youngin'.

right before bryan and i got married, my mom put together a CD of a bunch of photos of my sister and i throughout the years. i've never really gotten a chance to look through them, ever; my parents were very protective about the pictures and it was actually one of the things they fought over when they were getting divorced (uplifting, right?). this was the first time that i had seen most of the pictures and it was kind of interesting how similar i look now to child-veronika. anyway, some of the pictures are freakin' hilarious. here's some of my favorites of my sister and i together.

i'm the toothless one on the left, my sister's on the right. we're two years and three months apart. my sister and i were very close growing up; my mom said that i called her "my baby".

yup, i was one of the those late-pacifer freaks. how cute is my sister's incredibly round head?

ah yes, baking pictures. as evident by that last picture, i hadn't really grown into my gigantic mouth yet. these pictures were taken in our house in chicago.

doing some gardening. i actually have no idea where we were when these were taken. i love how my sister is really dressed up and i'm wearing a super-chic soccer ball printed shirt.

i've saved the best for last.

i understand that this picture needs a little (maybe a lot?) of explanation. my dad is a big fan of kids being exposed to as many germs as possible to strengthen their immune systems. he would fill up the kiddie pool with potting soil and let us go crazy. these pictures were taken at my grandmother's house, who is a registered nurse and the biggest germaphobe on planet earth. i distinctly remember her freaking out about how the dirt would get into our lady-parts. hah!