ehhhhhhh, Mardi Gras!

We don’t really “do” Mardi Gras. No parades. No purple, gold & green decorations. Nothing. Well maybe some king cake, but that’s it!

gasp!

Yes, it’s true…all you fellow Louisianian readers whose heads just exploded from reading that audacious statement. How is it possible that we live in Louisiana and NOT like Mardi Gras?!  It’s just not our thing, I guess. I can’t explain it.

Well, yes I can, but forgive me in advance because all you Mardi Gras lovers won’t like what you’re about to read. Let it be known that you were forewarned.

I just don’t get the point of waving your hands in the air, screaming “throw me something, mister!” – the ‘something’ being a piece of useless plastic garbage the likes of a cheap toy or purple/green/gold beads. Even if you don’t go to ‘catch’ anything, making the plastic garbage argument a moot point, the crowds are still too big and the music is still incredibly loud and obnoxious for my comfort and taste. Not to mention all the garbage that liters the street after a parade! I can’t stand to see it…so much so that I try to avoid Main Street all together during the two and a half weeks of Mardi Gras. The entire parade route looks like this!

What would the crying Indian think? I bet he wouldn’t be so fond of Mardi Gras either. So it ain’t just me! 

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It’s just not my kind of party. And that’s exactly what it is…a free party for folks to go nuts before the Lenten season begins (a ritualistic 40-day fasting…a Catholic thing) Here’s an explanation for those unfamiliar.

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Look, I get that it’s tradition and that I shouldn’t be such a party pooper….

…which is why I got over myself and brought my babies to a parade tonight. A parade. Singular.

…just like we did last year, so Jack could experience his very first parade. I guess you could call this Molly’s first parade too, I was 8 months pregnant. 

Yep, I remember that night very clearly. We stayed for all of 30 minutes before I had a severe panic attack after a bass drum stick [from one of the local marching bands] got swang too close to my precious baby’s head. F-that! We’re out!

But this year, he was a year older and I knew he would appreciate his mother putting her silly fears and hangs up about the stupid Mardi Gras tradition aside so that he could put HIS hands in the air for what is, in his opinion, the best thing since Christmas morning!

And because I don’t mix my camera with crowds, cell phone pictures will just have to do.

He sure did put his hands in the air and probably batted his sweet little eyes at the ladies riding on the floats because he got something from every single float! A baby at a parade is like a single guy with a dog at a park…bait! The ladies can’t resist them and boy did he rack up! It’s just the nature of the beast. Don’t judge.

By the time we got home, he’d forgotten about the big bag full of beads and goodies we left in the car so after he went to bed, I laid it all out for him on the living room floor so when he wakes up in the morning his face will be sure to light up. Ok, so Mardi Gras is starting to look up. Free entertainment/toys for your two year old, you can’t beat it!

As for Molly, she snuggled up with my dad. Like her Mama, she didn’t really “get” what all the fuss was about.

You know, it wasn’t so bad after all. When the babies are involved, it’s hard not to have fun when they’re enjoying it so much. By they, I mean Jack because like I said…he was the only one that cared. This year at least. I’m sure both of them will be on each of our shoulders next year screaming “Trow me sumtin’, misser!”

doesn’t Jack’s “bangs” look like the cutest little old man moustache!?!

See, if we wouldn’t have gone to that silly parade, I wouldn’t have this blurry, overexposed cell phone picture that I LOVE SO MUCH! He doesn’t have to go to work tomorrow because around these parts, Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday, is a holiday.

YAY for yet another bit of silver lining!

Happy Mardi Gras, Everyone!

Thanks, Converse!

As I’m sure you can tell by looking at my longstanding blog header, we are a family that loves a good, classic pair of Converse Chuck Taylors. They come in a multitude of colors both classic and unique. They are so light and comfortable and they last forever! The brand has be around since the early 1900’s and I think that says a lot.

This is my current collection:

I got my first pair, the red high tops, as a gift on my 16th birthday. They are special to me. I may never get rid of them no matter how ratty they get. The blue ones are my go-to shoe…second to my all-time favorite, my Reef flip flops. But this blog isn’t about the flippies. Focus, Lacey! Back to Converse. Like I said, they’re durable and last forever…typically. I did have to replace the monochromatic black low tops once back when I was in college because I wore them every day when I worked retail in the mall. They couldn’t keep up with all the miles they were getting, I guess. Do the monochromatic high tops look familiar to you? Remember Benny ‘The Jet’ Rodriguez and the shoes he wore that were guaranteed to make you run faster and jump higher? Yep….that’s them! If you don’t know who Benny ‘The Jet’ Rodriguez is…pessshhh! Google yaself an education on one of the best cult classic movies evuh and then rent it!

Jack has been wearing his baby-sized chucks since he was a wittle bitty baby – though oddly enough, this is one of the only pictures I can find of him wearing them. Weird. He’s barefoot in 99.9% of his pictures. 

As you can see in the header, everyone has a pair but the youngest lady of the house.

until now!

Molly girl and her brother both got a brand spankin’ new pair of chuck taylors today - to grow out of in record times I’m sure. We don’t mind. There’s no question or debate about it. They will each always have them in every new size they grow into. It’s basically a necessity in this family.

Molly is already quite fond of them. <3 She thinks they look fabulous…and taste GREAT too!

Could someone PLEASE tell me why they don’t make sparkly zebra print chucks in MY size?! GEEZ!

Looks like we will have to reshoot her quarter of the header so she matches the rest of us. There’s an expected 90% chance of rain this weekend so it may be a few more days until it gets changed OR if I’m feeling creatively juicy, I may put a spin on it and do it indoors with all of us included. Who knows? I typically like to leave things alone when something is already working just fine. I rarely make changes to my current blog design because I say…if it works, it works! {plus I hate dealing with html coding….bleh!} BUT! I simply must make an exception this time an update that outdated header because Molly’s sweet little toesies look so dang cold compared to ours! She has officially joined our Converse-wearin’ pack!

OH, Maw-dee! Congratulations! You’re a big girl now!

9 months+

At 9 months old, she…

• prefers table food over baby food
• can walk as long as she can hold on to something
• sleeps at least 12 hours a night
• has recently discovered that bibs come off when pulled on hard enough…and she insists they come off at every meal. My guess is she thinks they don’t match her outfits.
• says ‘da-da-da’….A LOT!
• is very friendly and smiley.
• she really enjoys a riveting game of peek-a-boo
• will also respond to Maw-dee, Mah-ee, Molly-girl, Honey, Honey-girl, and/or McMolson.
• drinks from a straw or sippy cup
• must be cuddled for at least 15-20 minutes after she wakes up, in the morning or after a nap [we don’t mind, of course]
• has been teething for at least four weeks - those front two chompers just won’t come through!
• will head-butt you if you let your guard down. She apparently thinks this is hilarious!
• is the wiggliest wiggle worm you’ve ever seen when you’re trying to change her diaper. It almost takes two people.
• can finally withstand a car ride longer than 15 minutes without melting down
• wears a size 3 diaper and shoes somewhere between sizes 2 & 3
• is pretty awesome…and by association makes us pretty cool too just by being her parents

We love you our sweet, honey girl!

Randomness out of boredomness.

I recently organized my container cabinet with containers for my containers. ooohhhh, all this container talk….SO SEKSY!

I find myself opening this cabinet to take a quick peak all the time…just because.

The ball pit has now turned into a ball/snake pit thanks to Oriental Trading.

One thing I’ve learned…Molly, just as I expected she’d be, is WAAAAAAAY MORE EMOTIONAL than her male sibling counterpart. When she’s pissed, SHE. IS. PISSED! It’s actually kinda cute. How can such a itty bitty baby body contain all that raw emotion? Apparently it doesn’t. It leaks right out of the face!

Even with ALL that bed, the boy insists on sleeping on his pillow and ONLY the pillow. hhmmmm

-L

We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Fact: I have NEVER left my babies for longer than a few hours at a time.

Fact: Currently, I am in Williston, North Dakota, 1,800 miles away from my babies – day 2 of a five day trip.

Why? 

Let me start from the beginning with a ‘long story short’ explanation. Bobby manages the manufacturing branch of his family’s business. Ok, so how does that bring me to Williston, ND? Well, Williston is currently experiencing an oil boom and is in need of the services my husband’s company provides. It was brought to my attention about two months ago that we may have to soon move our little family cross country – to be more exact…50 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico to 50 miles from the Canadian border!, in order for him to expand the company to do more work in Williston. YIKES! A business trip was planned and I tagged along so I can see the “new digs” – basically so that I could determine the appropriate level of anxiety and panic about uprooting our family. Long story short again, a conversation or two was has and as it turns out…WE DON’T HAVE TO MOVE AFTERALL!!! [not for the foreseeable future at least] YAY, a thousand times!!! It looks like all the business can and will be done from my home sweet hometown of Houma, Louisiana.

I am stoked about not moving here [more than words and all the exclamation points could ever express] but unfortunately I am still stuck here for three more days while Bobby works out more business details. I miss my babies terribly. For me, there is something VERY unnatural about a full-time mom leaving her babies EVER! They are my routine. They are my entire day. They are my entire world! I don’t know what a day looks like without them. I do now, but two days ago when I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of leaving them, I was having mini panic attacks left and right. They are staying with my parents and [as it should be] are being spoiled to tears by them and having a grand ol’ time. All the while, I’m here in a rather toasty hotel room wondering ‘what the hell do I do with myself NOW?!’ I haven’t had this much free time since…gosh…probably since I was 15, before I got my first real job in the mall! I am on a vacation from my job in a hole in the wall tall town that just experienced a mini blizzard [in my definition at least]. humpf!

You can’t see it, but in this photo the winds were gusting up to 30 mph AND this was taken right when the snow started to fall. As I type this now, six hours later, that parking lot and those cars are covered in a white blanket of snow. It is currently 9 degrees outside and there’s more snow on the ground than I think I could ever be comfortable with being as it is currently in the 70’s back home. That’s what I’m used to. The last time I saw snow was in 2006. It snowed for 30 minutes and melted the second it touched the ground. I actually thought the snow would be pleasant, like a winter wonderland where snowmen live. That’s no winter wonderland, folks! I don’t want to be out in that. So hotel room it is….good thing I bought my mom and dad a webcam before we left!

We’ve skyped three times and I’ve cried every time. We blew kisses! Sha! As much as I appreciate not changing 8-10 diapers a day and having uninterrupted time to think, blog, and waste mindless hours cruising the interwebs, I would still much rather be home with them. What I wouldn’t give to clean his snotty little nose right now and what I wouldn’t give to clean up one of her diaper blowouts. Ok…now that I put that into words. Let me just say…I’m no Mommy Martyr. The quiet is nice and the time to relax is equally nice. But it’s no picnic either. It’s a struggle to say the least. How do you relax when you have the sinking feeling that you forgot something? It has also been really nice to spend more quality time with Bobby. It’s always comforting to know that when you take babies out of our busy equation and we are able to really stop, talk and cuddle and smooch, we snap right back to where we were before the babies brightened our world. He’s like…my boyfriend again! After all these years, we still really do like each other. <3

Lollipops, flowers & hearts, on my!

This VERY sweet day was full to the brim. There was laundry, cleaning, blahdy-blah-blah. That’s not what you’re here for. I know, I know…bring on the babies and hearts!

Want to know how a little boy reacts to his VERY first lollipop? It goes a little something like this…

I felt terrible, as if we got him a crappy V-day gift, when he quickly became confused by the whole thing, as he has never encountered hard candy before. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t eat this deceivingly sweet treat in big ol’ bites.

He got bored with it quick [sorry, kid] and didn’t mind sharing it with his sister.

Though he did lurk just a tad.

I couldn’t decide which I liked better…so you get both!

…and then he tried giving me a lick.

Fast forward a few hours and a doorbell ring….

Good thing I had Molly on my hip when I opened the door, because what the delivery guy brought wasn’t for me…it was for MOLLY-GIRL!

I didn’t mind though. I’ve never been a fan of flowers on Valentine’s Day, anniversaries, birthdays…none of it. I generally like to stretch the money we spend on gifts for each other further than the 4-5 days it takes for these beauties to wither away. But because I think it’s etched in man-code somewhere that every man has to buy a woman flowers on Valentine’s Day, he somehow found the sweetest loop hole in the system. He didn’t buy me flowers, as instructed. Instead, these were for MOLLY! According to Bobby, only if SHE let, would I be able to display them on MY kitchen table. ;)

My dad always bought me flowers when I was a little girl, back before I knew how to agonize over the cost of them. He would have them delivered to my daycare center and then to my elementary school. I used to feel so very special. I’ve never told Bobby that story – so of course this warmed my heart in more ways than one. <3

btw, my valentine did get me something – something more permanent than flowers….AN APPOINTMENT for a another TATTOO!!

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For dinner, we had heart-shaped pancakes! I found these nifty pancake molds months ago and have been anxiously awaiting this very day to use them.

Our first few were some hot messes…

…but then we found a technique that worked. 

Dear Molly,

Thanks for letting me use your flowers as our table’s centerpiece.

Love, Mom

P.S. Your Valentine is super-dooper silly!  

I honestly thought she would just eat a nibble or two. I mean, c’mon, she only has two teeth – what more could she do? Well, as you can see, she broke that little heart down to it’s meager little crumbs!

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, from our hearts to yours!

We can’t seem to resist the temptation

Aquarium of the Americas Photo Booth

June 2009

February 2010

Our day, start to finish

I often wonder what other full-time moms and their babies do throughout the day. [Notice I said ‘full-time’ instead of ‘stay-at-home’. I boycott that phrase.] What time do they wake up? What do they eat for breakfast? Lunch? When do their babies nap? How long? How often and how long do they play outside? Where do they go? What does their nighttime routine look like? You know…that sorta thing. I know I read quote unquote Mommy blogs, but the posts are always tidbits from a day – never the day as a WHOLE. Start to finish. What I really want to do is be a fly on your wall for just one day – not in a creepy way [though I’m pretty sure no matter how I spin it, there is no other way but a creepy way]. So let me alleviate your ‘willies’ by letting you be a fly on our wall first.

Our day, start to finish:

7:30 – 9:00am: We wake up. Don’t shoot! Don’t unfollow! I can’t help it. [and wouldn’t if I could!] Yes, sometimes my babies sleep until 9am. Sometimes they don’t. Ms. Molly sets the alarm clock in this house.

For breakfast: I could eat Frosted Mini Wheats EVERY SINGLE DAY and usually do. My coffee tumbler fills up at around 16oz. of the yummiest Community French Vanilla coffee – to which I add a teaspoon of sugar and 2 tablespoons of french vanilla creamer. Jack will usually settle for eggs in any shape or form – boiled, scrambled, fried in a blanket [toast], omelet with cheese. Other than eggs, he’s a ‘grits instead of oatmeal’ kid, like his Mama. Pancakes are a favorite too. Molly starts her day with a mashed fruit of some kind.

Molly takes her first hour-long nap exactly two hours after she wakes up. Jack watches Sesame Street every morning while I check my emails, read blogs and drink my coffee.

After Molly’s nap and after Jack starts to get bored with my face and all the toys at his disposal, I have a decision to make. IF we are leaving the house today, now is the time to do it. If I wait too long to make this decision, it won’t leave much time for our outing before Jack’s needs his first and only nap and Molly needs her second nap [anywhere between 12:30 – 2], It’s a small window of opportunity. This is when I am most anxious. If I decide to leave, I have to move fast. So I usually rush out the door sweating and panting from getting the two of them dressed and ready to go in record speeds all the while forgetting 5 million things because if I don’t hurry to get our sunshine, our smidgen of Vitamin D, the babies WILL melt down and demand their nap in their typical collaborative 2 under 3 style.

So…we will either:
A: decide to stay home to…

• make play dough shapes and/or play with any of the other gagillion toys the kids own

conduct mini preschool sessions practicing numbers, ABCs, colors, words and phrases, etc.
• tackle the general housekeeping chores of the day while including Jack in as much of it as I can. He is so cute when he is eager to help. It makes the chores that much easier to bear. 

B: rush like fiends to leave the house and…

• go to lunch with my mom and run various errands with her help
• go to Target

Which is just what we did today! I always love an excuse to go to Target and it just so happened to be that Jack needed more balls for his pack-n-play ball pit. He just NEEDED them, y’all!

…and I got a new purse! WOO-HOO! At first glance, you may be wondering….”so what, it’s just a purse.” What may seem irrelevant to you is what made my week! I NEVER buy purses. Maybe one every two years…if that. I’ve been looking for a new one to replace my Converse bag for weeks and today I finally found one – the right size, the right color, the right amount of pockets, the right EVERYTHING!

Silly me! I forgot to mention…the right PRICE!

Wait, where was I? Oh yea, our day…

Lunch: Almost always leftovers for me and Jack. Molly gets a mashed vegetable of some kind.

12:30 – 2 : Naptime: With both babies napping, I either start supper, clean house, waste time on my computer or play in my craft room.

2:30 – 4:30: This is the hardest part of the day. This is when we [or just I] stare at the clock waiting for Bobby to come home from work. I am usually cooking while trying to keep Jack entertained and trying to stop Molly from eating carpet fuzz or something equally weird [that child will find the strangest things in the strangest places to put in her mouth]. If I pull my hair out, this is the time I do it. If we go outside, this is the time we do it.

5:00: We eat at 5 o’clock sharp with all members of the family at the table in their chair because that’s just how I like it.

5:30 – bedtime: This is when Bobby and I double-team. We tag each other in and out. “It’s your turn to clean the spit up out of the carpet.” “It’s your turn to stop Jack from sitting on Molly’s head!” Occasionally we find ourselves both on the floor with one of the two children on top of us pretending to be an airplane and laughing so hard their drool is falling into our mouth OR we take turns building castles out of legos OR we watch Toy Story 3 or Cars for the 1,209th time. Bobby bathes them. I dress them in their jammies.

7:00 – 7:30: Molly bites the bullet first.

8:00 – 8:30: Jack gets one to three books, a sippy of milk and a thorough teeth brushing….then joins Molly-girl.

So there you have it, my little flies on the wall. That’s about it.

Your turn!