New siblings

I could probably fill a book with everything that I could say about my siblings, or even just about siblings in general. For right now though, I'll try to keep my written thoughts short and sweet ;-).

Since August, I have had a dozen siblings (living on earth). Incredibly enough, four of those siblings (that's a full third) were newly added to the group this year! The first has been hidden in my mother's womb, growing and developing for about 19 weeks now, and just yesterday I learned that she is a "she," and has the beautiful name of Katharina!

I didn't find out about Katharina, however, until shortly after DoRena (previously my only older sibling), was united in holy matrimony to Samuel Wirgau, supplying me with an older brother(-in-law). That's something which I've never been blessed with before! I couldn't be more happy for the two of them :-D. I'm also very pleased to have Sam added to our family, in a sense, and couldn't ask for a better brother-in-law.

And then, in August, I was blessed with two more sisters at the same time! Twins! (Just kidding :-P). There are all sorts of wonderful things about being married to my lovely wife, Rebekah, but as the icing on the cake (or perhaps a better analogy for me would be the peanut butter on the apple ;-)), she comes from one of the greatest families I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I have already been good friends with her family for about as long as I have known her, and I'm very happy to call them all my in-laws now! I know that many people stereotypically dislike their in-laws, but this couldn't be farther from the truth for me. I can honestly say that they are some of my favorite people in the world, and in the last few years I have grown almost as close to them as I am to my own family, so calling them family now comes quite naturally :-D.

Even before I learned the news about Katharina yesterday, I was thinking to myself about my "siblings status," so to speak. Since my little brother Frederick was born I have had more brothers than sisters, and after Gerhardt was born it was looking like that it would likely stay that way. Even now, the girls in my immediate family are a bit outnumbered. As for myself, however, I now have just as many brothers as I have sisters (6 of each)! This doesn't really mean anything especially important, but I think it's pretty cool :-D.

So here's to all of my siblings, all twelve of them!