Family Rules

This week in my Family Relations class we talked about our family rules. It made me giggle to hear how similar some families are to my own, and how absolutely different others are as well. I realized that my family has some rules that I hadn't ever thought of until others brought them up. Here is the list that I ended up coming to.
1: NEVER wake Dad unless he asks to be woken at a specific time.
2: Always take the chance to tease someone if they are sleeping in a public setting (like shoving marshmallows in their open mouth)
3: You play a sport from elementary through high school (everyone must play basketball), otherwise you just don't quite fit in.
4: We only really show affection if someone that has moved out is visiting, or to the youngest child (aka Ellisa)

16 years apart and still best friends :)

5: Sports activities take precedence over anything and everything else.
6: The oldest children always get first choice or I guess "higher ranking" at the dinner table or in the car.
7: Dinner time is the chance to tell jokes that you know only your dad and brothers will laugh at. This is what we call family bonding ;)

These are the ones that I thought were very applicable to our family in general. I love that we are all so silly and glad to be together, but also we like to all be in charge which sometimes makes the work go faster, but we also make the work slow down when there are so many chiefs and no Indians to order around haha. We have found a groove that lets us have fun and bond even though all 11 of us are so head strong. My mom's favorite thing to say to the in-laws is "I'm sorry you married into these genes as well..." when my dad turns around with carrots up his nose and asks if anyone smells carrots....we laugh and we cry together, that is what family is all about- right?