Ashes, Ashes . . .

We had a great and very busy day today. This morning Angie arrived for her last day as my mother's helper (school starts on Monday - sniff!). We quickly got going and arrived at our local public library shortly before 9 am for it's semi-annual book sale. I bought about 40 childrens' books for $20. Mary Clare is thrilled with her selection of new books - including several about Cinderella (of course). After spending some time in the children's section of the library we headed off to meet some friends for breakfast at Meridee's, a favorite bakery. We enjoyed a yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs, french toast, fruit, etc and then headed to My Gym. Mary Clare had a great time visiting with her friends and playing. Afterwards we dropped Angie at home and headed home for lunch and a nap. I had to wake Mary Clare up in order to get to a playdate with her buddy Chloe. The two little girls had fun playing grocery store. Erin is starting to be alert enough to stay awake for these playdates. At one point I asked Mary Clare to bring me an "apple" -- I looked down shortly later to see that Erin had a plastic apple laying on her blanket. A present from her big sister!!

When we got home from the playdate I was trying to make dinner in the kitchen while Erin rocked in her swing, the dog howled from the thunder storm, and Mary Clare played directly underfoot. Mary Clare really wanted to play "Ring Around the Rosie . . . "with me -- which I did several times, but finally had to shoo her away. This photo shows her trying to enlist Erin in her game -- I think my heart melted into a pool on the floor when I saw her holding Erin's little hands and singing, "Ashes, Ashes we all fall down!" (well, really, "Ashes, ashes fall do!")








Erin is doing better - it turns out we won't have the Whooping Cough test results for two (!) weeks, but we strongly believe she just had a cold. She is doing much better and hardly coughs at all. Her reflux seems to be improving, too -- she is back to sleeping in her crib at night, and last night slept for 4 hours in a row! That's not much of an accomplishment for most babies her age, but that was the first time for us. She is growing like crazy and continues to be a sweet happy girl (most of the time!).