Genetics.

Kelsey from Stories of Kel asked me a few days ago if i would be interested in being the guest host for the Family Friday link up that she has going on every week.

obviously i said yes.

so here we are. celebrating both friday and families via a blog link up. spectacular, spectacular. (now, a brief word from the hosts and then on with the blog post!)

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Welcome back to Family Fridays where we share all of our favorite family related blog posts. Before we get started let us introduce you to our special co-host! 

Kate blogs at Eloquent Grafitti. 

Also, our most clicked on link from last week is...

Chantal from Scattered Seashells. 

Did you just get back from a family vacation? Link up your vacation post! Do you have an awesome craft for families to do together? Link up your how-to post! Do you have a post full of pictures of your awesome kids and need to show it off to someone? Link it up with us! Stories, photos, crafts, recipes, activities... if it's family friendly, link it up!

Take a peek at the super easy to follow rules and then link up your post. After you're finished, take a look around and check out your fellow bloggers and make a new friend. The more you put in, the more you get out of it! Happy Friday!

1. Please follow both of your hosts and any guest hosts via GFC or Bloglovin.

2. Please post our button or a text link either on your blog or on your blog post where everyone can see.

3. Please link up to a specific post and not just your main blog URL.

4. Please do not link to giveaways or other linkups.

Link up your family related post below! Have fun! 

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the topic for Family Friday is pretty broad. anything that has to do with family is acceptable. and i find that difficult. because umm...there's pretty much not a portion of my life that doesn't have some sort of link or correlation to my family. in fact, one time, in 5th grade, a girl made fun of me because apparently all i ever talked about was my family. (and not neurophysics like most 5th graders.) even at the tender age of 10, i was pretty pro at giving this face (the i'm confused and it's only because i think you're dumb face) to people who said stupid crap that made no sense.

anyways, what i'm saying is, everything in my life has to do with my family.and i'm just not awesome at making decisions or narrowing down a lifetime of choices.

so first, i will introduce you to my family.

well, i'll introduce you to my family and the swarm of gnats that annihilated us and our attempt to take family pictures.

guys, i wish this picture was posed. i wish we could just call this one of those silly family pictures that people occasionally take for a good laugh. more than anything, i wish i wasn't actually pulling gnats off of my lipgloss. but, this is real life. and those bad boys were biting. welcome to south georgia.

so that's my family. i have 4 siblings (two sisters. two brothers.) i am number four of the five kids. all of the kids are married except for my little brother. (he's only nine years old.) and there are seven grandchildren (five girls. two boys.)

i could make this whole post something that walks that line between super sweet and super sappy. but, i'll only do that for like two seconds. and then i'll publicly humiliate myself. it'll be a gas.
when i was little i fought with my sisters like it was my day job and i longed to by my brother's best friend. i sought his approval more than anyone else's. as the youngest, i was often required to do things for my siblings.(close the door, grab the remote, fetch a glass of water, etc.) i begrudgingly did these trivial tasks for my sisters. but if my brother asked me to make him a milkshake, i made sure it was the gosh darn tastiest milkshake an 8 year old could concoct. and i would revel in the feeling that i did something he liked. i thought he was hilarious. he was just the greatest and i wanted to be just like him.

as i was looking through the pictures my family took over Christmas break, my computer did something odd. it turned all of my childhood wishes to be just like my brother into a reality.

in fact, it turned me into a man.

you see, iPhoto has this spiffy way of recognizing and tagging a person and then creating a folder of just that person's photos. it's pretty cool, really. until is mistakes me for a man. and then it is suddenly not cool. like your mom driving you to your senior prom kind of not cool.

oh, what's that? you think this is just a strange coincidence? a simple error made only by a technological mass of metal and wire? surely no actual person would ever make such an error, you say?

wrong.
in fact, it gets more embarrassing. 
if you're wondering why i'm doing this it's because this is Family Friday and who ever embarrasses you more than your family? am i right or am i right?

so here's the story. we were in washington d.c. in february of 2007 for a wedding. i don't remember even at all where we were driving to, but for reasons, also unremembered, we had to pile 5 people into my jetta. 

yes, technically a jetta is a 5 passenger car. but lezbehonest. it's a 3 passenger car at best. those back seats were not actually made to hold 3 people. the germans are lying to you. but, since the girls in my family are all pretty teensy, my sisters and i piled into the back seat like the clown car champions of '07.

while back there we decided to take pictures. it just felt right, you know? SEVERAL cute pictures came about as a result of that car ride. some of which are actually framed in my house. but one was not so cute. and it caused so much laughter i almost peed myself. because there, as i was making a hideous face, and in my hat and with my arm weirdly placed in an effort to push my sister's head outta my grill, and with all the wrong shadows being cast across my un-makeuped face, i transformed into my brother. 

(not only do i look like my brother, but i somehow also manage to look like i ought to be guarding some bridge in a far off land from the three billy goats gruff.)

insomuch that when we showed this picture (because come on, it's hilarious.) to my grandpa, he truly, 100% thought we were lying. he was so convinced this was my brother and not ME that he accused us, his beloved grandchildren, of lying to him. 
youch.
and it's not that i think my brother is ugly or unfortunate or troll like even in the slightest, it's just that he's a man. and i am not. and i would prefer to not be mistaken for one. that's all.

but oh, well. 
i am genetically inclined to look more like him than either of my sisters. i guess that's life. 

   
and i guess there are worse people to look like. 
happy family friday!

love,
kate.

lyrics: everybody get together. try to love one another right now.