My family and I were so excited to have my mom, my sisters and their children (minus my nephews Cooper and Greyson {who were missed dearly!}) come stay with us for a visit. Gavin and Josiah could barely contain their glee. As Jos said, "I can hardly wait. It is like waiting for Santa to come!" I shared his opinion. No matter how often I'm blessed to see my fam, the excitement doesn't wear off! I was so excited to soak in sister and mom-ness, kiss on my niecies and nephew and meet baby Scarlett for the first time. Just thinking of them makes me smile. Poor Kit was outran by estrogen (a first in my house-hold) but he held up well with a grin. We spent a lot of time shopping (of course) and made a fab detour over to New Orleans for a day trip. It was fun to show Steph around, she was the only one who hadn't taken the 2 hour trip with us. We walked up and down the French Quarter and munched tasty, sugary beignets at the Cafe Du Monde. Despite the rain, we had a blast.
With the arrival of my family, however, an unwanted virus decided to take up residence in Josiah's eyes...bleh...pink-eye. First Josiah, then Gavin and Gunner and on to our sweet visitors to take the gift home with them. Fair is fair, when they left behind a nasty cold. (I don't care, girls...I'll still take you and all your germs as long as you come!!!) I use this cold as one of my excuses for not posting. Josiah was out of school for 3 yucky, tiresome days and the house was full of tired, whiny children...but who's complaining...Josiah welcomed a visit of the tooth fairy. Yes, at the age of 6 he has lost his very first tooth. Kit and I were reminiscing our treasured quarter when Josiah blurted out he was so excited to get his five dollars. Say what! According to Jos, his friends from school were paid $5 for their teeth. That had to be one rich tooth fairy coming around their houses. I guess our fairy was feeling the effects of the economy. Josiah earned a beautiful, if crumpled (carrying around a large dollar is difficult, it must be folded down to fit in her pocket), green 1 dollar bill. Cute boy was still very excited thinking of the multitude of ways he can spend it.
A fun tradition we've aquired is the Mardi Gras holiday. The first celebrated Mardi Gras of the United States took place here in Mobile (not New Orleans like one might assume). And believe me, it is honored here. Mardi Gras parties, balls and parades take place all month long. In fact, the school systems gave 3 days off for the children to share in the celebrations. We love every minute of it. King cake, gold green and purple, beads, beads, beads! Or as my boys shout, "Give me some beads, please!" The enthusiasm is effusive and the air swells with school bands marching, rock bands playing on floats and people whistling and cheering. They throw handfuls of beads, stuffed animals, cups, balls and of course, Moon Pies (bleh...um, I mean yummy). We spent the day in Daphne walking the gator walk, driving around, playing at Chick a' Fillet then hanging around for their parade. It is our favorite parade. The boys ran around, danced and cheered the evening away. We filled 3 Wal-mart bags of goodies and made our way home. This is one tradition that will be greatly missed when we move. We're glad we'll be able to enjoy at least one more.
For Valentine's Day, we each received a travel bug for geocaching. It is similar to a dog tag that you attach to something and give it a mission to fulfill. People pick it up from one geocaching site and after checking what its mission is online, deposit it in another one closer to its destination and job. For FHE on Monday, we decided to go to the dollar store and purchase items to attach our bug to and send them on their way. It was interesting and fun to see what the boys chose and listen to what they wanted their bugs to do. Josiah chose a plush frog and wanted to see how many times he could travel from Alabama to Oklahoma and back again via geocaching sites. Gavin chose a little rubber alligator and wanted him to reach Africa. He wanted his gator to visit the crocodiles over there (what an imagination!) so we have him getting pics with people seeing any kind of croc-in zoos, on wildlife preserves or pretend ones. Kit's is still a work in progress, but he wants his to be a little toy skeleton off to get pictures in cemeteries all over the world. Gunner's/mine is a little shoe. We want it to take pictures of any monument, anywhere. We're excited to track their progress wherever they go.
If you made it through this post, hooray for you! You must have fabulous endurance. We have an exciting month ahead of us...Grammy and Papa are coming to visit, it is Kit's birthday and the weather warms up and gets balmy. Ahh, again, the benefits of living down here.
