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.

Mia's Birthday at School

Last Wednesday, Liz, Ryan and I took cookies to Mia's school to celebrate her birthday.  Her actual birthday was Friday, but we had other plans for her (details coming in another blog entry), so we decided to visit on Wednesday instead.  She was very excited when she saw these cute little turkey sugar cookies.

 We shared with all the kids in the class.  They seemed to enjoy this little surprise.

 Picture with our sweet girl.

 I love my little bit!

 Ryan loves his little girl too!

 Bama and Mia have such a sweet bond too.

Lily's School Picture

How cute is this Pre-K school picture?

Family Picture

This is the picture we had taken at the church a few weeks ago that will go in the church directory.  I thought it turned out pretty well.

Miscellaneous Things

Lily looks so cute in her uniform jumper with vest.  I love these uniforms!

 Mrs. Worrell had a birthday while we were at the beach, and Lily really wanted to make her a card.  This is how she decorated it.

 This is what she dictated to Liz to write on the inside of the card. 

 The picture Lily colored for Ryan and me.

 Mia loves the Leap Pad!

 Mia loves to color.

 Not to be outdone, Lily wanted to color too.

 Lily loves practicing her letters on this paper.  She's getting pretty good with most letters.

 My mom helped the girls make masks, and they have had a lot of fun with them.

 Lily's drawing of our family.

 This is how Mia practices her letters at school.  I couldn't get it to turn sideways, but you get the idea.  She enjoys doing this.

 Mia's little fingerprints made a cute apple tree.

 I love when Lily makes things and writes "I love Lily Mommy Daddy Mia."

 Lily's drawing of our house.

 Lily wanted to make a Christmas wish list.  So she dictated the first five things to me (she saw these things in a toy catalog) and then she wrote out the next few things.  It's a little hard to read, but what she wrote was: new cd, new crown, abby doll (abby-cadabby from Sesame Street), garden (she wants seeds to plant a garden), butterfly doll, sticker book and new pencil.

 Lily then convinced Mia to make a wish list, but she doesn't quite understand what it's for which is how she ended up with "box and more pillows" on her list.

 Lily loves swinging on the trapeze on our home playground.

 Mia loves the playground too!

Yea Lily!

Lily's report card came home recently.  She's doing great!  They grade on 40 different areas (what ever happened to Math, English, PE?).  I am very proud to say she received 39 "E" grades which means Excellent/Outstanding.  These E's were given for things such as follows rules, obeys promptly, listens attentively, works diligently, grasps math concepts, shows interest in books/stories, memorizes assigned Bible verses, forms letters correctly for age, runs/jumps/skips/hops and participates enthusiastically in arts/music.  The one "S" (for Satisfactory - meeting expectations) that she received was for "displays self-control" in the "conduct" area.  I know how excited she gets about school, so I can easily see this being an area she needs a little work on.  We are so proud of our sweet Lily.  She is such a smart and creative little girl, and it is awesome to watch her love school!

Happy Halloween!

Okay, I'll be honest here, I don't like Halloween.  Never have really.  So, this year, I really debated what to do.  Of course, our girls think Halloween = Candy, so they very much want to participate.  But, we were traveling all last week, so we couldn't participate in any school events or weekend events; Monday night (actually Halloween) is a school-night, and our neighborhood typically isn't much for trick-or-treating (though that changed a little this year).  I really didn't want to buy some expensive costume that they may or may not wear again when I didn't think we would do much. 

Well, enter Publix.  I heart Publix.  What a great store.  Since we needed to go to the grocery store anyway (we'd been out of the house for 10 days), I was pretty excited to see that they offer trick-or-treating in the store from 4 to 7.  The girls couldn't wait to get dressed up in costumes we already have and join me at Publix.  Ryan helped them get ready; Lily was adamant that she would be Tinkerbell (same as last year, so the dress doesn't fit quite as nicely as before), and Mia wanted to be Snow White.  Aren't they cute?

 Well, when I got home a few minutes later, Mia changed her mind and really wanted to be Tinkerbell too; unfortunately, we only have one costume available.  However, then I suggested she be Minnie Mouse which is what she and Lily dressed as two years ago.  She was so excited!  So, we got her changed and ready to go again.  Lily asked several times "where is my Minnie Mouse costume?"  She couldn't believe that she had outgrown it, and Mia was wearing it! Again, aren't they cute?

 Lily really wanted to fly like Tink; she tried several times!

 Mia insisted I call her Minnie for the rest of the night.  Here she is practicing her curtsy.

We went to Publix and it was pretty neat.  They had 6 stations set up where they handed out candy, painted faces, etc around the store.  The girls were very happy to put more candy in their buckets!  Their favorite station was the very last one which offered little ice cream cones.  This was a fun (and practical) way to trick or treat!

The girls loved seeing all the trick-or-treaters coming by; they helped hand out the candy and admired all the costumes.  Here they are hanging out on our front porch for a few minutes while I got dinner ready.

 I tried to make a somewhat fun dinner since we didn't do a whole lot to celebrate.  When I told the girls were were having Spiders for dinner, they were both quiet for a second and then said Ewww!  I thought this turned out pretty cute...ravioli with bell pepper legs, chocolate chip eyes and a marinara sauce web.  Pretty tasty too.

 We took the easy route for dessert and made Tollhouse Halloween sugar cookies.  Yummy!

Overall, a pretty low key Halloween for us which was perfect.

Samford Homecoming

We left the beach on Thursday afternoon to go up to Birmingham.  It was our 10th reunion at Samford; how in the world is that possible?  We knew a lot of our friends were coming in town too, so we were excited about going.  We arrived at dinnertime on Thursday evening and met Josh and his life-long friend Jimmy at Giano's.  It's a little deli-type restaurant that has been around forever.  Ryan and I ate there a lot during college; seriously, a lot.  Delicious food at very reasonable, college kid can afford, prices.  When we walked in, the owner smiled really big and said "I haven't seen you guys in awhile; do you live around here anymore?"  Yep, he remembered us after all these years.  That felt good.

We had planned on having our annual family pictures made Friday morning, but unfortunately, they got rained out.  Hopefully we can reschedule them soon.  Instead, we went to the McWane Center which is a kids' science museum.  It was pretty neat, and the girls enjoyed most of it.  It was really crowded with Friday school field trips, but there was still a lot to explore.  Both girls loved the grids that they could press their hands or face against and see their impression.  They also liked the little aquarium area; Mia was the first one to pet one of the little sharks that swam by!  We took pictures but they are on a different camera that I can't currently find the connection cord for.  Whoops.  We also had lunch with Josh and Amy at Milos.  One of our favorite things about returning to Birmingham is visiting all the yummy places we used to frequent while in school!  It's fun to reminisce about lots of memories at them.

Saturday morning arrived, and it was a beautiful day.  We were so excited to head to Samford and join in the festivities.  The day started with a parade.  We had front-row seats which the girls loved.  They really enjoyed watching the cheerleaders and dance team go by.

 Both love music too, so they were thrilled to be this close to the band.

 Not too surprising, they were a little captivated when Miss Samford and Miss Jefferson County rode by in their "vertible" as the girls call it.  They could see the tiaras on both of their heads, so they assumed they were in the presence of royalty; this is a very big deal to little girls!

We happened to be very close to the end of the parade route.  The girls thought this was fantastic because as all the organizations rode by, the college kids pretty much dumped at the girls' feet their bags of candy they had been throwing out during the parade.  The girls were thrilled with their loot!  Here they are with Mr. Beeson enjoying a lollipop afterwards.

 Our whole family with Mr. Beeson.

 Looking up the corridor at the beautiful library.  The girls love books, so we walked them around inside.

 They were very excited to meet Spike the Samford Bulldog mascot.  Lily has a little stuffed Spike that my mom gave her as a baby; she loves it.  Well anytime we are around town and Lily sees a picture of Uga (the University of GA bulldog mascot), she says "There's Spike!"  She has no idea that UGA has a bulldog mascot.

 Presidential hopeful Herman Cain also stopped by campus for a visit.  He was in the middle of a 2 day tour of Alabama, so he came by for a meet and greet.  We didn't meet him (the line was really long), but it was neat to see him for a few seconds and cheer him on.

 Of course, the best part of the day was catching up with lots of old friends.  We ran into a lot of former classmates, fraternity brothers and sorority sisters.  It was so fun to catch up with everyone and meet all the kids (there are a ton of them!).  It's amazing how things like email and Facebook make you feel like you are keeping up with people, but when you sit down face-to-face, you realize how much of their lives you are missing out on.  It was really great to reconnect with so many people over an outdoor lunch.  This is a picture of several of my Zeta Tau Alpha pledge class friends.  I think Claire came the furthest, from Dallas, TX, but only a couple of people still live in Birmingham; I am glad so many made the trip!

 Saturday night, several of the sorority sisters met at Moes Original BBQ for dinner.  We reserved a private room which was so helpful (great idea Tay!).  The kids had a lot of fun getting to know one another and playing together while the adults enjoyed catching up too.  Here's a picture of most of the kids who were there that evening.  Future Samfordites maybe?

 Another round of pictures; everyone's husband was taking a picture at the same time so it was like the paparazzi had come!

On Sunday, we went to church and then enjoyed lunch afterwards with the family.  We came on back home to Smyrna after that.  We had been on the road for 10 wonderful days, but I have to say, we were all glad to be home.  Our weekend in Birmingham was a fantastic way to wrap up our vacation!