Fat Tuesday

ok, the last Mardi Gras post I promise. but it has really been fun this year because Tanner can kind of understand.

Tonight in honor of Fat Tuesday we had our own Mardi Gras Parade around the living room. We turned on some Mardi Gras music and all marched around throwing beads. One day Tanner will make a good bead thrower, wait, never mind, he better not ever throw beads. Conner had a blast watching us and dancing around. We will continue this every year, I hope!

Conner is 5 months old today too!

Please Feed the Birds

Every time we go on the boat we have to feed the birds. I don't know why, but YaYa brings out a loaf of bread or chips, or whatever she thinks the birds might eat and she and Tanner throw it up for the birds to eat. Tanner Loves IT!

Jeff, LaLa and Casey joined in.

Jeff held the chips up for the birds to eat out of his hand, but he was scared and pulled away every time.

Tanner wasn't scared at all. He wanted someone to hold in up so the birds could eat his chips.

I couldn't get the bird taking the chip out of his hand, but you can see the chip in the birds mouth, just after getting it.

If you have never done this at the beach you should. It is amazing how many sea gulls will show up. I don't know how it happens, there are none one minute, you throw out some bread and after a few minutes there are hundreds of them.

More Mardi Gras

We spent the weekend in Destin with some of my dad's family from Alabama. We went down to the Mardi Gras parade on the Harbor. The kids really had fun at the parade.

LaLa showed the boys how to hold your hands up to get some beads.

(this was a very family friendly parade, only hands up.)

This parade came around twice, so this is the second round.

Nate just wanted to stay on his daddy's shoulders.

Never seen a Mardi Gras parade like this, I bet.

All the floats were golf carts because it was on the little Harbor Walk.

It was neat because we were right up beside them and we got lots of beads, cups,

Moon Pies, and candy.
Hop Hop and Papa Earl got lots of beads too.

Tanner & Nate got Ice Cream cones in the 50 degree weather!

We All had a great time!

At the Park

We went to the park this morning because the weather is going to be bad for the next few days.

Conner got to swing in the baby swing all by himself. And he loved it!

Tanner likes swinging in these swings, I think because they look like a roller coaster ride.

Conner swinging in the big swings with YaYa.

We blew bubbles.

Tanner learned to just swing the bubble wand around instead of blowing.

I am so glad that we have such a nice park in Bristol to play at.

Crazy Rocker

Jeff has been learning to play the Rock & Roll guitar,as Tanner calls it. So Tanner rocks out with his rock & roll guitar too. Not sure why he has on these funny glasses but it is definitely funny!

Mardi Gras

Well it wasn't New Orleans, but we had our kids and we couldn't go to far away from home and ...

But we had a blast anyway! It is funny how your life changes when you have kids. Yesterday on Valentine's Day we went to the Mardi Gras Parade in Panama City. We promised Tanner if he would pee-pee in the potty all week we would take him to the parade and well we had to follow through on our end of the deal, because he did his part of the deal! Yay!!!!

We waited for about 30 minutes for the parade and of course people came and got right in front of us when the parade started.

I held Conner and he seemed to enjoy the fun!

Tanner stayed on Jeff's shoulders the WHOLE parade. He would get mad if Jeff turned to the side. He didn't want to miss a thing.

Conner like chewing on the beads. I tried to keep them out of his mouth, because of germs and grossness, but it was impossible and I figured "what don't kill ya, only makes you stronger." He ain't dead yet!

Tanner liked this float.

When we were leaving there was a band playing New Orleans style music. They were actually singing a song that Jeff had been singing to the boys earlier that day. "I went down to the Audubon Zoo and the animals asked for you..." Mimi I know you know this song. It was really cool. I tried to tell Tanner that when Daddy was little he lived where they had lots of parades and lots of music like that, but he just looked and me and said, Huh?

We really had a blast and can't wait to do it again next year! We will have to take the boys to New Orleans soon, but not during Mardi Gras!

Valentine's Treasure Hunt

This Valentine's Day we started a new tradtion. I got the idea from John and Kate + 8, who doesn't love that show, to do a treasure hunt for the boys Valentine's present. We started off in the kitchen after Tanner ate breakfast and went around the house to find clues.

Tanner absolutely loved it. I made the clues easy enough that he could guess them without our help. He knew where everything was right away. I think at the end it could have been a box of his own toys and he would have been excited. This was a great way to not spend too much money, but still make their present very fun and special. Conner didn't really know what we were doing but he loved running from place to place and reading the clues.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love, Tanner & Conner

Snow Angel?

Well kind of a Snow Angel but in the sand. No snow around here. Thank goodness today it was warm and the wind wasn't blowing 100mph. So we all went outside after church and played in the sand. It was so nice to enjoy being outside.

Just a few days ago it was 40 degrees out side so Conner was bundled up like this...

Fleece outfit over his clothes, with a hood and 2 pairs of socks.

Although he was happy I think he would much rather be like this...

We had such a great day today! Hope everyone else did too!

(If not this picture should atleast make you smile!)

Once Upon a Time.....

Sometimes when I don't feel like getting up to get a book, I pretend to read a book to Tanner. I open my hands like a book and say "Once upon a time, there was a...." and I let him help me finish the story. Yesterday while we were eating lunch Tanner read Jeff a pretend story. It went something like this.

"Once upon a time there was a whittle boy named, Me. And once upon a time there was a Daddy. Mommy called me and I said,"Jusa minute" and Mommy said,"tum eat "and I tame and I tried, wha, wha, wha. Be end"

I think it is so funny how their little minds work. Oh, Please, Lord don't let him grow up too fast!