It's My Birthday!

Well, technically it was yesterday, the 30th, but I never got around to posting. I've been on an unintentional blogging break. I'm still unpacking and my in-laws are still visiting until next Monday.

So I guess all is fair and I should announce my age and post pictures since I did that to Hubby. I'm that icky prime number like him now for the next year, 43. I'll actually be happy to have another birthday and get a year older just to get a nice number next year. Sad, that OCD thing.

My natural father was in the Army, and he and my mother were stationed in Germany when she became pregnant with me. He was sent to Viet Nam and she came home to the states to live at my grandparents' house. That's where I was born, in the hospital though, and lived for the first three years of my life. My father saw me one weekend of my life when I was six months old prior to me meeting him when I was 18 years old. Jump forward many years, and now Santa is my stepdad. Here's a semi-recent picture of him, my mom, and my grandma.

And to make Hubby feel like I wasn't picking on him on his birthday, here's the ode to Kayren...I'm only going up to 6th grade. Next year I think I'll do the ode to big hair. Now that should be fun.

I just realized in this picture that I'm holding a little toy giraffe. Giraffes are my favorite zoo animal. I'd never noticed that in this picture.

Early attempts at colorization. The photographer's directions are still penciled on the back.


I'm almost three years old here.


I'm probably about five years old here. I hadn't lost a tooth yet, so it was somewhere in the four to five year old changeover. Look at that hair! How many cowlicks must be in there.


This was actually my make-up first grade picture of some kind. I forgot to tell my mom about picture day and wore a nasty old white shirt with a little road-runner logo on it. And that crazy hair was a little messy after recess. I mean, why bother at that point.


Second grade...they must have taken it early in the school year because my hair was still bleached out from the summer sun.


Third grade...I have bad posture, and someone forgot to remind me to sit up straight. This is the last time you'll see the teeth that way though. I got my braces young.

Fourth grade...the closest thing I ever had to Marcia Brady hair.


Fifth grade


Sixth grade...if you'll notice, those are probably the same hairclips I had in my second grade picture. I also got my braces off not long after this, but I ended up with glasses as the trade-off.

Next year, definitely the big hair edition!