The Search for Miss Direction: A muddy trip to where Cotton is King and Dads Zip!

I'm beginning to worry that if they use this first week of summer fun as a measuring stick I'm going to have a lot to live up to with expectations from my twosome. We had another fabulous day in the Hills filled with muddy bread, zippin' dads, duck hunting, colored cotton and some mac and cheese that had southern written all over it! The weather is hot hot hot around here and it can't seem to decide if it's going to rain or not, but we're not letting it slow us down.

We started our morning off by making some Mississippi Mud Bread in the first official Kid Kitchen of the summer. The pictures from this crack me up as Noah insisted on wearing his shades in the house this morning. It was nice to have his help and we're planning on sharing this with my girls tomorrow morning at the MOPS steering meeting we are playing host to. In all honesty, I'm not sure what makes this a bread - I'm kind of convinced it's a brownie in a bread loaf shape. Typical Mississippi, right?

We got the bread done and headed to Novi for our first official concert of the summer! It seems that there is going to be no shortage of options for how to spend our Tuesday mornings as Novi and Northville both have their concert series on Tuesday mornings, the $1 theater is showing a kids movie on Tuesday mornings and, at least for June, there's musical storytime. Well, at least we know rain or shine we're good! I let the kiddos chose this morning between Northville and Novi (since the weather was co-operating) and the hands down winner with Novi to see one of their favorites, Zippity 2 Dads. When it comes to kid music, even I love these guys. So it was a fun trip to Novi this morning. As a side note, I hope I am ALWAYS one of those Moms that gets up, shakes her groove things and has fun with her kiddos no matter what everyone else is doing or thinking. I think I was having just as much fun as the kids.

We got home and couldn't decide if and when it was going to rain so we went on a bit of a duck hunt walk and were rewarded with the Mama and 6 babies going for a swim. (Sorry, forgot the camera yet again). Then it was back here for some lunch, finishing up the bread with its glaze and a little bit of downtime with an episode of Muppet Babies! (A creation of Jim Henson who's from Mississippi) I may have them hooked - well at least the Bean. I know I was singing along with the theme song. Ah, reliving my childhood, gotta love it.

This afternoon we worked on our Mississippi Cotton Project. You may remember from yesterday that we were very busy dying cotton balls. Well today after they had a chance to (mostly) dry out, I set them to creating a one of a kind art piece using the cotton balls. First off, they loved dying and setting out the cotton yesterday. And I enjoyed seeing what they came up with in their art work.

Dinner was something I knew would be a surefire hit around here tonight, Macaroni and Cheese Southern Style. Is there anything like true Southern mac and cheese? I have to admit I was a little leary of this recipe as it actually starts with boxed macaroni and cheese, but all the reviews I read when I had come across it raved about how good it was so I decided to give it a go. I should have known it would have been an incredibly easy sell around here. I also made South Coast Hominy to go along with it.

After dinner we headed off to try to get Noah a new fan for his room. Awhile back one of the blades on his came off, rendering it non-functional. And with the heat looming and not looking like it's going to let up anytime soon (it is summer Kristi, duh!) we figured we should get it taken care of. One more thing to check off the list.

Before I forget - I have super exciting news to share! Michigan week is officially going to rock! I have been doing a TON of research on where I want to take them, and I was so excited to find out that the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City actually starts during Michigan week! So last night I booked all four of us a room in Grand Rapids on the 4th (we're going to spend the day there doing quite a few really cool things) then we'll head up to Traverse City on the 5th, stay in Greyling that night, head back down and hit Frankenmuth on the 6th before heading back to the Hills! That is just the tip of the iceberg for Michigan week though, promise! I can't WAIT!!

MOPS steering tomorrow like I said, maybe Plymouth for lunch and a concert if the weather co-operates and the first family concert held by the library tomorrow night if the weather holds as well. There's been talk of bowling if all else fails, so I'm sure it'll be fun whatever ends up going down. So until then...

Mississippi Fun Fact of the Day: The world's only cactus plantation is located in Edwards with more than 3,000 varieties of cacti (OK, had to use this as it just baffles me about cactus in Mississippi of all places...)