The Butterfly Garden at the Aquarium

Today we visited the Tennessee Aquarium and had lots of fun...enough for 2 days! The top of the Aquarium is where the Butterfly Garden is located. Katie was so excited to go to that part that she wore a shirt with a butterfly on it, a butterfly purse, and butterfly wings on her back!
Here is Katie holding a butterfly! It was a fuzzy one called an owl something b/c of the big false eye on its wings.
Katie and Ben were able to get this blue morpho butterfly (at least that's what we think it is ~ that's what the one on Diego looks like!)
This is Ben transferring the butterfly to Katie's hands off the screen window at the Butterfly Garden!
And I just thought these pictures were really cool shots of the butterflies we took today.

What a Beautiful Day

Today is my 34th birthday and it was a beautiful one! I got to spend the day with my family and friends, (the Schumachers are in town visiting us this week!) so what could be better? I got to talk to far away family and for my text-savvy friends, (you know who you are) yes I got your messages but I don't know how to write you back! Thank you!
We visited the Creative Discovery Museum downtown and had dinner at the Olive Garden. Great times!!

Camden and me before dinner
All of us during dinner!
Camden, calming down outside (you would never know she was so wiggly she couldn't be contained inside the building just prior to this photo!)
Lane giving Camden sweet kisses!
Katie, me, Tricia, and Lane with Ben's famous red-velvet cake
Camden at the very first exhibit at the museum: Splash Zone!

Katie and her Clifford puppy dog ears
Lane and Katie play the piano
Camden's latest expression: "Oh!"
All of that was too much fun for this little one. She conked out as soon as we were in the car!
Like I said, it was a beautiful day!

Sweet Treats!

My friend Paloma and I have known each other since middle school. She moved away to Pennsylvania for high school and we saw each other in 1990...and then not until this year! (We both still look the same, so it doesn't really seem like that much time has gone by...) Here we are in Chicago in January at Giordano's when she came to visit for a weekend. Last night we got a package delivered and we didn't know who had sent it! When we opened it, we found this box...on ice!

And here's what we found when we opened it...yummy goodness!

2 layers of it!!!
Katie selected a chocolate shell with a chocolate pearl in it to top her mint chocolate chip ice cream after dinner. See the excitement on her face!

MMMmmmmmm...yummy chocolatey goodness. Thank you, Paloma!