The alarm went off this morning at six, and Matt and I lounged in bed dozing for half an hour. It was really nice.

It was especially nice that, when my alarm went off at 6:15, I looked at the clock and thought, Wow, it feels like it's been longer than that. I like it when nice moments kind of stretch out a little bit for me.

I remembered my camera today, so as promised: pictures!

The Pink Hole of Cuteness: Child and kitten! The kitten's name is Smoky, by the way, after its grey fur and eyes. Though she's giving every sign of turning calico in another few weeks, and I think the eyes will darken to blue. Still, she's an adorable little bit of fluff. And I'm not just saying that because she napped on my lap for half an hour or so.

I expect these little stuffies were meant to be dinosaurs, but Jess likes dragons, and she dubbed them dragons in the store before K.T. even bought them, so dragons they were. What the dragons are doing in this picture is kissing.

Another Pink Hole of Cuteness: hugging children. A happy-birthday hug for Jess.

When Jess opened this teaset, she didn't want to open anything else for a while, so we let the girls play and took a lot of pictures. It didn't take them long to find a play-together pattern, either. Penny would pretend to fill the cups (and bowls, and plates) from the teapot, and then Jess would pretend to dump them out and stack them back up again.

What's a birthday without cake?! And knowing that Penny will generally just scrape the icing off and leave the cake, K.T. opted for a hollow cake filled with icing. Penny was well-sugared, to say the least. In fact, she turned to Jess and various adults several times to announce, gleefully manic, "SUGAR!"

--Liz