Everyone has their vices — those things they just can’t help themselves from doing or loving, whether or not they’re too embarrassed to admit it. Some are a little more destructive than others, of course. Mine? Chai tea lattes, staying up way too late at night, taking macro photos before I eat anything awesome-looking, e-mailing ex-boyfriends when I’m feeling sappy, and obsessively watching ‘The Tudors’… even though Dad and I are now relegated to watching pirated episodes on his laptop (can I even admit that? Am I going to jail?).

Don’t worry — I won’t ask you to cop to yours (unless you want to… might make you feel better!). But I’m totally okay with putting my sister’s on display! Oh, you know — she’s been dealing with my antics since I first held her as a baby, my 3-year-old self proclaming, “SHE’S WIGGLY!”

Yeah, Kate humors me. So what’s my sister’s vice?

Sprinkles. And not just any sprinkles, folks… ohhh, no. Rainbow sprinkles.

It’s like a moth to a flame, I tell you… and I certainly don’t help the situation as I stand in the ice-cream shop, tugging at her elbow and constantly pointing to all rainbow sprinkles and coercing her into getting them scattered all over whatever flavor she’s going to get. I just know how much she likes them! I’m just trying to help!

And all of my “helping” brought us to this moment last summer in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware:

The greatest rainbow sprinkled cone in the history of mankind.

And about .25867 seconds after this photo was taken, the epic and awesome rainbow cone basically collapsed in on itself and dissolved into a really gooey, horrifying and utterly colorful mess. Kate was a trooper — she tried to keep that thing from melting all over her hands, arms and shirt. But she failed. And though I’m her big sister, love her dearly and would do anything for her, I was powerless to stop it. In the immortal words of The Fray, “I don’t know how to get you out of this one.”

But at least I got that photo.

Oh, my family has about a million great food stories… in fact, many of my great memories revolve around food! Some will live on only in family lore, undocumented, but Sprinklegate ’08 is one of my favorites — and I have to share the love.

Of course, I love the simple “everyday” sprinkle stories a lot, too. Like this moment from Saturday:

Same great sister, different dessert… still covered in rainbow sprinkles. And I love that her shirt has rainbow stuff on it, too. We’re just a colorful duo! To Kate, no dessert is complete without a dash of the bright, crunchy stuff. True to my aforementioned vice of constantly snapping macro photos of food, I captured Kate’s latest rainbow treat. She ate all of it. And then we both walked two miles with Leslie Sansone.

And because I won’t completely sell her out and make it look like she’s the one indulging, please let me assure you — I have absolutely more than my fair share of dessert most of the time! And Kate was so good all through Lent, completely giving up sweets. I’ve since gone on a “path to health” (more to come on that one!) and am trying to get in shape. My plan was to take off the pounds before my trip but, since that’s in three weeks, I’m going to rearrange my goals and just say that I would like to be trimmer at some point very soon. In time to go to the beach in June. Or something. I know moments like this aren’t helping… but ice cream = sheer joy!