TIGF - Family

Hosted by Ashley, Nay and Laura

Since we're heading into Thanksgiving week here I felt it would be appropriate today to celebrate my family since I did a post dedicated to my friends last week.  I am so grateful to have a wonderful and supportive family - both my own and Nate's.

I mentioned in an earlier post this week that I am an only child.  I think that led me to have a very unique relationship with my parents - they are not just my parents, they are also my friends.  We enjoy spending time together.  I am beyond blessed that my mom is able to take care of Oliver for me every day, it gives me such peace of mind that he's with someone who loves him as much as we do and I love that I work so close that I can spend lunch hours at their house - I did that before Ollie too, it is nice being able to see my parents every day.  On days I'm not over there I still call and talk to my mom because I like being able to talk to her every day.  My dad is amazingly helpful to us too, he is a master builder and has helped us in countless ways at our house fixing up things or building things. He helped Nate build his basement bar, he has helped us replace doors, windows, electrical things, the list goes on and on.  My family may be small in number, but it's large in love.

I am also blessed to be a part of Nate's family.  From the moment we started dating, they were warm, welcoming and friendly.  I never felt like I didn't belong or out of place.  I know so many people who end up not liking or getting along with their in-laws.  I'm so thankful I'm not one of those people.  We have a lot of fun with them and are lucky to live close to them as well.  My mother-in-law still works so isn't able to help with Oliver much during the week as much as she'd love to so we offer them all our weekend opportunities for babysitting and they are always more than willing to help out.  They've even re-arranged plans for us before which is so kind of them.  And hey, they raised a wonderful man who has been the most amazing husband in the world, so I am pretty grateful to them for that!

I've mentioned on the blog before too that I am blessed to call Nate's sister a friend.  There was definitely weirdness early on in my relationship with Nate, when we were still in high school, because I was really friends with his sister before him.  We eventually got past it and I'm just so thankful to have her in my life, especially given the fact that I don't have siblings, I feel like thanks to being a part of Nate's family for pretty much the last 16 years that she's pretty much become my sister too.  She's a great auntie to Ollie.  And we just have a lot of fun together, we are both pretty crazy and we definitely laugh a lot!

Both Nate and I have very large extended families and sadly do not get to see a lot of them as often as we'd like, but I am thankful for all of them as well.  Nate is lucky enough to still have two living grandmothers.  I have a couple of aunts I am very close with, one of whom is the backup babysitter for Ollie if my mom has an appointment or anything and I'm grateful to have them in my life as well. We each have cousins we're close with and even if we don't see them often, we keep in touch on Facebook or things like that.  Overall I think we are just so blessed to have pretty awesome families and I never take that for granted even for a second!