Happy Mardi Gras 2012

Little Rascals:  our first parade of the season

For our first parade, we met up with our volleyball friend Isa and her family!  Cassidy was thrilled to meet some new friends at the parade.  She screeched with joy each time she saw another float headed down the road!

Watching for the next float with anticipation!

Too sunny for Daddy

Isa (a friend from volleyball) and her family

Lucy

Maria

Damon

Caesar:  Metairie Parade

Date Night for Muses

We missed Krewe De Vieux this year, but that's okay.  We have a new favorite parade!  MUSES!!!  We had dinner at the Courtyard Grill which was awesome!  It's mediterranean food, but not your typical gyro.  Absolutely delicious and gigantic portions.

The coveted Muses Shoe is the throw that everyone's after during the Muses parade.

And speaking of the coveted Muses Shoe... I caught one! 

Well, I use the word caught quite liberally ... perhaps stole would be more accurate.  I had just finished saying that the chances of my catching a shoe were about as good as my winning the lottery when I saw the ribbon tied bag pass through the air just in front of me.   I missed it  and it landed on the ground near me (there was surprisingly quite a large area with no one standing there.) I didn't hesitate as it passed by me, and as I bent to pick it up, a woman crouched down and had just beat me to it .  I'm ashamed to say I snatched it right out of her hands, stood up, and walked away, admiring my prize with  Gollum-like intensity.  As I walked away, I thought I heard her say, "She took that right out of my hands!" to her friends.  As my conscience caught up with me, I began to feel a bit remorseful about my greed-driven acquisition of my precious.  Since I never even glanced up to see who I had taken it from, I couldn't give it back. When we got home, Jeff reassured me that it wasn't a little kid, which obviously would have been crossing the line.  He said I'm the only person in the world who could go to the Muses parade and feel badly about coming home with a shoe. 

Yep, that's me.

My Precious!

But it is oh, so pretty!

The Rolling Elvi!



And of course... The famous 610 Stompers!!!!
check out their moves below!



Tantrums and Timeouts

Cassidy throws the occasional tantrum... most of the time its when she's earned a timeout for something.  A while back, she had earned a timeout for something or other (I think it was for not listening and refusing to cooperate for bathtime) and we sent her to her room and closed the door.  When I opened the door after the time was up and she was quiet again, she said "Look what I did." 

Destruction during a time out.

It was clear she wasn't sure how I would respond to this by the hesitant way she showed me.  I simply looked at it, choking back my laughter, and said, "That's a big mess."  I turned around and said "time for our bath." 

Bathtime progressed smoothly (as it usually does once she has a bit of time in her room to realize we mean business).  However, after bath and putting on our pajamas in her room, I said "This is so sad.  We can't do anything fun before bedtime because Cassidy has this giant mess to clean up."  Cassidy looked at me and immediately went to pieces.  I sat calmly while she worked on cleaning up her mess until bedtime.  At that point I pushed the remainder off to the side of the room and said she would finish it in the morning. 

When she woke up, we got ready for school without our usual cuddle/book time and she continued picking up and putting away her clothes.  She didn't finish before school, so when we came home from school, we went right into her room to continue cleaning.  (When I say we, I mean she cleaned and I watched and helped only when she needed a bit of guidance.)  When she finally finished, I gave her a big hug, told her she did a great job working so hard to clean up such a big mess, and said we could do some fun stuff after dinner! 

The next morning when Cassidy woke up and we were getting dressed, she looked at me seriously and said, "I'm not going to make that big mess again.  That was hard work to clean up."

She's never done it again! 

Thank you Love and Logic! 

Genius!



Crafts with Mama

Cassidy loves to do crafts.  Our monday nights are spent at the Jefferson Parish Library for story and craft time.  Mama and Cassidy bike there if its warm enough even though its already dark out.  Sometimes we take a spin around the neighborhood to see the Christmas lights too.  (This is actually a pre-Christmas post, but I'm obviously a bit late posting ... I just got around to finishing it now... sorry for thedelay!)

Recently we've started having craft nights at home too!  Cassidy has reached an age now where she can work independently for longer stretches of time so I can do some artwork too!

On this particular night, we made butterfly footprints

and a handprint on top of crayons melted onto a canvas!

We've also put together a responsibility board to start to introduce the idea of personal responsibilities. 

 We put the board together inside a poster frame and each night we cross out the things that cassidy has done that day with a dry erase marker.  Then we just wipe it off when we are done.  She was excited for the first few days about crossing things off the list and she still enjoys doing that each night, insisting on doing it herself.  However, more often than not, she chooses not to make her bed or get dressed herself.  (We are having A LOT of trouble with the dressing ourselves thing.  She refuses to even try.  On days when we don't have to be out the door to work/school, she will eventually work on it herself and succeed with a little help along the way, so we know she's capable ... willing:  not so much.)

I made some Christmas gifts for cassidy's teachers.   This year I used cardboard tubes (empty toilet paper rolls) wrapped in colorful scrapbook paper to make little gift boxes for candy.  I filled each with some Lindt white and dark chocolate truffles and Dove dark chocolates, then attached a fleur de lis ornament to each with a ribbon! 

I also was feeling crafty for thanksgiving when I made these treats for Cassidy's classmates and teachers!  A friend found these on pinterest and passed it along to me!  They were SO CUTE I just had to make them!

Cassidy's Christmas

Christmas at Art and Linda's with friends Althea and River

Cassidy met two new friends, Althea and River (Art's grandchildren) and had a great time playing with them. 

Cassidy and Althea

Cassidy and River

Portrait of Althea and River I did in charcoal for Art's birthday last year..

Christmas at Home

While opening our presents, I was overflowing with pride.  Each time Cassidy read the label on one of her gifts, she stood up and walked over to the person who gave it to her and said a genuine "thank you" before sitting back down to open it.   EVERY TIME!

Trip to Minnesota to visit the K's

For our first couple days, we stayed at a hotel by the Mall of America to finish up some shopping and enjoy the amusement park there!

Cassidy is not quite tall enough to ride by herself yet, but an adult gets to ride free as a chaperone.

We also enjoyed the hotel pool!  Our vacations are the only time Cassidy gets to swim.  After every vacation I say we need to start swim lessons so she can be in the water more....

After our time at the Mall of America, we drove about an hour north to meet up with the rest of the family.  We all stayed in a hotel for the night to celebrate New Year's (which we did not stay awake for.)

Learning to pass a volleyball already!!!!  I'm so proud!



Cousins Justin and Luke



Cousins Jade and Tristan

Bill, Jasmine, Pam, and Jeff

Tristan

Zoe and Jade



The next day, we all took the train back into Minneapolis for the Viking's game!

Aunt Melanie, Uncle Scott, and cousins Luke and Tristan



Aunt Melanie and cousin Luke



Cassidy and Zoe. 
Cassidy's been making funny faces for the camera lately.

Indulging in a carb heavy, but free, continental breakfast at the hotel ...
 mmm, bagel with cream cheese! 
Haven't had one of those since I was pregnant!



Jasmine, Uncle Bill, Aunt Jen, Zoe, Jade, Tristan, and Aunt Pam



Zoe, Justin, Luke, Evan

Uncle Bill and Zoe

After the Viking's game, we made our way back to Mora for our K family Christmas.

Cassidy had a great time playing with her cousins!  She had a little trouble sharing and we had a few meltdowns with full blown tantrums (one of which was caused by jealousy stemming from cousin Zoe sitting on Mommy's lap!)  But overall, it was a great trip as usual!
Thank you all for Cassidy's gifts!  She loves them all and tells us over and over how her cousins gave them to her!
 And thank you, Grandma and Grandpa, for everything ... we had a wonderful time!