You call them Logan, Reece and Wade. At the house, we call them “Wolverine” (have you seen Logan’s chest? it’s totally like Hugh Jackman’s), “Cowboy Casanova” (cuing Carrie Underwood this instant), and “GQ Romeo” (who should need no explanation, but if you’d like one, look here).

My brothers keep me grounded. In fact, they’ve got their own nickname for me – “Average Sue Leila.” Sounds kind of weird, huh? I mean, I’d heard of an “Average Joe” before, but I’d never heard of an “Average Sue” before they came up with that genius. We were out having burgers or something, when I told them they needed to work on their manners. After all, I’m a classy lady and they were out with me. They took the opportunity to let me know that at that moment, I wasn’t a “big time city slicker lawyer” – I was just a regular “Average Joe” out with my brothers. Then they thought that “Average Joe” didn’t really fit, being that I’m a girl and all, thus “Average Sue” was born. My name was added to prevent any confusion. So if you’re looking for a big-time city slicker lawyer, don’t look for her when she’s out with these boys. You’ll be looking an awful long time.*

*This is, of course, assuming that they are not in trouble themselves, in which case, you will totally find the big-time city slicker lawyer out with them. A girl’s still got to watch out for her family, don’t you think?

Reece summed up our collective feelings on man night the next morning when we were cleaning up the carnage. ”I heart man night.”

Me too, Reece. Me too.

My MOM is the baddest bad apple in our house. Since she wasn’t born a Christensen, I can still claim to be the baddest bad apple of the Christensen family. (Like that argument? It’s a little flimsy for a lawyer, but I’ll argue it anyway.) We all love her. You want reasons? We’ve got them. And much like the Alisha post, this is from everyone.

• She dances in the kitchen.
• And in the living room.
• And in her studio.
• And anywhere else. What can we say? She’s got rhythm, and when she hears a good song, she can’t help but move. It’s a trait she passed on. Everyone dances at our house. Except Dad. Obviously, he was not so lucky to have Mom pass on that gene to him. It just doesn’t work that way.
• She’s fun to sit on.  In fact, this is Reece’s favorite thing to do. I’m not positive that it’s Mom’s favorite thing, but she humors him. She even tells him he’s her favorite child. That is, of course, a lie. *I* am her favorite child.
• She’s a rockstar. Especially after she gets her hair done. And yes, she can totally do the headbanging moves. If you’ve ever seen Alisha or Cassie, this is also a genetic trait.
• She let us have cake on Sunday for breakfast when I was growing up. You know, so we’d look forward to Sundays. Since we couldn’t play outside or do other weekday sort of things, it was definitely a bonus. Sometimes we’d have ice cream instead of cake. And sometimes we’d have both. (And sometimes we still do that sort of thing. We love Sundays at our house.)
• She’s an excellent painter. And she’s used us for models for a lot of her paintings. Except for Logan and Reece, who are not quite as beautiful as the rest of us. Or they just won’t hold still long enough. You be the judge.
• She’ll stay up all night talking to us. Or she’ll stay up all night working on a project. She’s a night owl. I definitely did NOT get that gene. Samantha and Reece, on the other hand, definitely got it. Jealous.
• She loves our Dad. Like crazy. We know, who wouldn’t?

You can see, there are all sorts of reasons that she’s the baddest bad apple. We could keep going, but we’d be at it all day. And since it’s Mother’s Day, we’re trying to spend a little bit of it with her. We love her. What more can we say?

Let me lay it out for you – Reece, Wade, and I versus Logan, Jessie and the 2.0s. We had a definite strategy on our team. (Of course, laying it out here might put us at a disadvantage for next time, but I’m pretty sure that they caught onto what we were doing.) Basically, I guarded OUR flag and the boys went after THEIR flag. And we captured their flag three times. It was when we varied from that strategy that we ran into problems. (It could have had something to do with the fact that Jessie wasn’t around for the first two games either, but Logan and the 2.0s should have been able to take us.)

You see, I’m not faster than Logan. Have you seen that man? What was I thinking? Of course, at the same time I was thinking that I could be faster than Logan, Wade also thought he was faster than Jessie. And most of the time Wade is. But somehow Jessie caught him. (Don’t worry Wade, I’m sure it was a fluke.)

Enter Reece’s last stand. Surprisingly enough, he lasted for quite awhile against the four of them while Wade and I watched. Finally I got up and took a few pictures – totally against the rules, but really, what were they going to do about it? He did look a little crazed by the time they were done with him. See his picture above if you don’t believe me. And see the rest of our pictures to see how much fun we all have together. (ALISHA, this is reason number 2491.)

PS – Notice that Sam and I ARE really close to the same height.

My brothers are some pretty bad apples themselves. Flat tire? Logan’s got it changed in five minutes. (This happened about a week ago.) Files to carry in? Reece meets me at the car when I pull in. (This is more of an everyday occurrence.) Ice water needs? Wade’s all over it. (I never even have to ask.) And no, you’re not missing Wade in this picture. He was inside working hard when we were outside (goofing off) working hard. We’ll get him to pose another time, I’m sure. If you can’t tell, the “poser” gene is alive and well in the Christensen family.

It’s so nice to be part of a family that LIKES each other. Reece said it best the other night when we were hanging out making up our own version of Nickelback songs until 11 o’clock at night. “We pretty much won the lottery when we were born. We got OUR family, we were born in America, and we’re members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” I agree. I’ve got everything I need right here. With all my bad apples.

PS – Ask Reece to sing for you sometime… he totally rocked his own version of Nickelback’s “Never Gonna Be Alone.” In all fairness though, you should really have Logan and Reece sing together. One of these days I’m going to record them when they’re not paying attention. Then I’ll blog about it – no reason to keep that all to myself!

I was so nervous about my push up form that I made my brother Logan (who appears in this blog a lot, but he’s family and can’t help it) watch me so that he could give me pointers. Unlike me, Logan does an excellent push up and dad has never laughed at him. At least about push ups. (Are you seeing a pattern with Logan here? Good photographer, good push ups… some people have all the luck.) After informing me (LISTEN Dad) that I was doing an (I quote!) “EXCELLENT” push up, Logan showed me how I could work my chest more by moving my hands closer into my body. Of course, he had to demonstrate so I could see what he was talking about.

My brother looks good when he does a push up. When I told him (someone’s got to let him know – you know, so when a really hot girl walks by he can drop down and start doing push ups so that she’ll pay attention), he looked at me and deliberately. said. “I look good ALL the time.”

So T2 is in the Air Force. (But if you’re actually in the Air Force, you refer to it as “USAF.” Oh yeah, I’m learning new things all the time. The USAF uses acronyms all over the place. I think it’s to confuse us civilians. Thank goodness for google. And wikipedia. You can even find the “official” version of things. I love the internet.) Right now, T2 is stationed in England. His dad – T1 – introduced us when he was on leave. To say I appreciate the introduction would be an understatement.

Anyway, since T2′s so far away (4250 miles in fact), I try and make sure he gets to be a part of my life here in Missouri. (Skype is a beautiful thing. So is Vonage.) Today I roped my brother Logan (who is totally identified in this blog multiple places and is not protected by any sort of code) into taking some pictures for me so that I could have a few for T2. Logan is a GREAT photographer. I, however, am not so good. In fact, after I took some shots of him, Logan informed me “Well, it’s obvious you are a lawyer.” Then, just in case I missed his implied meaning, he spelled it out for me. His advice? “You should stay a lawyer. You’d never make it as a photographer.”

What can I say? It’s nice having family that looks out for you.

PS – Humor me, and take a look at this picture of Logan. Do you really think it’s so bad?

Anyway, I was in the kitchen this week listening to Logan talking on the phone to Alisha. They’re only eleven and a half months apart – for those of you who aren’t math (or pregnancy) geniuses, that means for two weeks they’re the same age. Fun, huh? (Well, maybe not so fun if you were my mom. But fun now that they’re older.)

This is the conversation I walked into:

Logan: But you like olives!  I remember you used to put them on your fingers and eat them!

Quiet for two seconds while he listens to Alisha.

Logan: Oh, that’s right.  You used to put them on your fingers and I would eat them.

It made me laugh. The greatest part? The conversation seemed perfectly normal.

I’ve discovered it’s easy to keep the title of “BEST SISTER EVER.” No, I did not give myself that title. I totally earned it. Just ask the little girls, who proclaimed it today. (Sorry Alisha and Jessie. I’m the oldest, and I’m likely to keep it.) Today, the rest of our family (minus Logan, who had to study, and Alisha, who is busy in Utah compiling reasons that she should NOT move to Missouri) headed to Nebraska today to attend the Winter Quarters Temple. (Alisha, you can’t count the long drive to a temple as reason number 1309 because we are getting a temple in KC. Scratch that off your list.) Once a temple’s dedicated, you need a recommend to attend it, and little kids can’t get recommends.  You can find out more about temples here or here, if you’re curious. The temple in KC will have an open house for whoever wants to come see it before it’s dedicated.

Since Sam and Cassie can’t go yet, someone had to keep an eye on them. I volunteered and we decided we’d make a girls day of it. It was SO fun! The 2.0s put together a soundtrack for our adventures (iTunes is a wonderful thing), we put it in the CD player, and we were off to Kansas City. They got to check out my new office (loved it!), went to Union Station (to pick up my mail, but they thought it was the coolest building ever), to the Nelson-Atkins (my favorite museum in KC, which is now their favorite too), and to Miller Park (where we ate the picnic they prepared and they ran around for ages). It. Was. Great.

And the whole “best sister ever”? Don’t tell the girls, but I already know who really has the title. Here’s a hint – it’s a tie between four people. Alisha, Jessie, Sam and Cassie have me all beat. For now though, I’ll claim it. After all, isn’t that the point of being the oldest?

At first we said we’d have a “girls night plus Wade.” He quickly corrected us – we were going to have a “girls night plus THE MAN.” And we did – a little popcorn, a movie, cupcakes and some nail polish. (The Man skipped out on the nail polish.)

This isn’t the first time this week that Wade has cracked me up. Mom and I were hanging out at the table while all the boys were being their usual crazy selves.  I said we needed to think of a word to describe them – without skipping a beat, Wade had one. “Sexy.” And then he walked out of the room.

Can I just tell you I love my life? Really, how could I not?