Joy & Austin 30: Who Needs Fire Safety when You Have Jesus?

[JermajestyDuggar]

My mom just posted a picture of my older son on her FB and yet again someone said he looked like her. She hears that a lot. Which is so weird because I’m a clone of my dad and my son doesn’t even look that much like my husband. So how does a kid skip looking like his parents and looks like his grandmother? Genes are weird.

[AprilQuilt]

oh, good for Joy. She looks really happy. And my word, those Forsyth genes are strong.

You could tell from my daughter's 20 week scan that she was my partner's daughter - their heads are the exact same shape. Same with all her cousins on his side. Now she's a toddler I think she looks a lot like I did at her age, but with blue-green-grey-hazel eyes. I have a single blue-eyed grandparent, all my other grandparents, parents, siblings etc have brown eyes. But I love that that blue-eyed gene was lurking in my body waiting for her to turn up and surprise me.

[ADoyle90815]

To me, newborns either look like Winston Churchill, or Jeff Durham's Walter puppet. I'm glad everyone is healthy, and that Joy didn't try for a homebirth.

[Italiangirl]

Nice to see Austin so happy to have a daughter. She looks a lot like newborn Gideon here to me. 

I like the fact that it was Austin to post it and not Joy for some reason, maybe because it seems that are always the wifes who post pictures of their kids and less the man 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Italiangirl

[Glasgowghirl]

12 minutes ago, Italiangirl said:

Nice to see Austin so happy to have a daughter. She looks a lot like newborn Gideon here to me. 

I like the fact that it was Austin to post it and not Joy for some reason, maybe because it seems that are always the wifes who post pictures of their kids and less the man 

She is beautiful and definitely looks like Austin and Gideon, after last year and them losing Annabell and seeing other family members and friends due around the same time, I am happy for them. 

 

[JenniferJuniper]

3 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

 So how does a kid skip looking like his parents and looks like his grandmother? Genes are weird.

One of my mother's favorite lines, "The gene pool is vast".

And it wasn't until I started doing my family tree that I truly began to appreciate this.  Not that their are photos beyond my great grandparents, as my tree contains all hard working folk who couldn't afford such fancy things as photographs.  Brick layers, blacksmiths, farmers, women who gave birth to huge number of children and buried more than half of them.  But as I've avoided siblings of ancestors, my tree only contains the stories of people I've directly descended from.  And I've amassed nearly 100 of them going back as far as the 1600's.  If I could go back further, there would quickly be thousands of them.  When I'm feeling down about things in my life, I look back on their stories and immediately feel a massive amount of respect for what they dealt with and it helps put my life in perspective. And I feel a strange kinship to these people I've never met, even though I don't doubt some were total assholes!

My siblings and I came directly from every single one of the people in my tree.  So it only makes sense that some of us are dark skinned, some light skinned, or brown eyed or blue eyed or green eyed.  (and yes, all three eye colors are found among the five of us).  There's a vast amount of stuff that can pop up from anywhere. It so does not begin and end with parents and grandparents.

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 minutes ago, JenniferJuniper said:

dark skinned, some light skinned, or brown eyed or blue eyed or green eyed.  (and yes, all three eye colors are found among the five of us). 

This is exactly like my husband and his two siblings. None have the same eye color. None have the same hair color. None have the same skin tone. None have the same height. None have the same weight. None have the same nose. It’s strange that they don’t look anything like siblings but they are full siblings! But their parents look very different. So it makes some sense. 

[AussieKrissy]

9 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I have never understood how anyone can see family resemblance in newborns.  I never could, even my own.  They all look like adorable little aliens to me.

I know it's a thing as other people can see it, I just can't.

I can see it in other peoples kids (Newborns and up) and still can only rarely see it in my own. 

[JenniferJuniper]

6 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

This is exactly like my husband and his two siblings. None have the same eye color. None have the same hair color. None have the same skin tone. None have the same height. None have the same weight. None have the same nose. It’s strange that they don’t look anything like siblings but they are full siblings! But their parents look very different. So it makes some sense. 

That's us to a tee!  I'm pale, blond and 5'2" with eyes of green.  Youngest sister has dark skin, brown eyes and is 5'11"!   

My parents were both of average height.  And definitely not pale. 

[Travlr98]

I never realized how much my brother and our sister's son look like each other and both look like our dad and grandpa until sister and I were looking at pictures after our dad passed. It was just so surreal to see the resemblance when looking at the pictures side my side. My oldest niece is a combination of her parents and the youngest niece is my sisters mini me. 

[Not that josh's mom]

31 minutes ago, JenniferJuniper said:

One of my mother's favorite lines, "The gene pool is vast".

And it wasn't until I started doing my family tree that I truly began to appreciate this.  Not that their are photos beyond my great grandparents, as my tree contains all hard working folk who couldn't afford such fancy things as photographs.  Brick layers, blacksmiths, farmers, women who gave birth to huge number of children and buried more than half of them.  But as I've avoided siblings of ancestors, my tree only contains the stories of people I've directly descended from.  And I've amassed nearly 100 of them going back as far as the 1600's.  If I could go back further, there would quickly be thousands of them.  When I'm feeling down about things in my life, I look back on their stories and immediately feel a massive amount of respect for what they dealt with and it helps put my life in perspective. And I feel a strange kinship to these people I've never met, even though I don't doubt some were total assholes!

My siblings and I came directly from every single one of the people in my tree.  So it only makes sense that some of us are dark skinned, some light skinned, or brown eyed or blue eyed or green eyed.  (and yes, all three eye colors are found among the five of us).  There's a vast amount of stuff that can pop up from anywhere. It so does not begin and end with parents and grandparents.

May I ask why you have avoided siblings of your ancestors? 

My great grandparents are John and Jane Johnson who migrated from Ohio to Illinois to Iowa. The only way I was able to track Jane's family was by tracking her brother, Obadiah. I have found siblingsof my ancestors marrying siblings of their spouses and through them interesting stories.

[JenniferJuniper]

1 minute ago, Not that josh's mom said:

May I ask why you have avoided siblings of your ancestors? 

It was intentional.  Where possible, I do add their names to the life stories, but I realized it quickly becomes unwieldy.  One great great grandfather lost two wives in childbirth and ended up with like 25 kids. (suck on that, Jim Bob)  It's been great, because there is a ton of his DNA out there!  But it's not so great it comes to a linear family tree that gives me as deep a story as possible.  If I had the time, I build out a better tree, but I'm really focused on the life stories of my direct ancestors.  So I guess, long story short, I prefer depth to breadth. 

 

[EmeraldGGGG]

31 minutes ago, JenniferJuniper said:

That's us to a tee!  I'm pale, blond and 5'2" with eyes of green.  Youngest sister has dark skin, brown eyes and is 5'11"!   

My parents were both of average height.  And definitely not pale. 

This is also like my family. Blonde, brown and red. Fair, freckles and olive. Blue or hazel. Short, tall and very tall. We look nothing alike. Funnily, I look like no one else in my family on either side. 

My husband is also night and day compared to his brother but he looks like a clone of his Dad and his brother could be a male version of his mum. We joke it will be a roll of a dice in how our kids turn out. 

Genetics are funny.

[viii]

That’s my family as well. My oldest sister is red headed with pale blue eyes, middle sister is blonde with grey blue eyes, and I have brown hair and green eyes. 

[Audrey2]

I have to give Joy and Austen some credit... By not releasing baby's name, they are still maintaining some interest, not easy to do with all of the children and grandchildren.

[AussieKrissy]

Rumours doing the rounds on fb sites is that they have named her felicity... 

Edited August 26, 2020 by AussieKrissy
Ah they were joking.

[ophelia]

2 minutes ago, AussieKrissy said:

Rumours doing the rounds on fb sites is that they have named her felicity... 

I can see those mega families reusing middle names (especially names that honor certain family members) but if Joy really named her daughter Felicity I would be really pissed if I were Jinger.

[Daisy0322]

6 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

This is exactly like my husband and his two siblings. None have the same eye color. None have the same hair color. None have the same skin tone. None have the same height. None have the same weight. None have the same nose. It’s strange that they don’t look anything like siblings but they are full siblings! But their parents look very different. So it makes some sense. 

My kids look nothing a like one is blonde with brown eyes, super tall and thin, and has was traditionally “Irish type” facial features. My other is a dark read head, blue eyes, also tall but built thicker, and his features are very dominant and “German” looking. I find it fascinating because EVERYONE in my looks alike. In fact they look so different people have asked me if they have the same father ? which is really funny mainly because we are still very happily married and people like to ask in front of him. People can be so nosey lol

[lilith]

I imagined my last daughter coming out with dark eyes and thick dark hair like her father. Turns out she’s the fairest of all my children, even though the eldest threes father has lighter hair and eyes. It doesn’t stop my mother in law from saying “but we don’t have blue eyed kids in our family” (despite my blue eyes) and my sister in law buying my very slight daughter clothes two sizes up because “we make big kids in our family”. 

[EmeraldGGGG]

51 minutes ago, ophelia said:

I can see those mega families reusing middle names (especially names that honor certain family members) but if Joy really named her daughter Felicity I would be really pissed if I were Jinger.

I honestly will be shocked if she was called Felicity. I can imagine that by the time the final lost girls have finished having their kids that there might be a few repeats (especially with more common names), but there is only 18 3rd gen and Felicity is reasonably uncommon. 

[Chewing Gum]

She won't name her Felicity, seriously. Unless Jinger stole her name from Joy early on, then she has every right but it will still be stupid. I hope she goes by something classy. 

Austin's message about "can't get over the fact that I have a Daughter!" rubs me the wrong way. You already have a daughter. This is your second one. Maybe I'm just sentimental about these things. 

[Italiangirl]

Austin's message about "can't get over the fact that I have a Daughter!" rubs me the wrong way. You already have a daughter. This is your second one. Maybe I'm just sentimental about these things. 

I read it more like, here with them, actually, I would be very hurt if someone made a similar remark to my mother (I was a twin, my sister died shortly after labor, she lived like a day or two) she refers to herself as a mother of two, not three. I could be wrong, but I found it a sweet message 

Eta I forget to mention that I have a younger sister, this is why I say my mother refers to herself as a mother of two 

Edited August 26, 2020 by Italiangirl

[kiwi]

I took his post to more mean - he cant believe he has a daughter - to keep, to take home, to love on, to watch grow.

[AprilQuilt]

Yep, I read it that way too. We know that Annabell's loss hit both him and Joy hard. They named her, mourned her, memorialised her, continue to talk about her. He's saying he has a daughter to hold in his arms and join his family here in the world.

I seriously doubt she will be named Felicity though. It would suit Joy's style but she and Jinger don't seem close and I doubt they would find it cute to share. Given their own upbringing they might actually be extra conscious of letting their kids have stuff that's just theirs. Actually one of my dad's brothers has the same name as a cousin (think something super common and classic like Peter/Stephen/Michael). They were born days apart so I don't know if the siblings just never communicated that they were naming their babies the same, or if they agreed to do it, or if it was eternally contentious.

[Glasgowghirl]

52 minutes ago, kiwi said:

I took his post to more mean - he cant believe he has a daughter - to keep, to take home, to love on, to watch grow.

Same, I took it that way.