The Junklesons & Our Little Latina

You may remember me blogging about Sophie's imaginary brother, Andy.  Well meet the next door neighbors, the Junklesons.  I can't help but chuckle at this.  Sophie made it up all by herself and she named them the Junklesons!  I hope that's how you spell it :)  Jasmine Junkleson is her friend, she's 9.  Her brother, Aladdin is 2.  He's just a baby she says, a baby who can't watch Veggie Tales or The Incredibles yet, only Baby Einstein.  Wonder where she got the names...?

Anyway, I love her imagination.  We are constantly playing something or being some characters from a show or story.  I'm never just Mommy during the day, but rather a mouse, a princess, an evil step mother or an evil sea witch.  What a fun age.  I love the experiences with a first child...you really don't know what stage is coming next but it's such a joy to go through it with them for the first time.

Of course there is no less joy or surprise with the second child, either.  Claire is becoming more and more of a little person.  She is in a very "me, my, mine" stage.   A little on the selfish side at the moment...What cracks me up is her line-up of sentences.  The 3 basic sentences she has are: "I need...", "I want..." and "I like..." whatever the item is.  The best part is when she doesn't actually like something instead of saying I don't like, she still says "I like" while shaking her head no.  

She has a couple of words that she says backwards, and this is where the Latina part comes in.  She can't say Yes, and instead says "si."  It sounds like saying yes in Spanish.  She is constantly saying "si mama."  It's so a part of her vocabulary right now, we just laugh.

And I leave you with some pictures from our super sunny sunday!

We tried to have a picnic lunch in the backyard.

This picture just cracks me up.  Clearly, she is re-fueling during our visit to the playground which she calls  play-town. 

Enjoying the playground, and no the Junklesons weren't at the neighborhood playground this time.

Non stop fun

Visitors, Visitors, Visitors!

Since March 15th, we've had several sets of visitors - all that we thoroughly enjoyed being with!


We began with a visitor from Texas - the manager that Bill worked for while in TX was in town for a meeting so he graciously accepted our offer to have dinner with us.  The girls charmed him with their sweetness,  and it made him reminisce of the time when his kids were younger.  We were glad to have a little Texas reunion!


Later that same evening, we were anxiously waiting for Nana (Bill's mom) to arrive.  She got here right before the girls' bedtime and they were thrilled to see her!  We're thankful for Skype, but other than Skype we had not seen Nana in person since way back in August!  We had a lot of fun.  She brought clothes, games, St. Patty's "decor" and more.  We took our first zoo trip of the season.  We shopped a little, Sophie and Nana did puzzles, and we all played outside because the weather was amazing!  As usual, we had a great visit and are already waiting for Nana to come back!  

Sophie and Nana - don't they look pretty?

Here we are, all decked out in St. Patty's attire courtesy of the Christmas Tree Shops and Nana :)

Sophie modeling one of her new outfits

Claire and her "cheese" face - she looks more constipated than like she's smiling for  the camera though

And Claire getting use out of our new accessories

 In between visits we were able to visit a family here in Kentucky we had not seen since way before we moved to TX.  I met Yukie (from Japan) at a library story time when both of our girls were 1.  We realized that our husbands work together and have gotten together several times.  Well it had been quite a while since our last visit, and it just so happened that Bill and her husband were on the same business trip so it was a perfect opportunity for the rest of us to get together.  I introduced them to Jet's Pizza...only the best for my friends. :)  Yes, this is a plug for Jets.  We LOVE it.  But more than the pizza, we loved spending time with Yukie and her kids.  Her daughter and Sophie really enjoyed each other.  We look forward to more playdates with our sweet Japanese friends!

The next day, my family - mom, dad, and 2 grandmas came in to town.  Another great time.  The kids definitely entertained everyone, they really loved playing with Dziadek (pronounced ja - dek, Polish for Grandpa).  My grandmas especially were amazed at their energy level... :)  As usual, we did a little shopping and took time to celebrate my mom's birthday, a couple days early. After they left, Bill came back from Mexico - perfect timing!  

That is my mom playing dress up with the girls (you're probably thinking that she looks too young to be my mom, she gets that all the time, a problem I would like to have one day!)

Fast forward one week, and our last set of visitors.  Our friends, Josh and Jessica, and their sweet baby Caroline came in a for a visit.  It was our first time to meet Caroline.  She was perfect and sweet, and the girls adored her, at times a little too much :)  but Caroline was a good sport.  We got out to the Levee,  walked on the purple people bridge (though Sophie was not convinced that it was purple), had some Jet's for dinner (can you tell we like it?) watched basketball, and chatted about their jobs as Apple salesmen...hehe...we really had a great time!

Here are the girls with Caroline, Sophie had made a "bed" for her 

We're thankful for family and friends to spend time with!!  Who wants to come next??