Mia's 3rd Birthday!

Friday was Mia's 3rd birthday.  I can't believe it!  She is such a sweetheart.  Ryan and I decided to take her out on Friday morning, just the three of us.  We both love getting to spend time with just her.  Mia is so much fun, and her precious personality comes out so well when she isn't forced to share the spotlight.  She is such an awesome little girl!


After taking Lily to school that morning, we let Mia open her birthday present from Grandpops and Grandma Jan.  She was THRILLED to get a LeapPad of her very own.  She has been sharing the one they gave to Lily for her birthday last month, so she was beyond excited to get her own.  The cool thing about LeapPad is you can put any game you purchase on two LeapPads, so all the games that were already on Lily's that she enjoys are automatically put onto her new one.

 She couldn't wait to start playing!

 After a few minutes of play, the three of us headed out to breakfast at J. Christopher's.  It was delicious as always.  Mia loves breakfast foods, so she was glad to get pancakes with butter.  After breakfast, we went downtown to the Georgia Aquarium.  They took this sweet picture as we walked in.

 Mia was a little nervous to meet Deepo (remember that the Aquarium was built by the generosity of Bernie Marcus, founder of Home Depot), but she gave him a high five when I went up with her.

 Next up was the first touch tank.  Mia loved petting the little sharks at the McWane Center in Birmingham a few weeks ago, and she liked trying to pet the sharks and rays in this tank too.

 You may have to look closely at this picture, but look at this sweet face.  So precious!

 I don't remember seeing this before, but the rainbow coral was so pretty.

 Mia was fascinated by the scuba diver who was cleaning the tank.

 The huge whale shark swimming by.  When we walked into the big viewing area, Mia immediately asked for the mermaids.  I couldn't believe it.  We saw the Weeki Watchi State Park mermaids here last Christmas.  It's been almost a year, but she remembered and asked about them.

 I would not want to swim near this shark.

 Mia is such a funny little girl!

 I can't get enough of this sweet little one.

 After a few minutes on the indoor playground, we moved on to touch tank number 2.  Mia liked petting the big crabs and watching the shrimp walk by.

 We all liked watching the two beautiful beluga whales.

 We liked how the turtles swam right up to the glass.

 Touch tank number 3 let Mia touch a star fish and sea urchin.

After lots of fun at the aquarium, we moved over to The Varsity for lunch.  Mia loves their hot dogs!

 We always let the birthday girl pick where she wants to go for dinner, and Mia picked F2O which is a delicious little place over at Cumberland Mall.  She loves their grilled cheese sandwich and jasmine rice.  Because they burned both of the girls' grilled cheeses, the chef came out to apologize and brought us free dessert...cupcakes for all!  Mia thoroughly enjoyed hers!

We had a fun day celebrating our sweet girl.