Submitted by Sarah::
Because I was sick, bored, and wholly uninspired to boot.

Waaah! I'm being abused! On second thought, maybe my affinity for the Marx Brothers began really, obscenely early.

Dad piled his car stuff around me and I was too little and helpless to make a break for it!

The resemblance is striking, no?

Talk about happy babies... It was the damn hat, I'm telling you. I'm told I was one of the worst screamers at a baptism EVER.

Awww...there are so many photos of me reading at this age - or younger - but this is the only one with Cookie Monster and me wearing halfway decent clothing.
 

Frosty!

Are you lost, little girl? I look like I'm from the 1950s...

Baby photos, Swimsuit Edition.

Man. You have to get yourself one of these. For television-viewing, nothing is better, not even one of those Lazy Boy recliners!

I am so totally rock 'n roll, baby.

I try to steal the show at Adam's baptism. It sort of worked, Grandma and Grandpa are laughing and looking at me.

Ah, the big-blue-eyed, wet-behind-the-ears idealism of youth. I think this was taken right before I crashed into the maple tree and bled all over my pretty white frock.

Hangin' with my peeps.
Yeah, I'm never talking ghetto again.

Awww... he must not know how to walk yet. If he did, I wouldn't have been so kind
to him! I remember being angry at him for getting in all my stuff. I look like a different kid here, my hair's so dark!

Practicing to play Mary in the Christmas pageant. I never did get that part. You would think being a pastor's daughter would have some perks, but not in this case. Baby Jesus gets to sleep in my furry white Eskimo hat which beats sleeping with straw, I suppose.

I was so glad to start Preschool - until, you know - I found out that Mom and Dad couldn't stay all day and I couldn't bring all my toys along.

Yeah, we so dressed up like this everyday. It's Halloween, folks. ...well, actually, my brother DID wear this tiger suit night and day for two years.
 He also didn't really learn how to speak until I went off to Kindergarten and was
gone most of the day, as I was always a little too chatty for my own good. Our family videos are hilarious. In the best one, I'm blabbing on and on about my extensive knowledge of cats (someone should have just murdered me, I would have deserved it) and Adam is wandering around in the background banging things with a mop.

Adam and I spent an alarming amount of our childhood sitting around in laundry baskets. I'm not quite sure what the allure was...

Want to get rid of your children? Invest in a handy cupboard. When you're sick of them, simply shut the door.

I can't decide if this photo is worth the years of therapy it will take to
erase it from my memory...

The last time I wrote poetry - 1995, for Write Now. Never again.

I'm the very dour-looking angel on the far right. I really was a midge compared to all the other angels who were in my same grade... To my own credit, I was kneeling, so I look a little shorter than I was...

Yes, I was really stuck. We didn't have to bust out the Crisco or anything, but I spent enough time lodged in there to learn from my mistake. I know you're thinking - "she's nine years old! What is she doing in a barrel in the first place?" Well, I used to fit just fine, thank you! ;-)

And there's Dancer and Prancer and Donner and Blitzen...and I have no idea who Adam and I think we are!

Have attitude. Want presents.

Boy, my brother and I looked thrilled to be posing for THIS picture...

Two questions come to mind - 1) is it after Labor Day? Should I wear this
much white at any time of year, even if Emily Post decrees it the appropriate
season?, 2) why on earth am I sucking on a baby bottle? I'm ten years old for
cryin' out loud!

Age ten, Christmas with my
Wow. I still wear this sweatshirt. Not in public, mind you, I would never wear football attire where anyone could see me, I'd ruin my streak of sports apathy. That's one of the things I was famous for in high school - brains, poetry-hating, and sports apathy.

Deep-fried ice cream. Yum. This is from my twelfth birthday party at my world-favorite restaurant, ChiChi's, which shut down two years ago because of an e.coli incident. Pleasant, huh?

I'm probably 12 or 13 here. Gee, fashionista in a red and white spangled butterfly tee-shirt. Not. We're in the Rocky Mountains, by the way. We go there about every other summer. This is the day when I ran all the way down the mountain (4 miles) to get back to the trailhead so I wouldn't have to pee in the woods. It's true.

In eighth grade with two of my best friends - Amy (slightly behind my left shoulder) and Tegan.

And with Amy (er, half of Amy) and Tegan again at our eighth grade "graduation."

And...Confirmation in May of 2001. I'm the one on the bottom right with the curly-hair-nightmare!

Ugh, my ugly, awkward teenager years.

With my cousins, Erin (back of the head), Eric, Chelse, brother Adam, Evan, me, and Laura (in the red turtleneck). I'm probably 16 here, not that I look any different than when I was fifteen in the above photo, but whatever. I'm still waging open warfare on my hair at this point. This was the "iron-it-into-submission-even-if-the-entire-house-smells-like-burnt-hair" stage.

These pictures are probably a year old. The one on the right is all pixelated and weird. My jaw normally isn't so square-ish ;-)

And the "now" pictures.
Most of these were taken in December 2005 -- January 2006.