Mardi Gras

Jack and Spencer, see the parade in the background

My girlfriend took Jack to the Mardi Gras parade across the river.  This is such a different culture here.  The amount of stuff that is thrown from the floats is massive.  And evidently, a lot of it is collected and coveted. There are of course, beads like crazy, and certain types are collected.  Each krewe throws custom stuffed animals and doubloons.

Evidently, if you dress up, they will throw more stuff to you.  Jack and Spencer (Cristi's son) dressed up as knights.

This is the beginning of the parade route.  It is pretty much all local families.  Cristi said these people set up tents and grills and leave their stuff set up for the entire parade season.  The madness occurs downtown in the French Quarter.

The boys up on a ladder.  This is a plain 'ol normal ladder.  You should see some of the extravagent ladders that people make.

The traditional colors: purple (justice), green (faith), and gold (power).  Evidently chosen by Rex.  Why the masks? From what I can tell, it's a Disney type thing, where the krewes are creating a sort of magic by concealing their identity.  It is actually illegal to wear masks here at all other times of year.

Jack and all of his loot

Jack with MOST of the beads on

Beads, Doubloons, Rex, and the Rex Cow

As I was layering all of the beads on, I neglected to figure in the difficulty in removing.  It took a little while, but I managed to get some to fall off his shoulders and the others I just starting flipping from the back of his head to the front.  Good thing he has good sphincter control, because he laughed enough that he could have peed himself :o)

Enjoying the Spring Weather at the Zoo

Audrey Feeding the Ducks

Last week, Bryan and I took the kids to the zoo.  It was a beautiful, sunny day.  We'd been hibernating in the house with a newborn and were getting stir crazy.  We chose a great day, as the temps were in the mid 70s, so it was warm but not too hot.

Ayden really had a great time!  This is my home-made moby wrap.  The fabric cost me about $5 and I had the cute monkey iron-on already.  He must really like the wrap, because he sleeps whenever I put him in it.  Oh, wait, that's all he does anyway!

The zoo has many great places for the kids to explore and play, while the parents sit and relax.  This is a giant sandbox with buried "mayan ruins."  Both kids love to play here every time we visit.

You can tell they had a great time.  All three kids were sound asleep by the time we got home.

January Trip to Florida

Shortly after Christmas, we drove to Florida to visit my parents and grandparents.  It was a lovely trip, only about 12 hours of driving to get there and the weather was great.

The kids played on the beach. . .

And we celebrated Christmas with the family.  My brother even came down to visit with us.  It was a nice relaxing week.  We didn't do much, hence I don't have tons of photos.  But we ate out at restaurants, played on the beach, and Mom, Jack, and I painted pottery.  Oh, and my parents watched the kids one evening so that Bryan and I could go out for dinner to celebrate our birthday.

On the way home, we stopped in Tampa and visited with Becky, Tom, and Elizabeth.  Audrey beat Elizabeth up a little less, but she is still definitely a bruiser!

Catching Up. . . Jack's Birthday Party

Jack wanted to have a lego themed birthday party.  I had a lot of fun preparing all of the elements for the party.  I made a festive table scape by making each kid their own lego placemat.  I used lego scrapbook paper and lego stickers and laminated them.  I then put bowls of legos down the middle of the table with some building directions so that kids could build as everyone arrived.

I also made each kid a party hat out of primary colored cardstock and a lego head cut out.  I decorated the room with primary colored pennants and some little mobile like things.

I kept the activities simple, so that kids could just play for part of the time.  I bought extra wheels and basic blocks so that the kids could build cars and take them home, they also played pin the hat on the lego man.  I made pizza dough and the kids got to make their own pizzas, and of course we had cake.  I tried to make a lego brick cake, but didn't quite leave enough time to make the cake, so it was a pretty messy lego brick.

The kids each took home a little goody bag with a mystery lego mini figure, chocolate lego mini figures, sweet tart lego bricks, lego stickers, their placemats, and the lego car that they created.

All of the kids had a really good time, which was nice since most of the kids didn't know each other.  Jack invited Jordyn and Carissa (sisters from the neighborhood), Spencer (Jack's first New Orleans friend that we met at the pool this summer), Seth (a friend from the homeschool group), and Michael and Anna (siblings from the homeschool group).

Still Alive

February 23, last picture before heading to the hospital

 Ayden James Krohn.  Born February 24, 2011 at 7pm.  7 lbs, 2 oz.  20 inches long.  It was a long labor.  I was induced so that my midwife could deliver the baby.  She was in Haiti when we were due.  I had a cervical ripener at 9pm on the 23rd.  This didn't do much of anything for me, so she started me on pitocin at 7am on the 24th.  The pit gave me mild contractions all day long, but not enough to start labor.  As a last resort, my midwife broke my water at 6pm.  The reason nothing was progressing was because Ayden was "sunny side up."  Breaking my water allowed him to drop down and finally start labor.  An hour later, he was born.

 Audrey and Jack can't get enough of their new little brother.  It is actually a chore keeping Audrey off of him.  She pats his head and says "gentle." She loves to kiss him and play with his feet.  Jack just wants to hold him 24/7 and mention how cute and little he is.

Blogger Changes

Blogger has changed a little bit.  You can now click on the photos and make them bigger.  Only pictures that I uploaded yesterday and from now on are clickable though.  The old pics are still going to be tiny.  I also changed the settings on comments so anyone SHOULD be able to post comments.  But I am not the most tech savy person, so I wouldn't be surprised if you still have problems.  Sorry!

Party Dress

This is a dress that I made for my girlfriend's daughter, Elizabeth.  I am very proud of it, it looks so professional even though I don't own a serger.  All of the seams are either encased in the lining or are french seams.  As soon as I finish all of my other projects, I will be making a dress for Audrey but with different fabrics.  The pattern was quite easy to follow.  If you are interested in the pattern, you can find it here.