is as good as knowing you can walk down the hallway and knock on one of their doors when you want to talk with them.

We've grown up, grown apart at certain times, grown closer as the years go by, and now one of us is going to have a baby of her own. Isn't that amazing? We've gone through all these years of childhood, growing up, and now there is going to be a new baby in the family.

I can't wait to see what the world holds for little Landon. Come January, we will all welcome the first boy into the family - that is, if we're not counting husbands.

(And boy, is my dad looking forward to it!)