Refreshing. :)

wow, that was crazy to see all those photos. I don’t think I’d have the balls to post the photos of me growing up. I was such an ugly ass kid. :)

You are officially the bravest woman I (don’t really) know.

Aside: I think we had the same hairdresser in 3rd grade.

Ditto the Little House on the Prairie style guru.

Also, thank God for orthodontics.

Phew! Suddenly I feel an eensy bit reassured about my own gorky formative years.

Just be thankful you weren’t a teen in the era of elephant pants in pink pastel plaid with cuffs no less. (I’m stunned I even found that link.)

That last pic of JB is what Dylan’s going to look like I bet.

P.S. I believe the brown things on your cake are farm animals. The kind that need to be corralled, apparently.

I’m pretty sure I have similar photos of me from the same time periods. For sure the hairstyles match, including the supershort feathered ‘do and the superlong shapeless hair of my 20s. And that ruffled blouse–I had a turquoise one that I loved so much, though ironing those ruffles was such a bitch!

excellent. so, so excellent.

Wooow.
I don’t think I would let the photos of my awkward years out for just ANYONE to see.

I mean, I make people sign confidentiality agreements before seeing my glasses-and-sweatpants floor hockey picture.

I’ve had a really rough evening and this was just what I needed. Thanks!

You are Soooo cute, in every picture, my goodness, so sweet. I grinned all the way through, thank you for sharing this with us! I do, however, wonder what the heck those brown “things” are on your cake. And I would kinda like to know! The self-portrait you took seems the most like the on-line you we know. And the rest is all history! Thanks for sharing.

God, that was so awesomely awesome. I had those same glasses. My husband calls them Tootsie glasses. Also, that red outfit with the kneesocks? I think I saw it in the window of American Apparel the other day. Oh, and your mom totally gave you a cat shit cake! What is up with that??

you and jb. omg LOVE IT!

Hooo boy those are quite something. My photos look quite similar – same haircut, same dorky smile, glasses, etc. But I had a rainbow shirt in my photo, rather than a rainbow necklace. Just picture that! Ahhhh, the children of the 70s, and the teens of the 80s…it’s so crazy to look back. Thanks for sharing.

Oh my god, that ruled. I especially liked the socks and visor look.
Your son always looks SO MUCH like JB, but you in that flowered dress picture – something about you in that picture is pure Riley.

Hah! Oh Linda! You are so funny.
Please don’t hate me if I say that in your 20something-coming-off-of-goth picture you totally look like you are about to become wife number 6 of some fanatic religious sect leader.

And, I am so loving the visor! and socks! Stripes! You sooo could have been on Kids Incorporated and been BFF with Stacey-Fergie-licious.

OH MY GOD. I had the SAME holly hobbie ruffle shirt/round/square glasses/bad haircut picture.

IT IS A PARENTAL CONSPIRACY FROM THE 70’S.

(I also had an ESPRIT bag in the 80’s, and when mine would die, I would save them, and when I had 3, I cut them up and sewed the logos to the back of my acid wash jean jacket. I was even crafty back then. ha!)

And even with all that in your past, JB still married you! ;)
I think we all get better with age….

It’s usually only entertaining to see your own family photos, but those cracked me up. Wow, Jr. High was a great time for all of us.

Those are some cute photos.

That was the best post ever!!

I am so happy to see that I wasn’t the only one with many awkward phases. I was actually going through pictures at my parents house the other day and was like, “God, what was I thinking?”

I too went through the short hair phase, I looked like a boy. I had glasses that looked just like yours, they were Pink Panther (WTF????), I like them for a little while then never wore them again and just continued to become blind. Thank God for LASIK.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane.

ZOMG TEH CUTE. I was going to make little jokey remarks here and there, but…well, you and I are the same age. And so I have very similar photos in my past.

Although—nothing quite like the striped kneesocks outfit, I don’t think.

Hey, I think we had the same glasses! And haircut.

How could anybody be pissed at you after such a display of the past? :)

Pigs? I think they were pigs. Nothing says birthday like pigs.

…it’s like an online support group. But where’s the shot of you with the Dorothy Hamill haircut? You had to have had one of those, right? I wasn’t the only one whose mom thought it would be a good idea…?

I totally have a photo with the same gym shorts/socks/visor getup, except that I ALSO have my face made up like one of the members of KISS, and I have my bangs put into a unicorn horn. Good times.

heh, ah this is awesome. Also, I liked the post yesterday. I mean I agree the whole world should be aware of changing bad habits but get off your high horses people. Just because I am not a hard core vegan localivore dumpster diving reuse everything fool does not make me a bad person and don’t all those green sites/magazines (which isn’t that like a double negative – I mean a GREEN magazine???)/people say if we all do small things we can make a difference?

I rocked the Dorothy Hamill cut! I also had a plaid/peasant-like/ruffled shirt like that, only mine was red, white and blue. Children of the 70s & 80s unite! I’d be embarrassed but 1) I’ll NEVER post those pictuers and 2) I was blasting Duran Duran on my way to work this morning and singing at the top of my lungs. *ahem*

Makes me glad I destroyed all the pics of me with the Dorothy Hamill cut – especially because I’m too young to have rocked it when it was actually in style (thank you grandmother!!). To Kaire – Duran Duran is awesome. Also, I listen to Devo (unhealthy habit, but soo much fun!).

Other than the hair/glasses/teeth, you look remarkably the same. I know I don’t look a think like my childhood pictures, and neither does my husband.

I, personally, think it’s awesome to go back and look at your youth. I do it sometimes and am amazed at how embarrassed I *should* be but am surprisingly not. It makes me thankful how far I have come.

Thanks for sharing!

I totally have the SAME picture in my album – 4th grade, I think? – with the big glasses, plaid dress, and grossly overstated teeth OMG.

You were adorable. Ballerina?! Tee hee.

Having also had a mother who was kind of over-the-top where birthday cake decorating is concerned, I’m pretty sure those things in the cage are plastic pigs.

The things outside appear to be dogs and maybe a coupla sheep. Were you unusually interested in farm animals at that age?

That short, slightly goofy haircut? I had that. Why? Why did we have that haircut? It wasn’t flattering! For anyone! Did they just not care that we were wee? WHYYYY?

Your three-year-old picture looks so much like Riley! That’s awesome. My son has my eyes and my husband’s ears and seems to have cobbled the rest of his looks together from some magical land of cute. Cause my husband and I were both some awkward-ass kids.

I had the ruffled blouse in a red plain w/ heart-shaped buttons. I believe I also had red pedal-pushers to match. I think I got them from the Sears catalog.

Aww, thanks Linda…my morning needed this. And you now rock even more for sharing.
“Little” JB – awesome!

We need pictures of the grill, before and after, to complete this album.

Awesome…..

If you sub in jet black hair we are the same person…even had that awful palate spreading orthodontic device!

Enjoyed the photos and wanted to say, for the record, that I found your post yesterday funny, refreshing and more on the mark than off. Apparently folks were pissed (I rarely read comments so I’m just guessing based on your comment above). Not me. I was entertained.

Promise me you will never, ever, ever post any old pix of me, and I will bury a few old gems of you on the next truly dark night, never to be seen again. And remember: I know where you live.

Love it! I also went through some totally awkward phases. I blame the 80’s. We couldn’t help it!!

You’re pretty brave for posting those pictures but I enjoyed the walk down memory lane. If I ever get as brave as you & decide to post hair pics, I would win in a big hair competition. I think my bangs alone made me 3 inches taller! Makes me laugh just thinking about my high school hair & I thought I looked cool.

Dude. I was holding it together pretty well until the cat and the Xanadu reference. Then I lost it because that shit is CLASSIC.

Oh, and the brown caketop turds look like plastic pigs to me, fenced in with green icing. Adorable. And sort of disgusting.

But mostly just AWESOME.

Awesome awesome awesome awesome awesome. I cracked UP reading this post, loud and unapologetically. Loved the photos, loved the commentary. Brilliant.

I always wondered what you’d look like with long hair!
This really made me very poopy morning a lot better.

wow, this post makes me really glad that my mom has all of the old photo albums packed away. Out of sight, out of mind. Well, except when reading this post because there are several eerily similar incriminating photos of me somewhere. Giant colored-plastic glasses? Check. (Mine were blue, god knows why). Matronly early-90s dress? Check. 80s hair and fashion monstrosities? Double-check. Substitute ballet recital photo for tap recital, complete with sparkly costume, inappropriate makeup and random posing in the middle of the living room (Why was I even in a tap class? Seriously, I don’t know. It had to be my mom’s idea).

Wow. Can I just say.. that one picture, the long hair matronly one? Doesn’t even resemble you now. You (and JB) are much better looking now.

Okay, I just have to de-lurk long enough to point out that after you went through the whole orthodontia nightmare, we don’t see your teeth in those pictures. So don’t be surprised (and I feel your pain) that after you spend a life savings on orthodontics for the bebes, you never see their teeth again anyway…..

omg. i love this post more than you can imagine! i think that’s partly because we’re the same age and i had many of those same outfits/hairstyles (SOCKS! VISOR!) i also had the fluffy farrah fawcett wannabe hair with big earrings, as well as the can-of-aquanet-a-day hairstyle. (oh, the cake? pretty sure that’s a FARM cake, with little turd-looking pigs in a pen, and horses). That pic of you with long reddish hair? holy crap. i would never have known that was you! and yes, JB looked about 12!

you are so adorable. this makes me kinda want to do a similar post, just to prove that i actually WAS cute at one point, dammit! but then it’d just show exactly how far i’ve come from cute since then…soooo, maybe not.

OMG — the one with The Shirt? That crazy, plaid, ruffled shirt? I had the exact same one (or nearly so). I think by then I had had braces and contacts, so I fixed a few of our shared flaws of those awkward years – but egad. I loved that shirt. Am. A. Dork.

I think you and JB have both improved with age — cute then, but hunky (JB) and lovely (you) now.

oh, and that very first adorable picture? reminds me of Sprout from teh Green Giant commercials. :D