Happy Birthday Will!!!

On Sept. 5th, this little guy turned ONE!  I can't believe how fast this past year has flown by and how BIG he has gotten!  For those of you who do not know, this is my nephew, Will.  Is this not the sweetest little face???!! 

 Susan and Jon decided to have his birthday party at the tailgate in Starkville since there was a home game that weekend.  (Poor child...  as big of football fans as his parents are...and also everyone else in his family...he will run into this predicament every single year when it's his birthday!  ha!)

 The minute we arrived, Fisher was already there and ready for Grady to play some football!  Kai and Vera joined in, too! (notice that Vera plays football with her purse...  ha!)

Susan's beautiful cake for the birthday man...

 Grady adores this little guy...and I think the feeling is mutual!

Sweet, precious Harveys!

I think Will was a little excited that all those presents were for HIM!  He had LOTS of help opening everything.  That was the fastest present-opening-experience I've ever seen! ha.

 Vera is always MORE than happy to help anyone open presents...  She's also more than happy to play with other people's gifts!  :)

Time to eat!  Grady, Vera, and Fisher did WAY more socializing than eating!

After lunch, we painted faces for the kiddos!  This pic cracks me up...Look at William in the background, showing where he wants paw prints on his face.  ha ha!

These are two peas in a pod!  SOOOOOO great to see Fisher-man doing so good and so healthy!  He is one super little boy and a walking example of God's awesome healing power!  Loved, loved, loved watching the two of these boys play all day together!

On to the game...  It was Vera's first ever!
Gee, doesn't Grady look excited?!!  Haaaaa!

Hottest game I remember in forever...  It was sweltering!  Felt like 115 degrees!  V. was a little trooper!

And SUCH a responsible little cowbell-ringer, too!

She lasted until the end of the first quarter.  She said she wanted to go back to the tailgate and see DeeDee.  ha!  So we did!  Of COURSE on the way back, we had to stop and snag a flower!

The future generation of "magpies"...  LOVE it!

FUN DAY!  Happy Birthday, Sweet Will!  

and GO DAWGS!

Children's Museum of Memphis

While Josh worked on Monday, the kids and I went to the Children's Museum of Memphis.  We went in January and they LOVED it!  The second trip was just as much fun as the first!  But I missed Josh!  It is hard to chase the two of them around by yourself!  I didn't get as many pics as I wanted to...  But here are a few...

Fed Ex exhibit...  getting the "packages" off the airplane....

Grady flying the plane on the simulator...

My favorite...the Kroger grocery store!  I remember playing in this exhibit when I was a kid!

Vera is all about some SHOPPING!

The dentist office...

Police Motorcycle...

Memphis Zoo

Josh had to work in Memphis on Monday and Tuesday, so we took the kids a day early and went to the Memphis Zoo on Sunday.  We had never been before, but had heard really good things about it.  We were not at ALL disappointed!  It was the best zoo!  We did the New Orleans Zoo last summer and were really impressed.  But I think this one is my new favorite!  The kids had a BALL!

Of course, V. immediately found some flowers and snagged one!

Checking out their penguins...

Getting eye-level with the prairie dogs...

They had a petting zoo area with different farm animals...

Waiting for the sea lion show to begin...  This was really neat!

They had polar bears, grizzly bears, and panda bears!  So impressive!  All three exhibits were so good, too!

Elephants exhibit...

We LOVED the pandas!  A tradition we have in our family is to collect a Christmas ornament from each place we travel to.  Every year when we decorate our tree, it's fun to remember all the places we have been as we unpack the ornaments to decorate with!  We chose a panda ornament from our trip!

I read a book this summer called The One and Only Ivan.  Made me cry!  It's a book I am going to be using in my classroom with my kiddos this year.  So seeing that they had a silverback gorilla was really cool to me!  :)

ICEE break!

Followed by a playground break!  Of COURSE!

They even had komodo dragons!

Me and my fear of lizards...  that was the FREAKIEST lizard I have ever seen!!!!

The China pavilion/exhibit was so neat!

They had scheduled times for feeding/seeing animals all over the zoo.  You could ride camels, feed/pet stingrays, feed giraffes, etc.  We missed the giraffe feeding...hopefully we can do it next time.

Vera has an obsession with zebras...  She met a mascot zebra named Zoe at the Jackson Zoo and ever since, she calls every zebra she sees "Zoe Zebra."  Here she is calling out to Zoe!  ha.

WHOA!  They even had a "Mufasa" lion!  Grady was excited!

We stayed until closing time.  We were one of the last cars in the lot!

Such a fun day!  We will DEFINITELY do this again soon!