Happy Birthday Cassidy!

Cassidy is 3 years old! 

 Can you believe it?  I certainly can't. 

We had a little surprise party for her, keeping it small with just Mommy, Daddy, Nana, and Papa.  Next year we're planning to have a party somewhere, maybe a bounce house or the zoo, and invite her classmates.

While Nana and Papa took Cassidy to the library and breakfast, Daddy and I decorated with balloons, streamers, and Dora decorations.

Cassidy was a bit overwhelmed when she first walked in, but quickly turned into all smiles as she saw the Dora decorations and the presents.

We had a Dora cake and cupcakes!

For her birthday, Cassidy got a train (which unfortunately didn't work and had to be returned), a Vtech V Reader (which as it turns out seems to have a broken SD drive, so it, too, will need to be exchanged), clothes, a baby doll, and an Artist easel with various art supplies. 

A surprise package also arrived in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa with some new books!  Cassidy's new favorite is an animal alphabet book which we read every night and morning which came with a poster which we hung up on her bedroom wall.

Growing Up

She's riding her bike.

In more ways than one.

She's riding her scooter.

She's "reading" to her class.

I have been waiting to put these jeans (in the video) on her for about a year now. 

They are a 24M size. 

We put them on one morning this week and I thought "FINALLY, they fit!"  And we sent her off to school in them.  When we picked her up, we found out they don' t fit so well.  They are fine as long as she is standing still.  But whenever she moves, they fall down around her hips, barely being held up by her underwear, and showing off her little 'plumber butt'. 

Our girl is tiny, but she's growing up so fast!

Saturday at Cool Zoo (Two Weeks Ago.)

We LOVE the cool zoo! 

And we love it even more since our trip to Milwauke and our real introduction to water slides.  Until then, Cassidy was too upset by all the water splashing on her way up to the slides to really enjoy them.

On this trip to the zoo, she strategically sat and waited until the alligator had dumped the bucket of water before making her way up the steps to the slide of her choice.

Her favorites were the tunnel slides which surprised me since they are quite dark and pretty fast!

She's still to little to do the slides by herself.  Mostly I think because she can't get out of the bottom of the slides on her own.  We didn't send her down alone this time around.   She tends to prefer to go down slides backwards on her belly, so I'm not sure how that'd work out with the flowing water at the bottom of the slides. 

 Maybe we'll try it next time and see how she does

Mississippi's Newest Residents

It's official... Mom and Dad are residents of Mississippi! 

The condo in Wisconsin is no longer theirs.  Their cars have Mississippi plates and they have their Mississippi driver's licenses. 

We spent labor day weekend with them in McComb in our first pseudo-evacuation for Tropical Storm Lee.  We really didn't need to leave, but we had been planning to go visit over the weekend anyway, so we just extended our stay from Friday through Monday afternoon.  As it turns out, we didn't even lose power at our house or have any seepage of water under the doors (we were concerned because the patio often floods in everyday thunderstorms). 

Here are a few pictures of Mom and Dad's house in McComb as they are getting settled in.

Notice the cabinets --- this is the "before" picture.



Mom didn't like the cabinet doors with the transparent glass.  My original plan was to install some stainded glass behind the clear glass, but I found out the sheets of glass this large would be quite expensive.  In addition, we decided the added weight of the glass would cause more problems with the hinges pulling out (already a problem).  So I found this glass coating at Lowe's!!!!





Thanks for a great weekend Mom and Dad.  We're looking forward to MANY more!!!!