Dear Jill.....

Thursday is your birthday my little sister... mama always said I was your "other mother" when we were little girls... I guess I still am... I remember that little dress you are wearing in this photo that mama made... this is my favorite picture of you when you were a little girl... We were blessed with a wonderful family and a happy childhood... our home was always filled with love and laughter... those childhood memories mean more to me than anything money could buy... you and I had our share of escapades! We were always up to something!... Let's reminisce...


Remember when we thought we would make a fortune selling nightcrawlers??? (click here to read my post about this!)...and our koolaide stands??? We drank it all ourselves!... remember when we would walk to downtown Bountiful with our 25 cent allowance and buy penny candy and sit at the soda fountain at Bountiful Drug and have a cherry coke or lime rickey??? Our games were always made up (usually by "Moi"), or hide and seek, riding our bikes (in the orchard even after daddy told us we would get stickers in our tires... and we did!),roller skating (sporting our beautiful skate keys around our necks on a shoelace)... making necklaces out of sweet clover... sachets out of mama's rose petals, "digging to China"... laying out in the hot sun until we were BAKED!... remember playing library, and stamping ALL of our books?...pretending we were singers at famous nightclubs?...running through the sprinklers... watching Andy Griffith, and I Love Lucy and then re~enacting each one (we LOVE Lucy and still know every word of every episode! Sometimes we got into as much trouble as Lucy and Ethel! I even did my Lucy Queen of the Gypsies dance when you gave me my new shawl recently (click here to see my beautiful shawl... not the dance though!)... Remember when the not so nice neighbor said we looked like two little witches running around with our long, dark hair??? We took that as a compliment! (her girls all had short boys style hair so she didn't have to fix it, our mama always curled our hair pretty!)...Remember playing dolls with our Patty Play Pals Rhonda and Cory... We called ourselves "Marilyn and Carolyn" and we pretended we lived in a place called "Richland" (because everyone was rich there, of course!.. Hey! in our imaginary world we were whatever we wanted to be!) (Those dolls would be worth a MINT these days... how COULD we have parted with them???)... hiking up to Mother of Pearl Rock, going in the old abandoned Isinglass mine (our mom had a fit!)...baseball in the field, catching butterflies (we always let them go!), making snowcones on your Sno~Cone machine... hopscotch...decorating our room for Fall with crepe paper and little squirrels mama bought us...sidewalk days in Bountiful... Halloween was (and is!) our favorite... remember going to the PINK house first because they ALWAYS had the best treats??? (It all makes sense now, they had the best treats because their house was PINK!)...we would trick or treat for hours... then daddy would say he had to "check" our candy and then take the ones he wanted for himself! We didn't mind though... I could write a book about our childhood memories, and the very best part of them all was that I shared them with YOU! Yes, I will always be your "other mother"... you are my little sister, my confidant, my therapist, my fashion advisor, my biggest supporter,the mother of my beautiful nieces, the wife of my wonderful (and handsome!) brother~in~law, a shop owner and business woman... and my VERY BEST FRIEND... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I hope all your birthday wishes come true!... I love you!... Juju (P.S. I posted this today as I was not sure if you were going out of town for your actual birthday... I will call you!)...

P.P.S. Can I borrow that beautiful shawl and jewelry you are wearing in this photo?... Tee hee... love you!... Bisous!...