Oh brothers!

I decided to blog about my brothers, did I mention I have five of them? Before you start feeling sorry for me let me introduce you to the fabulous five.
From oldest to youngest we start with Larry, Ken, Chuck, Dave and last but nowhere near least is Rick, I fit in between Dave and Rick. Growing up with four older brothers wasn't easy, it certainly had its drawbacks and its perks.
Perk #1. I never had to wear hand-me-downs from my brothers.
Drawback #1. Since there were no hand-me-downs I often had to wear too small clothes ( I would not be caught dead in a pair of pants!)  Wearing shoes that were too small actually resulted in corrective foot surgery as an adult.
Perk #2. I always had someone to play with.
Drawback #2. I had to play things like Godzilla, crawling on my stomach like an army man and run from the creature from the black lagoon. I also learned quickly to keep all babies and Barbies out of sight or they came up strangulated and missing limbs. Not to mention they ate everything from my easy bake oven mixes to my flavored chap stick!
Perk #3. They taught me self defense.
Drawback #3. I learned self defense by being an involuntary sparring partner when they decided to take up karate, how to dodge an arrow when they took up archery and how to out run even the fastest of them.
Perk #4. There was never a shortage of boys around the house. ( hey, I'm a red blooded American girl that liked the scenery)
Drawback #4. There was never a shortage of boys around the house and they were just plain mean!
Perk #5. I learned to share and be generous.
Drawback #5. They ate EVERYTHING! I had to hide anything I wanted to keep for myself. If I was discovered eating something like a candy bar  and they asked for a bite, I learned early on to position my fingers for bite size portions or the whole thing was gone in one bite. (This was tricky because it was possible to lose the skin off your knuckles if you weren't careful.)
Perk #6. I had a little brother I could blame things on.
Drawback #6. He was the "baby" and he was just so darned cute that he really never got in trouble for anything. We, on the other hand, were older and should have known better. (dang, cute, chubby, blond baby!)
There are many more and we will discuss them as I give you the run down on each fabulous brother in later blogs. I thought it would be fun to include one of the few pictures of us all together, its one of my favorites.