Neighbors are family

I can't emphasize enough how much I love our neighborhood and our neighbors.

My girls had quite a day yesterday. They are totally in awe of miss Joie (ironically, my #1 name choice for our little Faith, but spelled 'Joey' instead.. just funny because I had never heard of anyone else with that name before) who happens to be the "cool" 19-year-old daughter of the sweetest woman you'll ever meet. Maddie and Faith just love them, and Joie may as well be a star in their eyes.

She happens to work in the children's department of our library, and was nice enough to invite my girlies over to play with her old American Girl dolls. Well, this was heaven for my girlies. Maddie rode her trike over, and Faith rode her scooter. Maddie made sure to take her American Girl books along with her, and she and Faith thought it was great that Joie has the Kirsten dolls and almost ALL of her accessories. They sat there and played so nicely. Her mother, Sharon, is possibly the nicest person I have ever met and she was so excited to have us over and ready with toys for my Show Show. Abrie played very happily with old Happy Meal toys and, of course, adores their little shih tzu.

Joie happens to be a fantastic guitar player, and she bust out the guitar and all of her Taylor Swift paraphernalia which was the equivalent to a mini-concert in my girls' eyes. It was adorable: the 4 of them (yes, that includes Abrie who LOVES her music and stood there dancing and bopping her head the whole time!) sitting there belting out the lyrics together. Sharon took some pictures, so I am hoping I can see them soon. It was absolutely priceless.

It's the little things in life that count the most. I think yesterday was a day that will be one of those memories forever etched in my girls' minds. I'm so grateful that we have such wonderful people that live just houses from us.

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We came home from Sharon and Joie's and ate a quick dinner before heading over to the daycare to play for a little bit. Yesterday was a day that Dan had to go in to work shortly after I had gotten home from work myself, so it's important to me that we have fun and relax since that always feels a little stressful to "change shifts" so to speak. They've been re-enacting a different princess movie every time that we go over to the daycare, and yesterday it was 'Ariel.' They crack me up with their acting, and Abrie is always given a role as well. She was the part of 'Sebastian' yesterday. Haha.

As we walked home, we saw that our next door neighbors were outside. This couple may be 60 years old, but they are some of my girls' best friends. We ended up staying outside until past 8pm talking to them. Abrie was showing them how she draws with sidewalk chalks, and of course Maddie and Faith are always lost in conversations with them. Before we went inside, Maddie drew a heart and two little caricatures of a girl and a boy. She told Rhonda, "this means, 'I love you, Rhonda and Dave.'"

Special memories to say the least.