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.