For someone who's only been playing a few months, you're doing very well. For beginners, their downfall in games tends to be blundering before their opponent does. If your younger brother trounced you eight games in a row, it's because he played cautiously while waiting for you to overplay your pieces. Once you fell behind he had an easy time because he could trade down every chance he got, and win.
Continue with the Puzzles, and don't rush them. (enjoy them) A Gold membership will vastly improve your experience; no advertisements, unlimited puzzles per day.
In your games, it looks like you're doing well there, too. Maybe switch over to playing the computer, since it deliberately makes mistakes to give you confidence as you continue getting better. Look at the Analysis after each game to better understand what you should have done. Play with the setting of 3 take backs allowed.
Slow and steady wins the race. Spend more time on your confrontational risky-gambit positions, to avoid making poor moves. Oftentimes, that's when a conservative developing-move is what is called for.
Not much more I can add… it's been a long time since I was a beginner. But it is funny that when I read articles on what to do early in a game, the "rules" of what to do are written in stone, seem so obvious, yet how to bring them about "over the board" always remains a challenge… at all levels of experience.
get gold membership, it's considerably cheaper and not considerably worse then diamond
Hell yea. Maybe platinum for the unlimited puzzles. Diamond looking a bit steep.