Mardi Gras - catch up

February was a busy month for us, so I never got around to posting about our last Mardi Gras parade. This was "Spanish Town" parade...I believe the biggest in Baton Rouge. It's held the Saturday before Mardi Gras and was the parade that put me into labor with Kaisley the year before. But this year it was on February 13th.

Brookston and his buddy, Grady, waiting for the parade the start

They took Kaisley for a ride

This is a video of the boys dancing as a float passes by, oh my goodness, you have to see Brookston at the end (about 13 seconds into the video):

And this video just cracks me up...at the parade each year, this group does something hilarious with lawn mowers....(9 second video):

Ladybug Birthday Party

The table of goodies

(cake, cupcakes, and chocolate covered marshmallows)

The cake!!!

Cupcakes!!!

Waiting for the kids...

Daddy and the birthday girl on the balance beam

Kaisley on the parachute

Playing with the hula hoops and balls

Singing happy birthday...she loved the candle

Eating her cupcake...she was very gentle

Opening presents

Eager to see inside the bag!

We decided to let her at the rest of the cake when we got home since the cupcake was waaaaay to clean/tidy for a 1st birthday!

She enjoyed playing more than eating!

Messy, messy baby!!

More what I expected with a 1 year old and her cake!

(Don't miss the 2 other new posts below related to Kaisley's 1st Birthday!!!)

Ladybug party prep work

Mommy working on the ladybug cake

Birthday cakes for the kids has sort of become my thing,
it makes me so happy to make them a special cake on their birthday!

Ta Da!!! I LOVE IT!

Daddy & Nana working on cupcakes to match the theme!

Papa also on cupcake duty!

(Professional Birthday pictures below!!)

Kaisley is ONE!!!

Kaisley's professional pictures

She was in a GREAT mood

This picture is for Nana...she loves her black background pictures!

Such a Kaisley face, with her scrunched up nose!

Happy 1st Birthday baby girl!!!

(Party pictures to come!!!!)

I can't beleive it's been a year. (Isn't every parent saying that at each birthday?) Time really does fly! I've found myself over the last week thinking back to what I was doing exactly a year ago. I remember it all so well. Since it was mardi gras season, I remember each parade, conversations about my anticipation, paths we walked to and from parades, all the way down to where I was at what time when contractions started, my water broke, and of course, 11:46pm, my baby girl entered the world! We're so glad you're here sweet Kaisley!

Lent

Do you give something up for Lent? If so, what? Is "giving something up" mostly a Catholic thing? Just curious...I'm not Catholic, but every since I can remember, I've given something up.

So, this year, I was battling between giving up "just candy" or all sweets. I realized that the only thing that was holding me back from giving up all sweets was because it will be hard. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE sweets! Well, I then realized that "just candy" wasn't really putting my whole heart into it. It was my way of participating without REALLY having to put forth a great deal of effort. Geez, what's the point then, right? Just so I can say, "I gave something up!" Where is my commitment to that? How does that tell God that I'm committed to Him if I can't even commit to giving up something "hard"? So, all sweets it is! Eeeek! That REALLY is going to be hard for me! God, you're challenging me already as I stare at those chocolate covered marshmallows Brookston and I made for Richard's work!

Then, today I read on Facebook of a friend giving up Facebook and I thought, wow, that's a great idea! I check Facebook daily, twice a day, three times a day, four times a day (basically every time I feed Kaisley)...it really does become an addiction! You want to know what everyone is up to and stay in touch! I have it on my phone, so it goes everywhere with me and I can pop on real quick and easy! So convenient for a nursing mom this last year though, I have to admit!!! Giving Facebook up will be a big challenge, but a great one! One that will benefit me and my whole family! So, bye bye Facebook...maybe I will never go back! Hahaha, yeah right!

Videos, videos, videos

I've been trying to be better about videos on my still picture camera, I just never think to use it over my actual video camera. I take plenty of videos on our actual video camera, but it's absolutely impossible to transfer from there onto my computer. But a video on my still camera can easily go on here! Okay, you probably don't care...to the videos...



Brookston enjoying his first Mardi Gras Parade of 2010 - Krewe of Orion



Kaisley enjoying her first Mardi Gras Parade...ever - Krewe of Orion



Kaisley enjoying some Mardi Gras treats



Brookston singing his ABC's...he's not a fan of performing for the camera, so this was as good as I could get.



Brookston enjoying his "Smart Cycle"...he was really getting into it!

Another tooth, oh my!

Just a month ago, Kaisley only had 2 teeth. The bottom front ones. I was wondering how slow this process would be, until this month...she's gotten 5 more!!!!

About a month ago, the next teeth to make their appearances were the second from the middle teeth, on the top, on both sides (kind of a funny picture when I thought about those two teeth coming in all the way before the middle two). But it's been such a slow process that the middle right one had time to sort of catch up when it arrived about 2 weeks later. Still no middle left tooth. HOWEVER the top molars on both sides have bust through this week too!

So....from 2 teeth last month, to 7 teeth this month...oh my! I guess I'll give her a little slack since she's been waking up more at night this week.

Saints and Brees

So the Saints WIN!!!!! Geaux Saints!!!!

Oh my goodness, wasn't Drew Brees and his son the cutest ever??

(pictures from huffingtonpost.com)

"Painting with a Twist"

Last night a few mommy friends and I went to enjoy a mom's night out at a new place, called "Painting with a Twist". Well, the idea isn't new, but the location is brand new, we were only the second class ever at this place! You bring your own wine (and snacks if you want) and they lead you through the painting of the night. It was a ton of fun and I think I did a pretty decent job!

Not the best close up picture, but you can see a little more detail...and the orange in the bottom right corner of the fleur de lis are my initals and year! :)

Here's our whole class..the fleur de lis is a popular one (full class)!

Mommy and Kaisley

I can't believe my baby girl is almost ONE...where oh where does the time go?

Park, zoo, and more

Kaisley is 11 months old!!! WOW!

She had a blast at the park

Brookston on his way up to the slide

Brookston petting a bunny at the zoo

Then petting a Chinchilla

Playing at the park at the zoo

The BIG slide!!!

Kaisley had a BLAST!!!!!!!!

They were sliding together...so cute!

Mr. Cool decided to lay down on the slide

Brother and sister

Brookston and Henry brushing the goat

Brookston was brave and pet the little gator

Playing on our trampoline...this just cracked me up!!!

Kaisley is such a happy girl!

Sliding at the zoo

A quick clip of the kids sliding together...they must have done this 20 times!

Kaisley's first art work

Kaisley did her first piece of art work at church last Sunday.

We loved seeing this when we picked up our happy little girl!

She's doing great and loving church, which makes us feel good!

She SLEEPS!!!

Yes, I'm talking about Kaisley...my baby girl has FINALLY learned how to sleep at night! Better late than never right? She's been sleeping great for over 2 weeks now, but I didn't want to jinx myself with a post after only a couple days.

We did a little sleep training at 6 months old and it went GREAT. Very very easy and almost painless. But, we went on vacation about 4 weeks later. We were in a house full (10 adults and 3 kids), so I did what I had to do to keep her quiet..as in feeding her a LOT at night.

So, we get back from vacation and I just sort of go with the flow for a few weeks and decided, okay, time to go back to the same sleep training. So, at 8 months it did NOT go well. So, I did what I had to do again for a litle while.

I was ready to try again right before Christmas, but realized that was bad timing with guests staying for about 10 days. So, Christmas came and went and we went back to sleep training. Again, it went GREAT! Thankfully a "bad night" is now 9 hours of sleep, followed by eating and going back to sleep for 2-3 hours. But normal is now 10-11 hours. Sometimes even 12.

THANK YOU BABY GIRL!!!!!! Mommy finally gets to sleep at night!