Delia's 3rd Birthday

I am not a fan of traditional kids birthday parties. Especially when they involve a bunch of germy little munchkins at our house around my brand new baby. Delia's friends (who are all very sweet): she sees them every day at school. Our house: she sees it every day at home. It just sounded like way too much work for me to make it fun. Princesses, pinatas, etc. Last year we took Delia to the Little Rock Zoo for her birthday. She got to visit with her cousins and had a blast. SO, this year she had a cupcake party at school, then on Saturday we went to the brand new Mississippi Children's Museum in Jackson. The grandparents made the short trip from Vicksburg and we had a fun lunch afterwards at the Mellow Mushroom, which Grady said was just enough like a Disney movie to be fun for kids.

The museum had SO many different Mississippi-themed activity areas. Delia drove a tractor,

played dress up,

(she is all about princesses right now)

cooked in a kitchen,

climbed through an obstacle course,

saw the Between the Lions library play area (Mamas, let your kids watch this show on PBS! It is the new Sesame Street and is produced in MS),

played with magnets to make a story,

and played with puppets.

Our friends Amanda and Greg met us there with their girls Mina and Macy. The girls all play so well together!

This giant Scrabble board may have been my favorite (word nerd).

D is for Delia!

Delia ran around and found all the letters of her name all by herself.

Not much for these guys to do, so they found a rocking chair and just chilled. Papa's favorite thing!

At the Farmer's Market area, you could "scan" plastic fruits and veggies and nutritional info would pop up on the screen. Grandma 'Manda helps shop!

They had a big water feature you could play in, but we didn't have time to do everything, so Delia just sat on this big catfish.

You'd better believe we made time for the dancing room, which had costumes and a huge oversized juke box with working buttons that played fun songs.

There was also a "forest" and underground "tunnels" where you could explore and find native Mississippi animals like deer, skunks, owls,

and turtles.

Then on to lunch! Nana brought Delia a Birthday Girl shirt and we immediately got naked at the table and put it on.

Thank you Uncle Gerald and Aunt Sarah for the movies you sent! Delia LOVES them!

Goodies, goodies.

Our friends Truman and Mary live in Jackson so they came out too. Truman loves to hold babies! I told him the one rule of Baby Club was not to let the paci hit the restaurant floor. Guess what happened.

Princess stuff!

Chowing down. That pizza was GOOD.

The Mellow Mushroom people made Delia a yummy birthday brownie plate.

Macy, Amanda, and Mina try just a bite. It was such a fun day! Next post will be all about Brooks, I promise.

Happy New Year - from the Gator Bowl!

Not much sleeping = not much blogging. Here's what we've been up to!

Grandma 'Manda kept BOTH kids so we could run down to Jacksonville, Florida to watch the Bulldogs whoop up on Michigan 52-14 in the Gator Bowl. The weather was fantastic and we had a great time!

We met our friends Kelsey and Adam there, both former students of Grady's and storm chasers.

For New Years Eve we went to a huge MSU party at a place on the river and stayed until midnight to see the fireworks. It was good to get away for a few days! Go Dawgs!

More Snow! and catching up...

We had some HUGE flakes start falling Sunday afternoon. They were the size of cotton balls! Monday morning we woke up to a few inches of sleety icy snow. Enough to close all the schools and most offices. Official snow day!

Grady forecasted several inches of snow, so when we put Delia to bed, we told her that we were going to build a snowman in the morning, and here he is! Miller loved the snow and kept running away with the sticks we picked out for the arms.

Delia sings "Frosty the Snowman" a lot, so she was pretty pumped that our snowman had 2 eyes made out of (char)coal.

Not a pink snowball, just Delia's favorite ball she found on her playground.

"Come play!"

The snow got me feeling all Christmas-y again - I even had a little eggnog last night. So here are some pics from December that I haven't posted yet that seem to be a good fit in this snowy post.

Delia was playing in the leaves one day and she looked so cute in her hat I went inside and got my camera.

Those purple fingernails! Painted by Miss Jasmine, one of Delia's teachers.

One of Brooks' first outings: Breakfast with Santa at our church. His expressions crack me up!

What's better than pancakes, sausage, and Santa?

I think Brooks was only 3 or 4 weeks old here, so I wrapped him in a big blanket in efforts to shield him from kiddie germs that may have been deposited on Santa.

First time on Santa's lap.

Delia's favorite part of the whole thing was the candy cane, which she ate immediately.

One night a few weeks before Christmas, we made gingerbread men, just for fun.

Delia loves to help in the kitchen. Some times I just give her a bowl of flour to stir around and she is so happy to be "cooking."

Thanks to lots of experience with her Play-Doh cutter set, Delia was very good at patting out the dough and cutting the men.

We decorated them with icing, mini M&Ms and raisins.

Proud of her work! We wrapped them up individually and gave them to the kids and teachers in her class.

Gotta try one and make sure they're OK...

Tasty!

At this year's Christmas program, the kids in Delia's class were the angels. I love this class's teachers. They do so much with them every day at school. Delia knows all her letters already! Not just saying her alphabet, but can point out a letter and say "T!" "T is for turtle!" and "S!" "S is for spanking!" (courtesy of Grady)
Precious.

With her good buddy Silas, a rough and rowdy angel!