Happy Birthday Melanie

I know you were all expecting a Father's day post, since it is Father's day, but it is also my awesome sister Melanie's birthday too. Since she got the bad end of the deal having her birthday on Sunday and a holiday I figured she deserved her own post! She turns 32 today so here are 32 things that I love/memories about her. (you know you are special if you get one of these posts!)

1. Her strong loyalty to family

2. What a great mom she is-Her kids are all so well behaved and just genuinely good kids-which shows what kind of mom she is!

3. What a great aunt she is to my boys-I know I have mentioned this in the past, but she truly loves them which make them love her right back. Her and Carter have a little connection where if he is totally upset, (probably with me) she can make him feel better in no time. It's magic!

4. Me being her slave until I was about 8 or 9. Maybe longer. She could always bribe me to get her a drink or whatever she needed.

5. Sharing a room together growing up-I was the messy one, she was the clean one

6. Singing Hark hear the bells in bed and laughing our guts out

7. How she can convince you to do almost anything. About 95% of the time you thank her later for talking you into it!

8. She is the glue that keeps our family together. She is the one that heads up gatherings, getting things done, I love that about her. She gets annoyed that she is the one that has to always do it, but we love her for it.

9. Making fun of her braces

10. Bunco group and making fun of some of the gifts people bought-shameless!

11. How she is not a collector and throws things away like me. I guess we get that from my mom!

12. People are just drawn to her and want to be her friend

13. She has the cutest little dainty nose

14. How Kate looks just like her...and acts like her too!

15. How I know she will always be the first person to my defense if I need her

16. She is one of the first people I want to call to tell good or bad news to.

17. Her generosity with everything. We went out to eat last night for her birthday dinner and at the end of the meal she told everyone that she picked up the bill.

18. Finally getting to go on a cruise with her this year! It was a blast!

19. Her lice mullet- I guess I am not one to talk, I had a mullet too and didn't even have lice! thanks mom!

20. Her blue geo metro

21. I loved to wear her clothes and thought I was so cool in them even though they were way huge on me! In fact we were just talking the other day about how ugly that style was in the 90's with the HUGE shirts tucked in. What were we thinking?!

22. She loves James' cooking and is always so complimentary, he loves the attention.

23. She is a doer. If she gets something in her mind that she wants to accomplish, she gets it done no questions asked.

24. Her decorating style, we are both obsessed with Rod Works!

25. Her bangs in 7th grade. I really need to find that picture, it's amazing.

26. She made me put the stickers on her countdown chart for Carl to get home from his mission. I kept it up in my room and when she would come home from college she would love to check on the progress.

27.Visiting her when she lived in California-I miss San Francisco!

28. How she is always so spontaneous. We make plans in about 1 minute and are off for the day!

29. Being her babysitting buddy

30. Going up to stay with her at Utah State-she made me get the love for Logan and go to school there myself!

31. Getting a car wash in her old Acura-trying to get the window rolled up in time and getting soaked, then hitting a bump on the way out and having water dump down from the sunroof. I really honestly don't think I have ever laughed that hard!

32. Just being the best big sister a girl could ask for. She does it all-gives great advice, comfort, love, everything a sister should be.

I love you Mel, I hope you have the best birthday ever!!