Family craziness

The inspiration for our recent trip to the Oregon coast was the opportunity to meet up with two of my siblings, one of my cousins, and one father. Along with spouses, and children, there were 16 of us (imagine how many there would be with my other 4 siblings!). Amazingly enough, we did not get a single family photo, but we did get one super professional family portrait drawn by Huong while we were eating pizza one night. Richard is the super tall one in the middle with the long black legs and yellow shirt.
Anna and girl cousin 1: the Z-meister Zoe
Girl cousin #2: Sock it to me Sophia
(one more picture because I liked the green and the pink)
girl cousin #3: Natalicious Natasha riding the back of her uncle-- Nate the great
Girl cousin #4: Naomi the viking
Anna, Naomi, and Natasha talking smack!

Girl cousin #5: Little (but mighty) Lila

(and a picture of my totally beautiful sister in law Courtney-- what a hottie!)

not pictured: girl cousin #6-- Georgous Gwendolyn!

I have been thinking a lot about family size lately. I have 6 brothers and sisters, 9 stepbrothers and sisters, a couple of dads, a mom, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Do I love my family? Yes, absolutely! Was it hard? More than I like to remember. Do I want the same for my own little family? Probably not. I have heard a lot recently about the benefits of only child families. With no division of time, resources, attention, and love-- an only child has greater academic and professional success and higher self esteem. And I admit, as the 5th child, there were many times I wished I had more access to my parents than I did (pretty much all the time).
However, my daughter gets to have cousins, cousins, cousins, and more cousins to play with because of my parent's propensity toward reproduction, and I get all these wonderful people to share my life with and look up to. And let me tell you, my siblings are just COOL!

So how many siblings will Anna have? At least one, probably two, but no more than I can give them all the love and attention that they need to be their best!