Friday, April 11, 2014

oohhhh siblings.

Apparently yesterday was National Siblings Day. Ummm...I feel like we're just inventing holidays now, people. For real. Was this the first year? Because I never recall celebrating this in the past. And I didn't celebrate it yesterday. Not so much as a text to either one of my siblings. Oops! At any rate, since evidently the way to 'celebrate' or 'observe' NSD (PS- add this to my list of holidays with confusing apostrophe situations) is simply to share sibling pictures on social media, I'll have to say...I'm down with that. I'm terrible with cards and gifts and phone calls and thematic crafts and snacks, but sharing a picture on FB or Instagram? Can't we just celebrate ALL holidays this way from now on? (Thanksgiving being the obvious exception. There's no substitute for real turkey.)

All that said, I still didn't participate in NSD yesterday. It caught me unprepared...and then I kept forgetting to find old pictures...blah blah blah. When I finally got around to looking for some appropriate sibling pictures, I realized that I couldn't possibly limit myself to just one or two. People who can limit their life sharing to one or two pictures are people for whom FB or Instagram is enough. Those of us that can't limit have blogs. Obviously. 

I love my siblings. I love our ages and our order. I highly recommend that if you have any control or say-so over the number, order, sexes, and spacing of your offspring, you model them after my siblings and I: girl, boy, girl, with 2 to 2.5 years between each. It's really quite fabulous, particularly if you happen to be the first girl. I was always on the winning team. ALWAYS. With three kids, it's bound to end up as two against one most of the time sometimes. Given my fortuitous position, I was always on the winning team: it was either the oldest two versus the baby, or the two girls against the lone boy. It was awesome. Actually, it was mostly the two wisest against the gullible one (which also aligned with the age thing)...and that's what most of my favorite childhood memories consist of. Jake and I making up ridiculous crap and convincing Sarah it was real. It's taken her years of therapy and Googling to come to terms with what is actually real in life and what was actually a prolonged, elaborate, and fiercely defended series of lies that Jake and I created and managed to convince our parents to go along with. Sorry Sarah. But not really. It was hilarious.

Alright. Enough talking- let's get to the pictures. THE WORLD NEEDS TO SEE MORE ADORABLE CHILDREN FROM THE LATE 80s/EARLY 90s!!!


This picture will never not make me happy. Look how precious we were!! How coordinated our outfits! How tan our skin! How weird my bangs!

Sadly, we didn't live in an Olan Mills studio, so most of the time our pictures were a little less polished. We did normal kid stuff like fish.


 I made this picture huge because there are so many amazing details. The bows that Sarah and I are wearing. Her awesome overalls. My brother's jorts. And again with my weird-ass bangs. What the heck, 90s?


 This photo shoot was designed to showcase us in the outfits associated with our current favorite hobbies: dancing for the girls, football for Jake. Themed photo shoots?? My mom should have been a mommyblogger. Let us also observe that despite being thin, I had legit HIPS at age 8 or 9. And again- unfortunate bangs.


First day of school-- fifth grade. My 'bookbag' is large enough to hold the luggage for a family of 10 spending a month on vacation. I remember that it was always SO HEAVY from all the stuff (books) I had to carry around all the time. No matter, though- this is clearly what prepared me for a lifetime of Really Heavy Purses. Please also note: Jake's ROLLED UP JORTS. And Sarah's illegal amount of cuteness. How did she alone manage to escape looking ridiculous all the time?? I guess it's the trade-off for being really incredibly gullible.

Annnnnd....now fast forward through a lot of years that I couldn't readily find already scanned pictures for...and skip to my college graduation!! Unfortunately, we all look mostly normal here, as it was only 9 years ago.


There aren't nearly as many pictures of us now that we're adults living in three different cities, but at least the pictures we do manage to take make us all look good!

My wedding (June 2007):


Sarah's wedding (Dec. 2010):

Jake's Rehearsal Dinner (June 2011) (couldn't quickly find a wedding day pic of the three of us, oops):

Awww...I love my siblings. And I will leave you with one short story to exemplify what a great big sister and brother Sarah had to look up to.

She was maybe 4 or 6. We were sharing a room at the time, and I was sitting at my desk (probably studying advanced physics or maybe reading Babysitters Club books) when she came in the room from taking a shower. She had her towel on and I glanced over and casually mentioned that what was really fun was jumping on the bed naked. She looked skeptical and said something about us not being allowed to jump on the bed, but I reassuringly told her that as long as you were naked, Mom and Dad didn't care. I brought Jake in and he confirmed the situation-- oh, yeah. Naked bed-jumping had the parental stamp of approval. Never one to miss out on something potentially really fun, Sarah started jumping on the bed naked. Jake and I quickly summoned our parents, who came in the room and were shocked to see their blonde angel doing something so bizarre and obviously against the rules. They scold. Sarah starts to point fingers at Jake and I, but upon receiving Death Stares Times Two, realizes the error in her ways and promises to never jump on the bed again, naked or otherwise. Parents leave the room. Jake and I have the BIGGEST LAUGH EVER and thank God for the gift of such a wonderful little sister to play tricks on. The end.

19 comments:

  1. Great pictures! I never pictured you as the oldest child, don't know why. There are 3 kids in my family and we're all 2.5 years apart but we have 2 girls and then a boy.

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  2. I just love all of these pictures!! We are a boy - girl - boy family and I'm in the middle, but we are 2.5 to 2 years apart which I think is great!

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  3. Love the pictures! There are 3 in my family, too--boy-girl-girl, and I am the youngest. You would get along great with my brother. One time, he had to sleep in the room my sister and I shared because it was so hot, and our room had a ceiling fan. He took this opportunity to tie my foot to the bed with a freaking slip not, which was a really fun discovery when I tried to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Older siblings, I tell ya!

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  4. omg - I can not even tell which one you are when you are younger!!! You look so different! Love the pictures!! :)

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  5. As someone with equally gullible little sisters, the naked bed jumping story had me in tears! That is SO something I would've done to my little sister. I just hope Sarah doesn't hold a grudge against you guys like my sister does...geez, it's been 22+ years already, let it go! She claims her childhood was so traumatic and I was so mean to her. I claim she was so annoying and easy to play tricks on that I had no other choice. There are two sides to every story, I'm just saying. But oh could I get that girl in some trouble! I love being a big sister. :-)

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  6. Bahhhh! Your bangs! Your brothers JEAN shorts (why?)! These are simply awful. I suddenly much more sympathetic to your sister. As a little sister myself, I can relate. Bless her heart.

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  7. Haha! My favorite sibling photo from childhood is the matching bath suit idea my mom thought would be adorable. I'm in a 2-piece and my brothers are in speedos. It's a fine treasure!!!
    By the way...you were super cute!

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  8. These are so awesome! Loved the pictures! Your sister's wedding picture totally made me think that she awesomely resembles Elsa from Frozen with her hair color!! Amazing. Such a pretty set of siblings!

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  9. I would like to point out in picture #2 that you could have been mistaken for one of Warren Jeffs' wives, except for the fact that you are baring your arms and legs. Fun pics! Makes me want to dig up more of ours!

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  10. HA! Obviously you are adorable and evil. :)

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  11. These are great!! Your stories to go along with them had me seriously laughing!! There must be something about the youngest being the cutest because my younger sister (I am the middle) always looked cute while my older sister and I had very awkward looks in most pictures. Also, I think it's hilarious when my younger sister, to this day, complains about how there are all of these pictures of my sister and I and by the time they got to her there are only a couple pictures in a drawer somewhere! haha

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  12. Hahaha, yes being the oldest of three IS the best! Except my younger brother and sister are twins, so most of the time (especially when we go older) they would always gang up or side with each other.

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  13. Ha these pics are amazing, primarily because of your bangs! Makes me want to dig up some 80s/90s sib pics of my own… we'll see how motivated I am.

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  14. Hahaha I love that story- hilarious! And your old pics are just adorable!!!

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  15. Love the big bows and overalls! And themed sports/hobby pics. . . classic!

    And Ps - I never remember hearing about national sibling day until this year. So strange.

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  16. This is awesome. All of it! :)

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  17. These pictures are so fun! Love the goofy ones especially. (-:

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  18. How did neither of the Nelson twins comment in your brother's awesome Aggie football uniform? Have y'all always lived in GA? Love the pictures. Sadly, my brother is only 16 mos younger than me so I don't have any great stories of fooling him. I was really proud of being able to hit him several times before he finally hit me back and then crying for my dad and getting him in trouble... He deserved it for other things, I assure you! We love each other now, though!

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  19. I am the oldest of four and being the oldest is the best. I completely agree. We three older kids would gang up on my youngest brother. Once we convinced him to get in a suitcase and then pushed it onto the ramp into the airplane. Or you know, down the stairs because we didn't have a ramp or an airplane.

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