v-day b-day

Happy Birthday to my favorite Valentine and best friend in the world, Alyanna! Above is Alyanna and me with some of our other besties.

My mom tells the story that when she was in labor with Alyanna the nurse told her that if she had her baby on Valentine's Day she would get chocolate and roses, and she did. 

Above is Alyanna and me in our element aka bronze and beaching. When I describe Alyanna to people who have never met her, I say that she is the taller, smarter, cuter and quieter version of me. All of it is true. When we were younger, my mom sometimes told people we were twins if they asked. She would dress us the same and if we had the same outfit but different colors, Alyanna would always get the cuter color. She was my first best friend. She always agreed to play the weird pretend games I would think up and let me be the cooler character. I can get absolutely infuriated with Alyanna, not speak to her and call her rude names and 5 minutes later I am calling her to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls with me. After my mom, Alyanna was the second person I missed the most when I went away to school. 

 Alyanna and I have the same taste in everything, which made it so fun growing up. We shared clothes, books, music and luckily, we weren't in the same grade or age so we never had to share boys, but that doesn't mean we didn't fight over Nick Jonas. (Good news is Alyanna can totally have Nick now. You heard it right.) Speaking of Nick Jonas, Alyanna is the biggest Jonas Brothers fan I know, and together, we were psychos and drove our parents crazy funding our obsession and taking us to way too many Jonas concerts. Another thing I loved about growing up with Alyanna was dancing with her. We both started dance at the same time and danced together for my whole dance career. Alyanna and I would do duos almost every year and always won ridiculous awards like "Living Dolls" and "Great Chemistry." They were always awards that had nothing to do with our dance skills and everything to do about our hair and makeup. Oops. One of the things I missed the most while being at school was watching Alyanna dance and cheer. She surpassed my dance skills and was such a delight to watch. Also she looks so striking and gorgeous onstage. Another thing she has surpassed me in is smarts. Alyanna is sooo smart. Honestly, our whole family puts our faith in Alyanna to become a surgeon or something incredible because she really is the most brilliant of us all. She always got/gets the best grades and just understands things I never did and still to this day do not. I have always been envious of her brains, but mostly so proud.

Now Alyanna is here at school with me and I couldn't be happier about it. Happy 19th birthday to my little lovebug (get it??) and baby sister who I love so much!