This will probably earn me a wedgie....

You know who rarely makes it on here? My brother. My OLDer brother, I just want to note that. He gets to be Z-man's dad, so he's super-lucky. He's not quite two years older than me, and then there's a bit of a gap between me and the next sibling (five years). So when we were young it was me and him for a good long while. I was the annoying little sister who had to be all up in his business, playing with his toys and pretending his gifts were for me as well. Film processing must have been super cheap thirty years ago, because we have a literal butt-ton of photos sitting in old-school style albums. Since I love retro, and nostalgia, and sappiness, I'm going to roll all three into one post dedicated to my brother, in the sincere attempt to embarrass him.You're just going to need to ignore any "fashion statements" we were making in these pics, m'kay?

This is how he still reacts when he gets money. Please ignore the liquor in the background, but do check out those tomatoes - don't they look perfect?

 Look how into it he is. You should be happy photos don't have sound or else you'd probably hear some screechy version of Neil Diamond's 'America' (don't ask).

 One of us is the more serious gunslinger. It's not him. How's he going to have an accurate aim and prevent kick with his arm bent like that? Seriously.

 

OK, now we're talkin'. Once, when he was about three, we were going to my grandparents' for our usual Friday night visit. He got so angry at my dad for something and was carrying on loudly, and then he got very quiet. My dad turned around to see why--my brother was aiming an imaginary rifle at him and pulled the trigger, imaginary recoil and everything. I think it's the closest my dad ever came to wetting his pants. From laughing, not fear. Please note we are not a violence prone family and my brother had no issues. It was just kids being kids, as you were allowed to be back then.

You're probably thinking "Oh, he looks so sweet with his floppy blonde hair and his retro glasses." Let me tell you something--no. Not at all. This was the brother who used to invent games like "Lay on the floor. I'll run and jump over you until I get out of breath." It should have been called "Let me stomp on your face." Should I have been smarter? Yes. Clearly I was over-trusting when I was wee. There was the time he "helped me with a loose tooth" by spiking a Nerf volleyball into my face. It worked, my tooth came out. But not nice, bro, not nice. I swear he pushed me down the stairs once, but that could be a stretch. I know he definitely used to pinch money from my not-so-secret (apparently) hiding spot.

But then there were the good times. There was the time we made his friends all believe we couldn't have cable because my dad spent time in the clink for stealing cable and hooking everyone up in a one mile radius. In reality we couldn't have cable because my mom thought we'd watch MTV and never do our homework. And most definitely the time a few years ago when we worked very hard to convince one of my sisters that our house was haunted (and it worked for a bit, too). This was when I had way too much time on my hands, hahaha. Or the time last year where I opened the front door to a knock and had an ice cream cone thrust into my face. Soft vanilla with a hard chocolate shell. Because the ice cream man was driving by when he pulled up and he knew that was my favorite. See? Nice. He's the guy who will spend months planning a wiffle ball celebration, and snuggle with babies (even though not too long ago he'd be all "Babies?! Bah!!").

So that's that. I enjoy little glimpses into the not-so-crafty side of blogs, the things that have made us who we are and that we sit around a few beers laughing about (because seam allowances just aren't funny, no matter how you spin it), so I hope you enjoyed this little peek, even just a wee bit.

I thoroughly enjoyed looking through old photos and remembering memories, so my sissies should be very afraid that they'll be on here one day in the same way, mwahahahahahaha.