Surprise visit

After finishing dinner, Mark and I were chatting and watching Claire play at her little table by the front window. We noticed a mom with a gang of small children running around at the bottom of our driveway, and some of the kids started coming up towards the front door. This is nothing new, as our driveway is big and has a fun little incline that dumps into a court - very inviting - and neighbor kids regularly ride their bikes and scooters up to the very top so they can coast back down. We've even seen kids make themselves at home at the little bistro table on our porch, while we were just on the other side of the window (apparently the reflection prevented them from seeing us?) Pretty entertaining.

"Are they coming to the door, or just playing?" we wondered. The mom stood at the bottom of the driveway waiting while two of the girls came up to the door, about to ring the doorbell. "Oh, it's Sarah and her kids!" I exclaimed, finally recognizing my neighbor from one street down. We recently met at a local homeopathy class, and bonded because of the neighbor connection and the fact that we were both pregnant. Excited to see her, I started walking over to open the door but as I neared the sidelight the young girls spotted me. With a look of surprise they dropped a piece of paper and something else on the porch and all the kids scattered and disappeared.

Oh yeah, it's May Day!

We opened the door to find a homemade painted paper basket with fresh flowers and little chocolates, along with a crayon-decorated piece of paper. What a sweet surprise! It brought back memories of my childhood when my sister and I did the same thing with our friends, and got me excited about getting Claire involved next year.

Claire thought the basket and flowers were neat, but dove for the chocolate.
What a sweet surprise, and the perfect way to wind down a beautiful Saturday. Next up: filling out as much as I can in the new baby book we got today, and updating Claire's. Oh, the memories! This is probably not helping in the patience department, poring over newborn pictures of Claire, imagining what her new sibling will look like...