I never knew doors were so scary!

Well, we had a little scare today. It's the kind of thing that happens when you have 6 adults in the house. Surely SOMEBODY'S watching the toddler, right? The door that leads into the garage has to be deliberately closed, if you want to be sure that it actually closed. Often enough, if you just pull it behind you as you walk through, it will bounce and remain open. So leaving the door open is easy enough to do. I was in the kitchen cutting up Eleanor's pork chop, Dad was in his office, Chris and Kelley had gone out to their car, and Mom was at a neighbors. Ellie had been playing in the kitchen, but she went to go play in the living room, in the opposite direction of said door. The pork chop required some special attention because there was Tony's all over it, and Ellie doesn't do the spicy thing yet. So I hear her playing noises fade into the back of the house, where she can potentially get into things, but I'm not overly worried. So I'm finishing up with her pork chop after a minute or 2 of not hearing her and I go to the back to get her for dinner. She's not in the back. Maybe she's with Dad. She's not with Dad. "Dad, I can't find Ellie." He says, "I think your mother took her over to the neighbor." I knew that was wrong, because Ellie was playing in the living room when Mom left. I run to the door to the garage and there it was. Wide open. Our garage opens out to a neighborhood street, but it's fairly high traffic with enough of a speeding issue that speed bumps were added about 5 years ago. Ellie's not there. "MOM!!" I started running to the front yard. "ELLIE!!" No Eleanor. I go back to the side yard and start heading down the other way, when I hear "Bridget!" from the front. I double back to the front and see Kelley holding Eleanor with Chris, just heading into the house. They were in the doorway, so I didn't see them the first time. Then Kelley tells me that Eleanor was found by a nice lady across the street and 2 houses down, playing in somebody's yard. The lady saw Kelley and asked if Ellie belonged to her, and Kelley took her and answered, "Yes and no." Thank God for nice ladies. I feel bad for Mom. We think it was her that left the door open. She's beaten herself up about it pretty badly, but Ellie's okay, and this won't happen again, and Mom will let it go soon. Besides, she walked less than 5 feet from me to get out of the house, and I shouldn't have let the quiet toddler go unchecked for that long. At least she really enjoyed her pork chops.

In other news.. Nathan and I are going to see his grandparents in April!! We're flying to Maryland to see his grandmother for a few days. While we're there we are also going to see my Amy. Then we'll fly to Massachusetts and see Nathan's grandfather, aunt, and some other family and friends for a few more days. Then we fly home. This will be the first time most of these people will see Eleanor. We're super excited.

Oh, I talked to Emilie Laiche the other day (via email). She was going to be near Natchitoches and wanted to know if anyone was still around. She and her boyfriend are living in Florida and have a cat and a fish. They're doing great, and Emilie wanted me to say hello to everyone. Hello Everyone!

Okay, now for some fun new pics.