Indendence Day, Etc.

Carolyn loves chocolate chip cookies! It's nice that just a little piece of a cookie provides her with so much joy and yet won't make her sick or keep her up at night. Everyone deserves to have a treat sometimes. She has been doing so much better with her milk since the affair of Monday evening. I followed my sister-in-law Katy's advice and gave her little sips of milk through a straw and she seemed to get more used to the taste and accept it better after that and I think we've gotten more stable on the 3 times a day nursing thing. We'll keep it here for awhile until we are both more ready to move on to the next phase of life. :)
I worked all day yesterday (at my "outside job") so I didn't get to play much with Carolyn in her cute little 4th of July outfit (courtesy of Rachel who outgrew it before she got to wear it! Thanks!) But I followed her around with a camera after I got home last night and thought she looked so cute here in the middle of playing with Daddy's socks. :)

Our baby birdies are growing!! I can't believe how much they have changed in just a week. They no longer look skeletal with transparent skin; they have real-looking feathers and they pretty much fill up the nest. We try not to take too many pictures because we don't want to scare away Mommy and Daddy Robin.
Last night after Carolyn went to bed (to bed, I said, not to sleep, mind you... it was a pretty disturbed night for her- maybe she's considering some new developmental milestone or something...) we lit a fire in our fire pit outside and toasted marshmallows and talked with our good friends Mark and Sarah Shaffer. It was a great time for catching up.

Not such a great time for Baggins, though; the 4th of July (and the week before and after it) is the worst time of year for him. He lives in mortal dread of fireworks! We have to give him tranquilizers to keep him somewhat calm (don't get me started on the emotional and psychological woes of our disturbed animal... it would take way too long to describe them!) The poor dog sat outside with us panting and shaking as our neighbors set off cracker after cracker. We live in a neighborhood with a large lake in the middle and the people who live on the lake must have a lot of money to burn up because we could see some really big fireworks right from our own backyard! We tried to take some pictures, but of course pictures of fireworks never turn out as well as they really looked. Still, we thought our new camera did a pretty good job. :)