Shouting hooray...

...because he has a birthday today!

Happy birthday to my old old 27 year old brother Kev!

A couple things you may not know about him...

He LOVES the cold, and likes to be cold. And his wife is hot.

He loves places that are prettier than Arizona. He'll often call me and say, "I found you guys a house." And I've learned to immediately ask, "In Arizona?" To which he replies something along the lines of, "No, but Indiana is so pretty!" He sits like a small Filipino child like 95% of the time.

So the other night I found these pictures at my mom's, which I had been looking for forever since they are my favorite pictures of us growing up!

Um, we played in the dirt. A lot. And when I was like 14 I found toy cars buried in the back planter where we used to play.

These were horsey rides growing up. And we were awesome kids. And I'm sure that my mom requests that you not be too jealous of our amazing drapes and couch and rug on the wall(?).

Happy birthday to my wannabe twin!

Speaking of old pictures,

Okay, so last week for mutual (our church youth midweek activity) they had a 'Get to know your leaders' night, and Philip was asked to supply a picture of me as a child.

Enter Melissa in First grade.

The girls had to match the picture to the leader, and they no idea who this darling child was, and then they all laughed and laughed and laughed when they found out it was me.

I think my sister, Sara, put it best when she once said, "When she was little, she went through a harsh ugly duckling stage."

The best part about this all is that this is NOT the worst of my growing up pictures. Someday soon you will get to see Kindergarten, which is truly the epitome of ugly duckling. You'll see.

In the meantime, happy birthday Kev!