{Simply Styled Emily}: Blogtember {Tha family I come from}

Happy Blogtember!! I am linking up with the fabulous Jenni from Story of My Life for her Blogtember Challenge. I am loving the topics set for this month (after May's epic fail... on my part) and can not wait to read everyone's post.

Day One {Describe where or what you come from. The people, the places, and/or the factors that make up who you are.}

I had big goals of having this all typed over the weekend and ready to go first thing Tuesday morning (I like making goals… sadly I need to work less at making the goals and more at making them happen!). That didn’t happen. But the irony of it is, before I sat down to work on it, everyone seemed to drop by the house all at once keeping me from writing it, and it’s those people I was writing this post about!

I come from a big family… and I love it. My parents, who were high school sweet hearts, grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania outside Philadelphia. Almost all of my relatives still live close to each other, with the exception of an uncle in New York City and cousins who have moved to Maryland and Chicago. My father was the oldest of eight and joined the Navy, which is how we settled in Virginia Beach. My family in Pennsylvania is very close and growing up I always wished that we lived closer to my cousins.

I have an older sister, two older brothers and a little brother (who just turned the big 2-1 last night!). We all live close by to my parents and love to spend time together. The summers are spent laying by my parents pool with a drink and the winters are spent around the dinner table talking and laughing!

We are there for each other’s big moments in life; weddings, birthdays, graduations, and we support each other 100% (unless what you are doing is stupid… then we let you know, and then make fun of you... only out of love, of course!)

I definitely think I lucked out on having a pretty awesome childhood thanks to my parents and siblings. I was not given everything I wanted and got beaten up enough by the boys to know my place! It was how a childhood should be!

And now that Brandon and I our getting married and talking of starting a family together, I hope our children have as close as a relationship as my brothers, sister and I do. (Though I know we were loud, messy and hated each other’s guts when we were little… I am not sure how my parent’s made it out from that mad house alive!)

Now a picture dump before I leave the office and head to dinner with my brother’s to celebrate Ben’s birthday at a bar!

For my mom's birthday last year we surprised her with family portraits we had gotten done at a portrait studio, that most definitely catered to small children. We had a few beers and laughed the entire time at the poses the photographer suggested!

My mom's favorite picture. Each number represents our birth order.
(We had wanted our age but oddly enough they did not have 35, 33, 29, 26 and 20)

at my cousins wedding September 2012

My wonderful parents!

Ben and Michael, Halloween 2012

Same Halloween, someone they got in an arm wrestling competition

My parents were out of town on my birthday last year and Brandon had to work a 24 hour shift, so my sister and brothers took me out for dinner and drinks!