The Lee Family: Sofia's Birthday Celebration!

We had a big day planned to celebrate Sofia's 9th birthday! About a week before her birthday I asked what she'd most like to do and she said she wanted to visit the Perot Museum and spend as much time as she wanted at each exhibit. On her birthday morning, we had donuts, scrambled eggs and bacon to get the day started off right. CK headed to the office, so Sofia, Olivia, CK Sr., Connie and I loaded up and headed to the Perot Museum. We arrived around 10:30am and bought our tickets to see the Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure 3D to see it just after lunch. Sofia wanted to see the Eye of the Collector exhibit downstairs first and we enjoyed the different things that people collect, including Pez dispensers, Star Wars memorabilia, semiprecious stones and metals, dolls, Cowboys memorabilia and Beatles collectibles. It was really cool and Sofia and Olivia especially loved the Star Wars memorabilia, which is part of the largest Star Wars collection in the world! After seeing all the collections, we headed into the hall and Sofia asked if they could play in the children's museum play area. Since it was Sofia's birthday, I told her to go ahead and the girls ran ahead into the fun kid area. Sofia set off into the cityscape of Dallas where she sorted bricks and put them down the brick shoots. Meanwhile, Olivia played in the grocery store area and picked out vegetables and returned them to the truck to be sorted. The girls played there for about 45 minutes and then it was time for us to meet CK over at Mesomaya, which we'd agreed to meet at noon. It was particularly hot and humid, so the short walk was exhausting! Once we arrived, it felt great to get inside to the air conditioning! We ended up waiting a while but were eventually sat and enjoy a delicious lunch! I always love Mesomaya!

After saying goodbye to CK, who walked back to his office, we returned to the Perot Museum and Sofia wanted to go up into gems and mineral section which is always her very favorite place to visit. She walked around and enjoyed all the exhibits and then we went into a frack drilling 'ride' which was actually really fascinating to learn how they frack and all the infrastructure that goes into establishing a well. After that we returned to the 1st floor and went to the theater where we watched our 3D movie about sea monsters, which was about pterosaurs. Of course, Sofia loved it! Once the movie was over, we decided to head home so we could be ready for meeting at our house. Once outside we realized that a storm was on its way and the temperature had dropped at least 15 degrees - it felt great. Of course, the girls were dying to splashing in the little river outside the museum. When we arrived, I'd promised that they would be able to get their feet wet before we headed home. Within a few minutes both girls had their shoes off and were rolling around in the river completely soaked! The girls played a bit longer and then we headed to the car. We dropped CK Sr. off at CK's building so they could ride back together while the very wet girls, Connie and I drove home.

We'd originally planned to make Sofia's favorite meal of salmon, homemade baked sweet potato fries and cauliflower, but by the time we got home we decided to order pizza instead and ordered it from Jet's which is delicious! After eating pizza, Sofia opened up her presents. I always buy Sofia's school clothes on-line in July since everything goes on sale. So, part of her gift includes new shirts and skirts, which isn't super exciting as a gift but very well used. Sian and her family gave Sofia a Lego Elves set that included a small dragon, which she loves! They also gave her the Labyrinth game, which looks like a lot of fun. Aunt Cynthia and her family gave Sofia a "Mark My Time" reading timer, a Calvin and Hobbes collection which is a new favorite, and a fairy tale fairy garden set. My sister Becky sent her a Aquarellum painting set which is perfect since Sofia loves painting and any arts and crafts. Sofia's Grandma and Grandpa gave her a really cozy pink and white striped shirt, a pink journal, The Never Girls books, magnet science, & $20 cash. We waited to the end to give her our "big" gift.

Both girls had fallen in love with "mermaid tails" that some girls they know wore to the gym pool months before. They continued to talk about them and wondered how fun they would be to swim in. So, we'd decided to buy both girls the mermaid tails and give them both at Sofia's birthday. I'd wrapped Sofia's in a big box and put Olivia's in a gift bag so they wouldn't know that they got the same thing. We had Sofia open her's first and then let Olivia start opening after Sofia saw exactly what she got! They were SO excited and of course, they both wanted to swim right then! They were able to put their tails on and test them out and they both fit perfectly. They both looked so cute and couldn't wait to try them in the pool.

We put their tails into our bedroom and had Meeting. Of course, after they told everyone about their mermaid tails and showed them off. While they did this, we brought out Sofia's cake which was decorated with dragons, her very favorite thing! We all enjoyed cake and ice cream and celebrated our girl turning 9 years old, which is hard to believe! After, we put both girls to bed with promises of using their new mermaid tails in the pool.

Flowers from Grandma and Grandpa - they smelled so sweet!