This girl is growing like a weed!  She now focuses on things for long periods of time...she loves her some Baby Einstein videos!  She babbles a ton!  And talk about smiles...she loves to smile!  It's crazy how much she has already changed in just three months!

He did it!  My little brother graduated from Mississippi College Law School!  We packed up the Rogue and headed out on a 10-hour car ride to Jackson.  It was Juliette's first trip out of Florida!  The way there she did great!  She slept almost the whole way.  When she wasn't sleeping she was glued to the tablet watching her Baby Einstein videos.  Once we got into Jackson, we checked into the Cabot Lodge, home of a great complimentary hot breakfast and FREE happy hour adult beverages in the evenings!  Chris and a group of his fellow classmates rented out a cool jazz bar in Downtown Jackson the night before graduation. Yes, we were "those" people that brought a baby to a bar!  The next morning was the actual graduation at First Baptist Church Jackson.  Talk about a HUGE church!  

This was Juliette's first time meeting her Uncle Chris and her Uncle Matt.  I think they both liked her (Who am I kidding?  She's the cutest thing ever...how could you not like her?).

After graduation, we went to the Mississippi Craft Center where artists from all over Mississippi come to sell their goods.  There even was an uber scary hand made baby doll for sale...for $325!   The beautiful baskets are handmade by the local Choctaw Tribe.  They are absolutely beautiful! (I would have loved to buy one, but they were a bit out of my price range! The small baskets (think 5 inches in diameter) started at $80!

We did buy a few things from one of their artists named Elaine Peterson.  Elaine paints intricate objects on gorgeous feathers such as peacock, turkey, duck and more that she collects (from cruelty-free sources!). Here she is starting on one of her designs along with some of the finished products!  Definitely one of the coolest crafts I've ever seen!  Check out her blog (http://feathermore.blogspot.com/) to see some more cool feathers that she has painted.

The next day we headed out to visit the Mississippi Agricultural & Forestry Museum.  For a nominal entry fee of $5, you get to see all kinds of neat things! And we sure do love a good agricultural museum (especially since our first anniversary is coming up...we got married at the Florida Agricultural Museum...which is one of our favorite places!).

Then it was time to pack Chris' apartment up.  It's hard to believe his three years of law school are already over and done.  It seems like yesterday when we were dropping him off...

Here we are in 2010...

And 2013...

It's the start of a new adventure for Chris...he now gets to study for the Kentucky Bar Exam.  Good luck Chris!  We know you will do great things!

Happy 30th to the love of my life and daddy to the cutest little gal there ever was!  We <3 you!

I was reminiscing today about some of my favorite things from growing up.  It'll be interesting to see what things Juliette likes as she grows up  These are some of my favorites...

The Baby-Sitters Club.  How I loved thee.  I still have the entire collection at Grams house.  We'll have to see if we can get Juliette to read them!

Mr. Sketch. I literally still have THREE boxes of them in my desk at work.  I'm still addicted.  And now they have new colors!  My all-time favorite was the Blueberry marker, followed closely by the Cherry.  I think I need to be buried with a box.

Trolls.  I had lots of Trolls.  I'm not exactly sure what I did with them.  But I sure did love them.

Barbie Dream Pool.  OMG.  I cannot imagine my childhood without it.  I think I played with the Barbie Dream Pool just about every day.  Man I wish I could find one to get Juliette now...the exact same model (yes, it would be more for me than her.  She'd learn to love it.).

Blueberry Ice Cream at King's Island.  Had to have it EVERY time we went to King's Island.  Next time we go, I'm getting me some.

Dinosaurs.  Great show.  My dad LOVED this show.  It makes me happy to think about him watching it.

Care Bear Cloud Car.  This thing was great.  It "wobbled" like it was really trying to be a cloud when you drove it.  So cool.

Ecto Cooler.  We drank a lot of this stuff.  It was GOOOOOOD! 

Pogo Ball.  I spent many hours in the driveway on this thing.  They need to come up with an adult version.  Could be a really fun way to lose weight!

Love's Baby Soft.  Yeah, I wore it.

Hypercolor.  I had a few shirts.  This one I found on-line just doesn't seem right.

L.A. Gear High Tops.  Wow.  They are really ugly, but back then I thought I was so cool.

Ice Capades Barbie.  I loved every Barbie.

McDonald's "Drive Through".  I think the 'rents bought this for my little brother. I know I played with it probably more than he did.  It was awesome!  

So many great toys from the 80's and 90's!  I could go on and on!  

Next up...Josh's Childhood Favorites (he doesn't know that he's my next blog post...he will when he reads this!).

Yesterday was Derby Day!  Derby Day for us usually means getting the rain gear out, packing up the cooler and heading to the infamous infield at Churchill Downs.  This year, we did not venture to Kentucky so we had a Derby Birthday Party for Josh.  I woke up to a leaky kitchen sink that decided to leave an inch of water everywhere.  Thankfully, we were able to clean it up before it got too bad (and stick a bucket underneath...anyone know how to fix a garbage disposal?).  Juliette was not a fan of wearing her Derby hat.  It lasted all of two minutes.  All of out closest friends came out on a not-so-pretty-with-lots-of-rain kinda night.  A crazy scary storm dropped a few inches of rain in a matter of minutes (totally a guess on how much, but it was a crapload). The storm got so bad that it knocked out power for over five hours.  We had a good time even without power!  Thanks for coming out friends!

Josh sent this picture to me today while I was at work.  Talk about an instant mood booster!  Man, I love this little girl!

And this rain we've been getting the past day or so is no joke!  It's been non-stop...and coming down hard.  I took a couple pictures of it on my way to work...

All of the cow fields near our house look like ponds!  At least we can turn off our sprinkler system for a week or so!

And the fort, Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, (https://www.facebook.com/CastilloNPS) has a moat again!   Stay dry my friends!

p.s. It's Derby Day tomorrow!  Wooooooooo hoooooooooo!

I found this on someone else's blog (www.scarymommy.com). It's called "50 Reasons to NOT have a baby."  It's quite humorous because there are a number of them that I can relate to in this moment in time!  And if you read my previous post...#37 makes this lady's list too!

1. Throwing up in the kitchen sink because you just can’t make it to the bathroom.

2. Stretch marks on top of stretch marks.

3. Not being able to wear your wedding ring because your fingers have morphed into sausages.

4. Sex with a fetus in the middle.

5. Cankles.

6. Not having your period, but having to still wear a pad.

7. Not recognizing yourself in the mirror.

8. The ninth month of pregnancy.

9. Childbirth.

10. The placenta.

11. Taking that first poop after delivery.

12. The dried out, ready-to-fall-off umbilical cord.

13. The aerobic workout that is installing an infant car-seat.

14. Running out of wipes at the worst possible moment.

15. Being on the receiving end of endless and unwanted advice on everything involving your baby.

16. Using a breast pump.

17. Writing thank you notes for baby gifts when you can barely see straight.

18. Realizing that the baby weight isn’t, in fact, going to melt off.

19. Living in fear that you will wake that baby who took, OMG seriously, an hour and a half to put to sleep.

20. Cutting teeny, tiny, paper thin fingernails.

21. Obsessively checking to make sure the baby is breathing when he or she is finally soundly asleep.

22. Vaccinations.

23. Worrying that the baby’s floppy head might actually fall off.

24. Rectally taking temperatures.

25. Sore nipples.

26. Keeping the right size diapers stocked.

27. Keeping the diapers on.

28. Being incapable of having conversations with other adults.

29. Schlepping an infant carrier everywhere and developing uneven bicep muscles.

30. Feeling like the worst parent in the world for not obsessively filling out baby book pages.

31. Projectile vomit.

32. Not being able to soothe a screaming baby in a backward facing seat because you are concentrating on not wrapping your car around a tree, but at that moment it sounds like a fine way to put you out of your misery.

33. Sterilizing bottles.

34. Searching in the middle of the night for a lost pacifier, like it was a million dollar lottery ticket.

35. Spit up covered shoulders.

36. Accepting that your feet aren’t actually returning to their original size.

37. Baby Einstein videos.

38. Not being able to turn your head because you fall asleep night after night in the rocking chair.

39. Sleep deprivation.

40. Fearing that the baby might prefer someone – anyone – to you.

41. Baby prunes, chicken and rice and squash.

42. Teething.

43. Ear infections.

44. The dreaded six week postpartum checkup.

45. Explosive diarrhea.

46. Maneuvering a stroller around a store not built for strollers.

47. Changing crib sheets.

48. Trying on your pre-baby jeans for the first time.

49. Having no idea why your clean, fed and burped baby is screaming his or her head off for hours on end.

50. The fact that babies turn into… kids.

Juliette changes each day.  This past week she has found her left thumb.  She likes to try to suck on it...but somehow her whole hand is in her mouth.  We are wondering if she could possibly be a lefty?  She also smiles when you talk to her.  It's one of the best things in the whole wide world!  No, wait. It IS the best thing in the whole world!  She really is just the sweetest baby.

Josh has started her on the "Baby Einstein" videos.  For the entire 30 minutes, she sits entranced watching them.  I have personally tried to watch them and can only last about five minutes.  If you ask me, they are awful.  But man, this kid LOVES them.  Check her out...

She's cute...and she knows it.

We love going to the Kentucky Derby!  This is the first year we are not going, but we are having a Kentucky Derby Birthday Party for Josh!  Daddy is turning the big 3-0!  Here's a look at the last three year's worth of Derby fun!