A Day Trip to Fort Payne

What an incredibly fun day!  Last Saturday, Liz and I took the girls over to Fort Payne for a little day trip.  It took us about 2 hours to get there. The girls did great, and they were thrilled that they got to watch cartoons on the DVD player on the ride over.  We drove through some beautiful county too.  I bet in the Fall, it is absolutely gorgeous.  We drove straight to Josh's new house; he moved about a week ago, so we were excited to see his new place and what he and his roommates have done with it.  The girls were thrilled to see him and his dog Sadie when we arrived.  They were also very happy when Amy came soon thereafter.  We had a lot of fun catching up with one another and visiting with Josh's long-time friend, Jimmy, who was also up from Birmingham for the weekend.  The girls loved the raised seating Josh has in his living room; it was their own stage to perform on for everyone.

After hanging out with one another for a little while, we went to lunch at a new restaurant in town called Jefferson's.  Everyone enjoyed their meal; the girls really enjoyed the ice cream sandwich that came as dessert for the kids' meals!  After lunch, we drove through town on our way to the fire house where Josh is stationed.  It was really cool to see this neat little town while driving through; it seems like a nice place to live. 

The girls (okay, me too) were in awe of the fire station.  They have several of the really huge trucks there plus several of the smaller trucks that go out on medical type calls.  Josh explained a lot of what is on the truck to me.  I'm amazed that he can drive those big trucks and handle all that equipment!  The girls had an absolute blast climbing all through the trucks and exploring each one of them.  We took a ton of pictures, and I tried really hard to pick my favorites.  Here are just a few of the many pictures we took:

On Friday, Liz and the girls made cookies to take to the station.  They decorated them with yellow sugars (because the Fort Payne firetrucks are yellow) and red M&M's (because most firetrucks are red, including the ones in Smyrna, so the girls associate red with firetrucks).  This is Mia handing her plateful to one of the firemen.

Lily LOVED "driving" the trucks.

 Mia thought driving was pretty cool too!

 Thankfully, Josh always stayed close by to make sure my fear didn't actually happen.  My fear?  That one of them would accidentally hit any of the many switches and set off a very loud alarm.

 The tire is much bigger than Mia.

 Lily looking down from her window perch.

 Mia peering over the side in the big ladder truck.

 Really, how cute is she in the headset?

 Lily in a fireman's hat.  It almost swallowed her up.

 Mia trying it on too.  When I let go to take a picture, she almost fell over backwards because it is so heavy.

 Josh and Amy with the girls.

After spending time visiting the inside and outside of the station, we decided to keep moving.  Josh surprised the girls with little fireman hats and stickers.  They loved them and have been playing with the hats for many days now.  When we left the station, we went to Little River Canyon. 

It was beautiful!  It was such a hot day too, so there were lots of people out enjoying the water.  We only played for a little bit, but I could easily see spending hours there.

 Lily was fascinated by the big waterfall.  She stared at it like this for several minutes.

 Mia liked it too, but she preferred to have Josh hold her to watch everything going on.

 The girls had a lot of fun making big splashes!

 Mia was pretty content to sit with Bama and watch everyone else around her.

 The girls couldn't get enough of Josh and Amy!

  Finally, we realized we needed to head on back home, but we will all look forward to going back another time.  I know both girls had a great time too.  They adore Uncle Josh and will visit anytime they can!

After putting the girls to bed, Liz and I saw this beautiful sunset off our back porch.  What a lovely way to end a great day!

Extra for the 4th

Liz took lots of great pictures from yesterday's parade too.  Here are my very favorites.

I love this candid picture of Lily.  Such a sweetheart.

The parade is about to start, and Mia can't wait. 

 Lily is watching too, trying to figure out what's coming.

 Mia was so excited to wave to all the parade participants.

 We're all happy to celebrate America!

Fun Morning with Mia

I couldn't wait for this morning to get here!  Lily was going to The Little Gym for their morning summer camp (she LOVES it), so I decided to take the morning off from work (I love being my own boss) so I could hang out with Mia.  I don't get enough one-on-one time with this precious little girl.  She has such an amazing personality; she is smart and funny, and I love being with her.  However, it's usually all of us together, so I don't get much individual time with her.  I saw that we were going to have beautiful weather this morning, so I decided to take her to someplace completely new for her: the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.  We were there about 2.5 hours, and we had a blast.  Here are several pictures from our morning.

At the front entrance fountain.  I was very glad to have a few spare coins on me for Mia to throw in.  She loves doing that.

 A chipmunk ran across our path as we walked towards the children's area.  Mia was fascinated and watched him for several minutes.  She kept running back and forth on the path to keep up with him.  She would squeal with delight when she saw him.

 She liked sitting here because the water would slightly spray her every so often.

 "Mommy look at his mouth!"

 As I researched the Gardens beforehand, I saw they had a little splash pool area for kids, so I packed her bathing suit.  She loved it.  We probably spent 30-40 minutes here.  There was one other little girl who was also 2.5, so they played nicely together.  The fountains were just the right height for her to run through.  She ran in circles over and over again, giving me high fives and waving to me as she would run past.  She was laughing and smiling so big; it was tons of fun for me to watch.

 Mia stood like this multiple times because she would laugh as she would say the water felt funny on her bum.

 You could push a button on the wall to make the sunflowers sprinkle water down too; she thought that was pretty cool.

 After drying off, we headed out to explore more of the Gardens.  Mia declared this frog was reading The Bible to his baby frog.

 She enjoyed walking into Peter Rabbit's Cove.

 She always likes putting her face through these little cutouts.  This is a rabbit eating a carrot.

 Such a happy girl!

 She ran through Peter Rabbit's fence hole probably 15 times.  She thought it was awesome!

 Mia is a very hygienic girl.  She wants to brush her teeth and wash her hands multiple times a day.  She thought it was hilarious that this cow was holding a toothbrush.

 A little unsure of being behind the waterfall.

 Checking out the view from the tree house.

 Glowie (formerly know as "Glo" but now known as "Glowie" per Mia) came out just before lunch as she was wearing down a little bit.  I love this Dale Chihuly fountain.  Mia actually wanted a picture with it.

 After the above picture was taken, we relaxed in wooden swings in the shade for a few minutes, and then we stopped in the cafe to have lunch.  We shared a spinach and fruit salad with a basil vinaigrette dressing.  Mia loves fruit, so she was content with all the delicious strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, mandarin oranges, blackberries and raspberries though she did take a few small pieces of spinach and dip them in the dressing.  She kept saying "I like salad!"  She didn't really like the Gorgonzola on top, but it was easy to brush that aside for her.  I love this girl's taste in food!  After lunch we did part of the canopy walk which has lots of paths high in the air through trees and flowers.  It was very shaded too which was nice.  Mia enjoyed walking through and pointing to different objects like birds, statues and waterfalls.  We finally ended up at this beautiful waterfall area where a nice lady offered to take our picture for us.

It was a little after noon at this point, and I could see Mia was getting pretty tired, so we headed on home.  She stayed awake on the ride though because we were having fun talking, singing along to the radio (though she often wondered where Daddy's "iPot" with her songs were) and waving out the window.  As we were leaving I said "Thank you so much for coming to the gardens with me Mia.  I had a lot of fun."  She replied "You're welcome Mommy" in her sweet little voice.  This was truly a great morning, and it makes me really look forward to my next Mommy-Daughter Date with Mia!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July to you!  We had a great time celebrating America's birthday, and I hope you did too.  We are so proud and thankful to be Americans, so we love getting to celebrate and thank those who make this country great.  Liz and I took the girls to a parade in Marietta today.  It was pretty hot outside, but we had a fun time.  When I told Lily last night that we were going to a parade in the morning, she got so excited.  We talked about what kind of things we might see there (bands, floats, etc), and she couldn't wait.  I told Mia about the parade this morning over breakfast; her little face immediately lit up, and she said "We see Mickey and Minnie and Donald and Goofy!"  She was remembering the many parades we saw at Disney World back in November.  I explained that we wouldn't see them, but we would see lots of other fun things.  She looked a little confused and said "we go to Disney World?" so again I had to say, no, that wasn't where we were going, but it would be a lot of fun.  I could see the skepticism on her face.  After breakfast, we all got ready to head out.

The girls were very excited when Liz gave them each a flag.  The three of them had decorated our windows and kitchen area to get the girls excited about the 4th, so we borrowed these flags from those decorations.  They were ready to go!

 We scouted out a great spot to watch the parade.  The girls were able to sit up high and see the parade coming down the street.  There was very little shade around though, so we warmed up quickly.  Luckily, Liz thought to bring water and snacks to keep us all hydrated and happy!

 The three Hooks girls.

 Lily doing an impersonation of the Statue of Liberty.

 The parade is about to start.

 The Marietta chapter of The Lions Club came about 5 minutes before the rest of the parade handing out American flags to everyone watching.  The girls were thrilled to get more flags, and they have played with them all afternoon.  They also loved waving to the lion as he rode by.

 The flag bearers led the parade holding an American flag, Georgia flag and City of Marietta flag.  They were followed by a military band which we all enjoyed hearing.

 We all enjoyed seeing several of the old firetrucks come out.  Both girls were thrilled when a fireman walked over and gave them each high fives.  A big thank you to all of our public servants!  This old ladder truck is carrying a sign that says "September 11, 2001 - September 11, 2011.  We will never forget."

 This was the statue we sat by.  It depicts a woman holding on to an American flag and waiting on her loved ones to return home.  It is new since last July 4, so the Marietta Mayor, Chief of Police Department and the Chief of Fire Department all walked up and put flowers in front of it.  The parade also had many current soldiers and veterans marching.  It brought tears to my eyes as everyone applauded for them as they walked by.  So many give so much for our country that there truly isn't a way to say thank you.  As several Vietnam veterans walked by, Lily asked "Why is everyone clapping?"  I could only say "it's to say thank you for all they have done for us."  Thank you to all our military members. 

 Well, Mia, this is as close to Minnie Mouse as we can get right now.  A bunch of clowns came by at one point, and both girls were excited to see a Minnie Mouse puppet with one of them, especially when Minnie blew kisses to them.

There were many small town pageant queens of all ages riding in cars too.  It cracked me up because the girls would wave so big to them and say "There's a princess!"  As one of the girls passed by, her dress was sitting in just the right way to prompt Lily to say "There's a mermaid princess!" to which Mia replied "That's no Ariel Lil!"  Lily finally concluded that they weren't really princesses, but they were just pretend princesses with tiaras on.

We headed out once the parade was over.  Both girls were sweaty (it was really hot outside), hungry (it was lunchtime) and tired (they had both woken up just before 6).  So, we headed to Chick-fil-a to eat and cool down.  After lunch, we went home and the girls helped me make cupcakes.  Please keep in mind, I can follow a recipe very well and make some yummy food, but I thought I would take a chance on a variation and make patriotic cupcakes.  So I made the batter, divided it between the girls and Lily made red cupcakes while Mia made blue ones.  The food coloring wasn't quite right though so they leaned a little more towards bright blue and pink, but hey, we tried right?  After nap time, we frosted them with white frosting and then put cool firecracker picks in that Liz found.  They turned out pretty cute and they taste delicious even if the color is a little off!  Before trying them out though, Lily had the idea to sing Happy Birthday to America, so I grabbed the video camera and recorded that.  This is the link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3DMCWVpfBo&feature=youtu.be) if you want to watch them sing.

Pretty cute, right?

They have played with their parade flags all afternoon.  They have been marching all around the house making their own parades and waving them everywhere.  At one point, I put the Cedermont Kids DVD called "Songs of America" on, and they just marched in a circle around the rug, singing along to the songs and waving their flags.  At the end of each song, they would point the flag at the tv and say "Happy Birthday American!" (not America, but American).  I asked each of them before bed time if they had a good time celebrating America's birthday, and each gave me a resounding "Yes!"  Happy 4th of July!