tax free shopping and a scare

Avery and I spent the morning playing in the playroom while Eric took a nap.  He worked over night and was going to be taking care of Avery all day while I go shopping.  Avery has lots of toys but loves playing with her CSU water bottle. It kept her occupied all morning.

I left the house at 9am to go and meet my good friend Angie at her house.  We drove together over to Round Rock outlet mall to do some shopping for our kids.  It was tax free shopping in Texas for all clothes, shoes, school supplies, backpacks.  It wasn't as busy as we thought it was going to be.  I'm sure tomorrow and Sunday will be nuts.  We both found some really cute clothes and shoes for our kids.  I got some outfits for Avery at Carter's and Gymboree.  I also got her some shoes at Stride Rite, but they ended up being huge so I'm going to exchange them for another size.  I had such a great time hanging out with Angie.  We always have  so much fun and have become really close friends.  We ended our shopping excursion with a delicious frap from Starbucks!

So the scare for today.  While Eric was home with Avery she choked for real for the first time.  He was letting her snack on some of the Annie's Cheddar Bunnies I got her yesterday.  He was sitting on the floor in the playroom with her while she ate them.  She started to play with some toys and then looked up at him choking.  There was no noise coming from her, she wasn't gagging it up, and her face was turning bright red.  He quickly grabbed her, put her face down, and started smacking her back to get the cracker out of her throat.  It was really lodged in there and took him about 15 hard pushes to get it out.  She cried really hard afterwards and so did he.  He told me he was glad I wasn't home because I would have been so scared.  So from now on, all meals and snacks will be given while she is sitting in her high chair until she is much older.  She isn't very good at chewing crunchy or larger pieces of food yet, and we learned that today.  Today I was thankful that Eric is a paramedic and knew what to do.