Happy Birthday Shel-Bel!

Happy Birthday to my dear little sister Michele! I could go on and on about all of the many things I love and admire about my sister! She is gorgeous, kind, smart, talented, spiritual, thoughtful, and very funny! I am thankful I grew up with two sisters so close in age to me that I have been able to share many wonderful memories with. Here are just a few of my favorite memories of Michele and a few of the things that I love most about her:

• As a little girl she was very mischievous and a little…well…evil. We have proof of this on many home videos. In one of these home videos, Summer and I are singing primary songs…while Michele is standing behind us with an evil smirk on her face, her huge dimples showing, trying to lift up our skirts, and laughing.


• Also as a little girl, she liked to sing her own versions of primary songs. My personal favorite of hers? “I am a child of God and he has sent me here…. (pause and insert evil smile) I’m gonna get you suckers….Wait’ll I get you suckers!” My mom was probably terrified of her!

• When we were little girls and my Dad was explaining to us that we were 1/4 Spanish, Michele was confused and couldn’t understand why if we were Spanish we didn’t speak “Mexican.”


• When we were little, for some reason Michele was obsessed with the name Alice. She wanted to change her name to Alice. And every single time we played house or dress up, her name was ALWAYS Alice. And she always did this same thing where she would pull her long straight hair over both her shoulders and cock her head to the side and smile with her little dimples showing and say “Hi, My name is Alice.”

• Shel has some serious dance moves. When we were little, us 3 girls used to coordinate dances to Debbie Gibson, Tiffany and Michael Jackson and then perform for anyone that would watch. We would turn out the lights and one person would hold the flashlight and be the "spotlight." Michele would always head over to this one wall and yell out "Shine the light on me!" and then do this sexy little move where she slid her back down the door and shimmied her hips. lol! She never came up with any new dance material. It was always the same move. In the same spot. And the same exact words... "Shine the light on me!" LOL!

• Summer never really cared about playing Barbies, so thank goodness I had Michele! She loved playing Barbies just as much as I did (ok, maybe not quite as much as I did, but a lot). There was one point where our obsession started to get a little ridiculous. I remember this one summer where we literally ate, slept, and drank Barbies! We shared a room together and we would wake up and immediately start playing Barbies. We would only stop to take quick lunch and dinner breaks and then go straight upstairs again to continue playing. We would literally fall asleep at night sprawled on the floor with our Barbies in our hands and Barbie cars and clothes everywhere. And when we woke up the next morning, guess what we did? Yep…(Don’t ask me how old we were…)


• I have always been envious of Michele’s permanent tan! I don’t know how she got it, but she has always been tanner than anyone else in our family. She used to lay out all the time and her skin was seriously black! But even now, when she hasn’t tanned in forever, her natural skin color is just a dark olive color and she never gets as white as Summer and I! Not fair!


• The other thing I have always been envious of are her huge dimples!! She is the only one in the family who got them, just like the perma tan, and I have always thought they were one of her best features.


• Michele loves to debate and argue. She has been told that she should have been a lawyer. But now instead of debating and arguing for a living, she just does it for free with her husband. :) He usually just laughs at her and always points out that you know she is about to make a really good point when she points her fingers in the air and moves them back and forth like she is on the turntables. :)


• Michele is hilarious! She has a great sense of humor and has had me in tears laughing so hard on many occasions! (like in this picture where she grabbed my boob right after my wedding photographer told us to "pose naturally.")


• When I was about 15, I was supposed to go to EFY with my best friend, Lynnette, but when she couldn’t come at the last minute, my mom sent Michele with me instead. At first I was pretty upset that I wouldn’t be going with my best friend and that I would instead be going with my younger sister (who was too young to go in the first place, so we had to lie the entire week and make everyone believe that she wasn’t my younger sister but my best friend “Lynnette”). In the end, that week ended up being one of the most amazing weeks of my life, as well as one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. I am truly grateful that I was able to share it with my sister, because I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I really think it was meant to happen the way it did and we were meant to have that experience together and I will never forget it. (See John, that’s why you should send your kids to EFY!) ;)


I am so thankful for my sisters and for the many memories we have together and experiences we have had that have made us as close as we are. Whenever I think of my sisters, I always think of this quote. I believe the first time I read it was on a picture frame that Michele made for me a long time ago...

"God knew we loved each other too much to just be friends. So instead he made us sisters."


I love you, Shel! Happy Birthday!