Being a Family is... Part 2

Part 2 of my series about what being in a family means to me. You can read the first part here.


Being a Family Is...Creating.
My family is homeschooled; homeschoolers are naturally pretty creative because our lifestyle encourages a creative attitude. But even more that, my family is, how shall we say it, beyond creative.
When I was three I got a  beautiful wooden dollhouse, but I didn't have any furniture to put inside of it. Mama sat me down at the kitchen table one day and we made furniture out of plastic lids, popsicle sticks, and tiny mugs out of beads and macaroni. Later on when I was thirteen I made an entire dollhouse out of cardboard boxes, and five rooms full of furniture and accessories right down to the a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. When we kids were little mom let us build elaborate tents in the living room, and when dad got involved they usually involved the entire room and some string. Those tents would last for days. We've made Christmas ornaments, snowmen out of coffee creamer bottles, and little Christmas cabins out of wooden sticks. We've built playhouses in the backyard. I've sewn costumes, my siblings build insane Lego creations. Our Lincoln Log forts are works of art. My mom can go into the kitchen and create mouthwatering meals just by feeling it out, no recipes involved. My dad and older brother can build amazing websites and things online. The fact of the matter is, we love to create, and I believe families were designed to create, the very structure of a family is built to nurture creativity.

Yeah, it kinda goes without saying that Phineas and Ferb are some of our heroes. I mean, who wouldn't love these guys? They are some of the coolest characters out there, and their show is hilarious! Have I memorized their hit song, "Bow Chicka Bow Wow"? What do you think?


Being a Family is...Laughing.
Laughter. Pure, beautiful, bubbly laughter is straight from heaven. I have gotten more than my share living in my family. Strong families laugh together all the time, even when things are hard, or some of the members are angry, families need to laugh together. I've gone through my share of hard times, I still am, but throughout all of my life, some of my favorite memories have involved those when I was laughing with my family. Everyone in our family has a slightly different sense of humor, sarcasm for some, slapstick for others, clever comments, or puppies sliding on a kitchen floor (guilty). We all are very witty, from the eight year old on up, I think I mentioned in my previous post that this was a direct result of talking too much. ;)


My mom and dad used to tell us stories before bed a lot. We had two different series of stories. Mom's was Richard, Susan, and Busbee (pronounced Biz-bee). They were three dogs who lived with a very rich woman called, "The Master". Susan was sensible and feminine, Richard had been taken in off of the streets and was more rough around the edges. Busbee was a baby (Mom used the cutest baby voice that still tickles me when I think about it), he got his name because he was always a busy bee. They often went on adventures, and Busbee or Richard would get them into trouble that was always hilarious. There was this one story in particular that involved eating spoiled food out of a restaurant dumpster and a cat passing out that still leaves me in stiches every time I think about it.


My dad's series was called "Muller and Carmichael". They were two ugly, decorative turtles we owned that a few of the younger ones had gotten from the dollar store for mom on her birthday one year. She named them after her favorite missionaries, George Muller, and Amy Carmichael. Dad turned these plain, ugly little turtles into objects of endearment with his stories. Mueller was the adventurous one, he would propose an idea that the sensible and reluctant Carmichael would object to. But inevitably they would end up in trouble. Driving the tractor, accidentally attaching themselves to fireworks and ending up at Grandpa's house, sneaking into the freezer to eat turtle sundae, accidentally emailing the kids' Christmas lists to all of Dad's coworkers. The things those turtles did while we all slept.

I love laughing with my family, especially when I have had a hard day or week. I think if more people enjoyed their families enough to laugh with them, the world would be a better place.