Siblings

I've been sitting on this post for months because I just keep taking the most darling, touching pictures of these guys together and I keep thinking I need to tack all those pictures onto the end of this post. But now, I give up. I'm realizing that these types of photo opportunities will be never-ending. I believe these three (and any more who come along) will be great life-long friends and it warms my little mother-heart to say that. Looking at these pictures makes me feel as though perhaps we're doing something right as parents. Looking at these pictures also fills my heart with gratitude for my own siblings. I love them. Aside from my husband, they are the people I most long to turn to when I need to celebrate, mourn, complain, praise, brag (yes, I'm that annoying sister), rant and rave, etc. They are patient with me and quick to forgive and even overlook my many faults. They are also quick to defend me and support me despite those same faults. They are the very definition of loyal. Oh how I shudder to imagine the world without my brothers and sister. It is when I contemplate the intimate and eternal nature of family that I realize the wisdom of our Heavenly Father's plan in which the immediate family unit enjoys a divine placement at the very center. Now, before I really wax eloquent (translate: verbose), enjoy the following quotes and photos.

"To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time." ~Clara Ortega

"I, who have no sisters or brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends." ~James Boswell

"Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero." ~Marc Brown

"Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk." ~Susan Scarf Merrell

"Sibling relationships - and 80 percent of Americans have at least one - outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust." ~Erica E. Goode

"A brother is a friend God gave you;
A friend is a brother your heart chose."
-Proverb

"A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self." ~Marian Sandmaier

"As I have discovered by examining my past, I started out as a child. Coincidentally, so did my brother. My mother did not put all her eggs in one basket, so to speak: she gave me a younger brother named Russell, who taught me what was meant by 'survival of the fittest.'" ~Bill Cosby

"We know one another's faults, virtues, catastrophes, mortifications, triumphs, rivalries, desires, and how long we can each hang by our hands to a bar. We have been banded together under pack codes and tribal laws." -Rose Macaulay

And just because I'm feeling sentimental, I'll throw in a trip down memory lane for anybody who cares (i.e. my siblings . . . who all have these same pictures on their own hard drives . . . soooooo . . . maybe no one really). :P