Leaf piles and prayers for our neighbor

This weekend was a bit of a sad one for our small neighborhood.  We are very close with half of the neighbors and were on our way to a birthday party for a 4 year old neighbor when three police cars arrived at our neighbor Maggie's house.  Her brother and sister-in-law were trying to get into the house to see if Maggie was okay.  Apparently, she hadn't shown up to work in a week and her boss called her brother to notify him.

When they finally broke into the house, they discovered that Maggie had passed away from a heart attack while watching TV in her living room.  Maggie was the sweetest and quietest woman.  She was 61 and single with a grown daughter and grandson living in Chicago.  She was young, healthy and vibrant but extremely private and reclusive.  All of us are still shocked over the news.  Her brother said heart attacks and heart conditions ran in the family, but she was so young and healthy!

Anyway, her family has been cleaning up the house, inside and out.  Her brother got outside the other day and raked all the leaves into a neat pile under the tree in front of our house.  Leo woke up and declared, "Our neighbor made a big pile of leaves for me to play in!"  Well, we stayed inside for a couple days to give the family privacy and some peace and quiet but the kids were itching to get out in the 60 degree November weather!  So, after confirming that my husband would clean up the mess, we jumped right in.

Check out the air Elena catches jumping in!  

It's a good thing she wears cloth diapers or that could have hurt!

Once Dad came out and saw the damage they were doing to the neighbors' pile, he made a new one for the kids to jump in.

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I would also like to add that Colleen DID come down to visit and we were all able to get together last Friday!  I met her for the first time last Thanksgiving and we each spend most of our time trying to convince the other to move closer to where we live :)

She blogged a little about their Thanksgiving week.  I'm going to warn you that it is equally as sad as this post regarding our neighbor Maggie.  But she put in some great photos of the kids playing and even one of the two of us!  And I got to snuggle baby Xander who smiled and coo'd ALL MORNING LONG!!!!

Here is one of Eamon, Maggie and Leo

And here is Elena and Andrew