Mardi Gras Mambo

This past weekend was a monumental first for my little chickadees. After talking about going for years, we finally bit the bullet and made our way down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras 2012. Because nothing says fun like being trapped in an overloaded car for 9+ hours with 5 little children, right? Hahahaha.

We've been planning on going to Mardi Gras this year for a few months now. The kids had never been, Scott had never been, and I hadn't been back since I left for BYU over a decade ago. With Mardi Gras falling the day after President's Day this year, and the kids having a 4 day weekend anyway, we decided to seize the opportunity and make it an all-out vacation! And was it the most fun vacation any of the kids could have ever hoped for?? You better believe it. And we have the pictures to prove it!

But before I go any further I think I need to clear a few things up -- Mardi Gras is not the complete and total den of moral depravity that popular culture makes it out to be. Are there plenty of people who are drinking and partying? Sure. BUT, there are also tons of families, kids, and other sober people (like us) who join in the fun and celebration of the holiday and manage to have just as good a time. :) Even the missionaries from our church were allowed to go to a parade on Mardi Gras day! I know Scott got quite a few quizzical looks from people at work when he told them where he was going, but believe it or not it is possible to have a good time (and catch lots of beads) without being drunk.

Without further adieu, I present "the best vacation EVER"...

To start, you know it's going to be a looooooong drive when you're already stopping for food and to get out of the car after only an hour and half of driving, right? Hahahaha. Unfortunately, that's just happens when you travel with 5 kids ages 8 and under. Poor little Alex probably had the roughest time on the trip. His tolerance level maxed out at about 2 hours of being trapped in his carseat before he would start fussing and crying and causing Ethan to scream things like "He's so annoying!!!" and "Why won't he stop crying????" before burying his head [Ethan that is] in his pillow and freaking out some more. Hahaha. As a result we had to pull over and stop a few more times on the trip before finally making it to New Orleans on Friday night. The trip should have taken about 9 1/2 hours and ended up taking 12. I know you wish you were with us.

My mom and Jacob so graciously welcomed us home and spoiled us rotten while we were there. We are no longer a small group and between me, Scott, the kids, and all our stuff, we kind of took over the whole apartment. So, thank you mom for putting up with us -- especially the kids' occasional (and not so occasional) lapses in good behavior for the 5 days we were there!

It poured almost all day Saturday, but Sunday was beautiful and after going to church in the morning we headed over to Thibodaux to visit my mom's side of the family. My aunt had a gathering at her house which just so happened to be up the street from where a parade was going on. Now, normally we never went to parades on Sundays growing up, but since it was just down the street and they didn't get to do any parades the day before because of the rain, we let the kids go on down with my aunts and uncles and cousins for their first taste of Mardi Gras. Don't judge. Hahahaha. Everyone was SOOO nice to them and caught them all kinds of junk. Grace was pretty much in heaven.

My Paw-Paw was so cute playing with Alex on the floor.

Monday was another beautiful day and we spent the morning driving around town looking for "Bead Dogs" to take pictures with. Scott and I headed over to Camellia Grill for my BLT and chocolate freeze fix for lunch, and that afternoon we headed over to the parade route to get set-up for the evening's floats. Our church building is right on St. Charles Ave and the parades pass right in front of it which is awesome for both parking and bathroom purposes! :)

















It was so fun seeing some of our good family friends at the parade. The kids were especially excited about the ladders that the Gruwells had brought for them to use. Even though the evening was a bit chilly, everything else was practically perfect!

"Throw me something, Mister!"

Street peddler selling more junk.

On Tuesday morning (Mardi Gras day), we headed off bright and early to stake out our spots in front of the church. After getting set-up, we went for a walk along St. Charles for a little people-watching and picture-taking of all the cool costumes along the route. I don't know why exactly people dress up, but it's been a tradition for as long as I can remember. Not everyone is in costume, but enough are that it makes it a lot of fun!

I loved this little clown -- I think I remember my brother Freddie dressing up like a clown when he was a kid for Mardi Gras. :)

This lady made their costumes which were AMAZING!

I'm not sure why, but a little group of girls stopped us to talk to Jane. Hahaha.

Here you can see Ethan and Grace's lingering attitude after fighting over who would get to sit in the ladder that day.

Still not quite over it.

And still not over it.

Before the parade started that morning we had another little dose of fun with a dislocated elbow on Jane. Wait, what? Yeah. Never a dull moment! Hahaha. Ethan and Jacob were swinging her by her arms apparently and then when they brought her over to me she was holding her arm, not moving it, and crying. I didn't know what had happened at the time and didn't realize it at first until Scott pointed it out. It seemed like it was her wrist that was hurting her, but in the end it turned out to be a case of "nursemaid's elbow." I was worried that the whole day would be ruined before it really started with a trip to the hospital, but luckily Jacob and Scott were able to track down a medical student from church who was able to pop it back into place for us! Whew -- thank goodness!

Nursing a Pop-Tart.

The rest of the day was spent going back and forth across the street from the parade to the church where the ward was having their annual Mardi Gras barbecue with hamburgers and sausage from the Bourgeois Meat Market (the market that has been in my mom's family for generations). Mmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmm. SO good. So, so good. It brought back so many memories being there! It was so fun to be with family and to see friends from back home. Although, it was kind of crazy that my small little Uptown Branch that I grew up in is now a real ward (the New Orleans 1st Ward) and I don't know most of the people in it! All in all it was a vacation to remember. :)

Just doing a little missionary work. :)

And I guess you can see who won out over the ladder. Poor little first-born. Poor little lamb. Hahaha.

At the barbecue.

The leftover bucket of beads. This was after the kids had already taken out a huge bag of their favorite beads and trinkets to take home with them!

The trip back home was thankfully a little bit shorter than the going, and Jane got 5 gold stars for making hardly a peep during the whole 9+ hours. The older children responded quite well to outright bribery and each earned 10 dollars for "good" behavior on the drive home. In closing, my mom really deserves a million thanks for hosting us all while we were there. She was definitely the hostess with the most-est! We promise not to overrun you every year, but we just might make Mardi Gras an occasional family tradition while we're still close enough to drive! :)

To Do, To Do, To Do

So, we've had a LOT going on. In no particular order we've weathered the following:

* lots and lots and lots of doctor's appointments
* not a lot of sleep
* musical bedrooms with the kids
* a birthday (Sophie) and a benchmark (Alex - 6 months old!)
* school performances
* our first Pinewood Derby
* Ethan's surgery
* and some New Year's resolutions recorded in the kids' new dream books/journals

And that's just to name a few things. We've been busy!

I don't have any visuals of the journal entries, but my personal favorite was in Grace's where she drew a picture and recorded the following dream: "Be great with babes." [babies is what she was trying to spell]. She also wants to finish reading the entire Judy Moody series this year, get a dog, have fun at school, get lots of sleep, stay on "scejwol" (schedule), make new friends, take care of her stuff, watch "16 wishes," and never watch "The Cat in the Hat." Hahahaha. How cute (and thorough) is she? Ethan is planning on finishing the Harry Potter series this year as well as the Book of Mormon. And yes that is on odd juxtaposition of reading material. Hahaha. He also wants to run a 5K and learn how to play some hymns on the piano. Sophie just wants to learn how to read chapter books and we all want Jane to get potty-trained. The kids chose Alex's dreams as well, and the dreams we have for him include sleeping through the night and learning how to crawl (and sit up and walk). My dream for the year also includes sleeping through the night as well as making it to my Lifetime membership goal for Weight Watchers. As for Scott -- well, Scott's dream is to audition for Jeopardy. 2012 is going to be a banner year!

In other news, we've been trying to figure out sleeping and bedroom arrangements for the kids for the last few months. After some shuffling around and then some more re-shuffling we have finally settled on the following: Ethan and Sophie are sharing the bunk beds in Ethan's room; we found a toddler bed for Jane and have moved her into Grace's room; and we've FINALLY moved the little fella out of our bedroom and into the crib that Jane is no longer occupying. We've had a few rough nights with the transition from crib to bed for the little Sugar Pop, but I'm hoping all those kinks will be worked out shortly. Especially since that little rat has decided she no longer wants to take a nap for me. What this means is that from about 3 o'clock until bedtime every day she is a melting down mess of a monster. The only time she does fall asleep during the day is if we're in the car driving somewhere during certain key (and therefore dangerous) times of the afternoon. The problem with these catnaps is that they recharge her battery just enough that she won't go to sleep when it's time for bed! Needless to say, we're all suffering from a little sleep loss over here.

Grace and Jane's "new" Room

Doctor's appointments have also played a prominent role in the last month and a half. The kids seem to like getting sick when Scott goes out of town, so we dealt with that for a few days at the end of January. And then Jane also had a mystery rash for a few days after that. Fun times. Ethan had surgery at the beginning of February and had a much quicker recovery time than Grace (prompting him to complain that it wasn't fair that Grace got out of doing chores for so much longer than he did). And then there were the allergists appointments scheduled for the 4 younger ones a week or so after that. Jane and Grace went in together for one of the appointments and Sophie and Alex went in together for another.

Jane and Grace are both allergic to tree nuts, and Jane is also allergic to peanuts and eggs. They both have eczema and they both were an absolute nightmare to deal with while we were there. The appointment was for first thing in the morning and I didn't realize until the doctor was in talking to us and Jane was FREAKING out for her bottle that I don't think anyone had gotten her any breakfast much less her morning hit of milk. Nice. Hahaha. I don't know what Grace's problem was, but she certainly wasn't helpful in calming Jane down. In fact, she was doing everything she could to rile her up even more. It was not fun.

(unrelated to her appointment, but here's a picture of Jane with her mystery rash.)

Sophie is still allergic to tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, and dairy. When they did her skin prick test, her back was literally covered in welts. She was screaming and freaking out the entire 15 minutes we had to wait for the test to develop. And I'm sure you can imagine what she was like when they had to take her blood for the RAST test a little while later. I brought Alex in to confirm my suspicion that he is also allergic to dairy. A couple of months ago when Jane kissed him on the forehead with her mouth covered in milk his skin broke out into hives. Since the same thing happens to Sophie when milk touches her skin I thought an allergy might be the culprit. They didn't test him for anything else, but his skin prick test was definitely positive for the dairy. :( I guess it's a good thing I've never tried giving him formula. That probably would not have ended up so well! Between all the kids' allergies, though, we have about 5 EpiPen, Jr.'s hanging around the house so I think we're pretty well covered in case anything were to happen.

(superfluous shot of this little cutie pie)

In more exciting news, Ethan had a lot of fun participating in his very first Pinewood Derby for cub scouts. Unfortunately, the Derby took place on a Friday night when all the rest of the kids were still sick so Scott was only one able to witness his middle-of-the-pack runnings.

I know you'll find this REALLY hard to believe, but Ethan designed and created his car all by himself. Hahahaha. [It's supposed to be an iPod in case you're wondering.]

Grace treated us to a performance last week at school with the 1st and 2nd grades to Dr. Seuss's "My Many Colored Days." It was adorable. And I really would have loved to have been able to enjoy it. However, Jane had other plans. I spent most of the time chasing after Jane while juggling Alex as Sophie and Ethan sat and watched the afternoon performance. I don't know how it's not illegal, but the kids' school has no ramps and is completely un-stroller (and certainly un-wheelchair) friendly. This makes it REALLY hard, if not impossible, to ever go to the school when I have to drag the little ones along as well! Without being able to strap Jane in, it was pretty much a lost cause. Nevertheless, I was able to get the gist of Grace's performance and it was a really cute and fun production. Grace really enjoyed being a part of it.











This past weekend was when our month peaked with Sophie's 5th birthday. I let her have a friend party this year and she invited 3 little friends from preschool and the other 3 kids from her Primary class. For her party, we went with a Valentine theme -- it's always the easiest route to go. Hahahaha. I found some cute Valentine-y stuff at JoAnn's and an idea on Pinterest to create roses out of coffee filters to create decorations for the party. On the agenda was musical chairs, decorating sugar cookies, opening presents, and eating strawberry shortcake. And yes, Scott and I did look at each other about 5 minutes into her hour and half long party and realize that we didn't have NEARLY enough planned to fill all that time. Hahahahahahaha. Hahaha. Everything worked out fine in the end and Sophie had a really fun time. Not to mention she totally scored in the present department. All in all, though, I'm glad that we have an understanding in our family that friend birthday parties will not happen every year.

Here she is modeling the super cute apron that my sister Emily made and sent her for her Birthday!


The Decorations:

Treat Boxes to put the decorated sugar cookies in.

Party Favors

(Random side-note -- Sophie has a thing for "centerpieces." Hence the bowl of extra "roses." Hahaha.)

The cleanest this Dining Room has looked in a LONG time.



Musical Chairs:

The Whole Party:

Sugar Cookie Time:

Presents:

Cake Time:

And finally, Alex has hit the half year mark! Can you even believe it?? I know I can't. I tried to do a photo shoot for him on the 13th, but the weather was really cold (for like the first time all winter) and he was not super cooperative in the whole looking-at-the-camera thing. Oh well, I'll get him another time! Other milestones he's hit thus far are: rolling from back to tummy and then from tummy to back over and over again all around the room -- he's one roly-poly little boy! He has also cut his bottom two teeth and entered the brave new world of solid foods in the form of Rice Cereal. I buzzed his head a few weeks ago to get rid of some of his scraggly baby hairs, and his bald little head is the cutest little fuzzy thing ever. Even though he didn't have a whole lot of hair to start off with, he is REALLY a baldy now. Hopefully it will start growing in soon.

Alexander Nicholas -- 6 months old

Well, I think that's that. And that's enough, don't you think? Hahaha. We still have one more item on our to do list, though, as we are leaving tomorrow morning to go down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras! I'm so excited. The kids have never been, and I haven't been back for it since I left for college. We haven't been to New Orleans since we moved here a year and a half ago, so it will be fun to go home and see family and friends. Once we get back the month's not quite over until my birthday is celebrated on the 28th. It's my Double Sweet Sixteen and I plan to celebrate accordingly! Hahahaha. Until next time, here are some pics of the kids playing in the only good snowfall we've had this season...