Too much time has passed since I last added an entry into this thing. Life seems to be keeping me pretty busy, in all the good ways of course! 
We do have some new people around these days to keep us busier. My big brother and his wife and 2 completely adorable kids have moved back home. In fact they just moved back home this past weekend! They have been living in the Albany area for the last, oh, twelve years or so I think. Anyhow it’s been long enough and we are happy to welcome them back home with the rest of us.
My girls are giddy with excitement that their cousins will be here to grow up with them and play “all the time”, as Abigail keeps telling me. It is going to be fun to watch all the little cousins grow and learn together. When I was young my cousin Heather was my closest best friend in the whole world. Who am I kidding, Heather and I are still best friends. We have a bond, almost like siblings do, that holds us close. I want that for all our kids. Abigail is kind of the odd man out since she is the oldest by at least three years but she is more than thrilled to “teach all the babies the fun stuff we do here!” She can’t wait to show my niece and nephew her favorite playground, or where her “Big School” is and where she went to “Little School”, and all the other little things that we grown ups tend to overlook. She wants to show them the best place in the school yard for the biggest pile of leaves, I am pretty sure my brother still remembers since it was the same school all of us kids went to. Megan isn’t quite sure what all this is about just yet. She just knows that her cousins will be living close by now and we will get to see them often.
The kids aren’t the only ones who are happy to have the rest of the family home. My parents are glad to have all their children living within a 10 minute radius and Mom can’t wait to let the spoilage begin! My Dad has just been given the biggest gift in the world…to have all his children close by with all their own children. This is the way I remember growing up. We grew up next door to my Grandma and Grandpa O’Brian. This was the common ground for the meeting and playing and mischief making for all the cousins and us sibs. My grandfather loved it this way. He would tell me (when I finally hit my adult years) that his best gift was having his children and all his grandchildren so close by. He wanted our family to be close, to remember who we are and where we came from and that no matter what, family is what matters most. My Mom and Dad have instilled that in all of us as well and they are truly overjoyed to know that all their kids are near by.
I have to say this is going to be somewhat new for all of us siblings. Of course we have all lived together and know all about each other but this will be the first time that ALL of us will be living so close to each other as adults. We are all finally grown ups now, some married, some married with little ones and one who will be married in the very near future. We have our own way of living and our own grown up thoughts and opinions. To most this isn’t a big deal but we are kind of spaced out in age quite a bit. My brother is 6 years my senior, I am 3 years ahead of the next sister and that sister is 2 years ahead of the youngest sister. That is an age gap of 11 years between the oldest and youngest so it can make for very differing opinions but a hell of a good time harassing the youngest! I am sure that we are going to have our squabbles, that tends to happen within close knit families. I have to say that I am almost…ALMOST looking forward to that. Living close by so much family is going to tough sometimes. I learned that when we moved into our house. It can sometimes feel like you have no privacy when five other family members who live in the same quarter mile, but I have learned that you need to embrace that. It doesn’t mean you have a ton of people sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong, it simply means you have five families that are willing to drop everything on a Sunday morning to come help you thaw out frozen pipes, or you have five other families that are willing to stop by the store on their way home from work to bring ginger ale for your sick child and of course it means there are five other families to embrace you and welcome you home with open arms.
I am so looking forward to having my brother and his whole family home. I am looking forward to watching my kids meet up with their cousins in the field between our houses and run to one house or the other, like I remember doing. I am looking forward to hearing little knocks on my door with little voices asking, “Aunt Steph can Abby and Meg come out to play?”, I am looking forward to a beer on the porch with my brother, since I am all grown up now. I am looking forward to Michelle and I borrowing sugar or talking about the best things to put in our gardens and her advise on what flowers will grow best in my rocky soil. I can’t wait to have all the kids sleeping on our living room floor and giggling until “way past bedtime”.
We are a big, loud family that loves each other through thick and thin. We love to sit around a big dinner table. We love to enjoy a beer with each other. We love laughing, playing and spoiling each others kids. We love to squabble and argue that our way is better. We love to start trouble just to irritate the other siblings, all in good fun of course. We love to know that we all love each other and that we are truly all the way to the center of each of us glad to be a family.
Welcome Home! You have been missed!
A family of Irish birth will argue and fight,
but let a shout come from without,
and see them all unite.