The Aunt and Uncle Influence…

I’ve been so blessed in my life to not only have many great friends but also a larger sized family full of aunts and uncles.  Even though aunts and uncles don’t generally have a responsibility over their nieces and nephews when compared with parents they really can be influences for good values.  For instance, I always knew growing up that my aunts and uncles valued education.  I also felt their support for the nieces and nephews (including myself) for various ordinances such as baby blessings, baptisms, and weddings.  It just became apparent to me one day as I sat in church with my aunts, uncles, and cousins, for a baby blessing, that our collective extended family valued the same things for the most part.  Of course there are those who have fallen away from the church and such but for the most part even those people still taught me similar values (like my aunt who let me sit on her lap and showed me the baby Jesus figurine in her purse who asked her records to be removed).  Aunts and Uncles are one reason why I want my children to be close to my family because of the profound influences they can have.  They can have so much power as examples of truth and error and they have the ability to persuade children of things that maybe parents have tried many times to teach. Children listen better at times to outside influences rather than parents and what better influence than an aunt or uncle who actually care about a child and want what’s best for them!  Here are some glimpses of the aunts and uncles that invested some interest in Vivian this past week.

 

Here’s my sister April resting with Vivian after picking up uncle Michael from the airport.

    This is Uncle Jake (my sister Julie’s husband), Kate and Vivian chilling on the sofa.

       Jake with Vivian showing his humorous side.  

 

Michael trying to persuade Vivian to smile.

 

I also enjoyed spending time with my nieces and nephews as well.  Here is a picture of Sandy on Saturday when she came for a visit with her daddy (my brother Bill) and she wanted me to hold her the majority of the time I was there.  Very fun.

   

Sandy and Me… I’m so thrilled she likes me now, the last few times I’ve come up she didn’t want me near her but now she seems to want me all the time.  It’s great!

Here are a couple of my niece Elizabeth (Jared’s sister’s daughter).  It was her birthday that week and she turned the awkward age of eleven so I took her shopping and this is what she picked out…kind of wizards of Waverly Place-ish in my opinion.  Now I really can hardly wait for Vivian to grow up and go shopping with me…it was really fun to look at things with her and chat about things with her.