Family (continued)

While I am on the “showing off my family” kick, I thought I’d share my cousin Heather’s family also. I’m sure I have been over this on the blog before, but here is the cliff notes version. My Mom has two sisters and I grew up in an extended family that was about as tight as a family could be. My G-ma & G-pa, their three girls and spouses, and my generation of cousins seriously got together at least once a month for the kind of get together most families are lucky to have at Christmas or Thanksgiving. Not to mention we also were together all of the time on the weekends. I was the baby by many years (remember… a pleasant surprise… not an accident… right Mom?) and I always thought my cousin Heather was the coolest. I remember her wearing black biker shorts (this was the 80’s give her a break) a big white t-shirt with a grey sweatshirt inside out (you know the kind with the little triangle stitched at the neck) big white scrunchy socks, and white keds with no shoelaces. I thought she was SO. TOTALLY. RAD. I made my Mom take me to about ten places until we found just the right sweatshirt with that exact same triangle stitched on it to complete my identical outfit. I think I wore that outfit about three days a week for half a year. Anyway, I always wanted to be like her. Have a red sportscar, big teased blond hair, and wear blue eyeshadow. I’m sad to say I accomplished two of the three. Big hair and blue eyeshadow…check! I got over the red sportscar thing at about 14. Now there is an entire new generation growing up confused to whether they are cousins or second cousins or what… Here is Lenzi and Lexi… really my cousins kids, but they think they are my nieces and I claim them that way…

Oh… those two pictures take my breath away. Lexi will be a teenager next year and Lenzi is just a couple of years behind her. Neither of them are little girls anymore. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about them liking boys… or worse yet… boys liking them! Heather and Keith are going to have their hands full (thank you God for giving me a boy). We didn’t shoot many family shots. All they needed was one for their Christmas Card. So here is just one so you can see that Heather no longer wears spandex or back-combs her hair!