Musical Mailbox

Sam hid his iPod… guess where…

🙂
Steph

A Visit from Uncle Trey!!

Travis’ brother, Trey, works offshore on a boat called “The Uncle John”. Typically, he works 6 weeks on/ 6 weeks off. However, his recent “off” rotation has been a lengthy one because The Uncle John is having some repairs/upgrades done to it. Trey was told to come down a few days before he was supposed to go back out to sea so that he could do some re-certifications, have his physical, do other paperwork, etc. Well, when he finished all of that The Uncle John was still not ready to go back to sea. Therefore, Trey came up to visit for a few days. Sam loved it!!! We’ve been fairly busy showing Trey around and bringing him along to our various family events. I think he has enjoyed himself, too. 🙂

The first thing we did was take Trey to the zoo. I am sure you are shocked by this… HA!

From February 2012

We saw a crocodile getting a back massage!

From February 2012

Sam chased two storks (?) sitting on a fence…

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

Trey got to see both of the big alligators in the water!

From February 2012

Sam wanted to help Uncle Trey take pictures…

From February 2012

We were able to see the Bengal Tiger drink water…

From February 2012

Trey apparently upset the male lion…

From February 2012

because he got up…

From February 2012

and started roaring (?)- he was making a REALY loud sound but it didn’t sound like a growl. You can see his mouth open in the picture below.

From February 2012

Once he was done, he laid back down…

From February 2012

I’ve been seeing photos and advertisements for the zoo’s black panther but we’ve never found it. Well, today we did!! Beautiful!!

From February 2012

Sam had fun at the zoo with his “Uncle Gay” (hee hee)

From February 2012

Yes, I made another zoo video collage… in it, I try to record the lion making his noise… I hope you hear it.

On the way to church Sunday, we stopped to get a paper and we found out that LC’s women’s basketball team would be playing in the American Southwest Conference (ASC) Tournament Championship Game that afternoon. The winner would receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Div. 3 Basketball Tournament. We decided to forego a nap for Sam after lunch and head to the game instead. It was a hard fought game but, unfortunately, LC lost. Now we are hoping they get voted into the tournament- they were REALLY good this year- losing only 3 games.

From February 2012

I absolutely adore this picture…

From February 2012

There was definitely a lot more people than “normal” at the game and that made for a fun game!

From February 2012

I also recorded a few plays during the tournament…


However, the schools’ video is MUCH better…

Monday, Travis taught Sam a clean-up song he learned in Kindergarten. It is kind of cute…

Tuesday night, Trey left to go back down to work. He still had a couple of other things to do and then it will be a wait and see game on when he will go out.

🙂
Steph

EDIT: Our girls made the tournament!! It is their 3rd straight year of going to the National Championship.

A Sam Funny Today…

From February 2012

I must confess- today was a HARD day. It was the first time we went to our new MOPS group and so there was some nervousness there. I enjoyed it but it REALLY made me miss my MOPS group back in Wake Forest. Then, we were running late for meeting Travis and Trey for a quick lunch because immediately following lunch, Travis, Sam and I had to go to the elementary school we are zoned for so that we could have a meeting with the speech therapist and get Sam set up to start speech again. Sam and I got home right around 2pm and he was TIRED. I was certain he would take a nap. Instead, he proceeded to unmake his bed, continuously come out of his room for silly reasons, turn off the iPod that plays music in his room, and whine about all sorts of stuff. It just about drove me crazy. I gave up on the nap idea at 3:30. Then he came into the computer room with me and proceeded to not listen to anything I said and was still fussy/whiny/tired. UGH!

I did manage to register him for Wee Ball (baseball for 3 and 4 year olds) though! That has made us excited! Daddy is especially excited because after supper we went to Academy and Sam now has a itty bitty pair of baseball pants, cleats, and a practice ball. He already has a glove and we aren’t quite sure about what you bat with in Wee Ball so we didn’t do anything in that area. That excitement helped improve my day.

However, the highlight of my day was on the way to supper. Sam had been singing the Zaccheus song all afternoon because apparently that is what they learned about in MOPS today. The only part he would sing though was “going to your house today” and when I asked what he learned at MOPS he would just tell me he learned “everything!” In the car, he started singing it again and so I asked him who Zaccheus was and he told me he was a “wittle man” and I asked if he dug a hole to see Jesus and Sam looked at me like I fell off the turnip truck and then said “No, Mommy, Wack-kee-us climbed the kmart tree!” It was hilarious!! So we started working on helping him say “sycamore” and he can repeat it after us but when he says it on his own, he reverts back to the kmart tree. Too cute!!

🙂
Steph

My first canvas painting party

I’ve always wanted to do one of those paint-your-own canvas party things. However, they tend to be kind of expensive (or maybe that was just the Raleigh ones- I dunno) and so I haven’t done one. I found a place in Pineville that does it, Mo’s Studieaux, and signed up for the open night- a night when anyone can sign up and you don’t have to book your own party. The painting for this night was called “The Gate” and it is supposed to look like one of those old gates in New Orleans. For $40, I painted an 11×14 canvas and had the option to eat supper- homemade jambalaya, caesar salad, and cake. However, due to the gluten in each of those, I declined and just sipped my Pepsi instead. 🙂 I also had 2.5 hours of me time and it was SOOOOO nice and relaxing. I definitely plan on doing another one- just not the one in March (pink owl- blah!) 🙂

Here is my painting after I got my gate on there.

From February 2012

Some of the other ladies…

From February 2012

Here is my completed painting…

From February 2012

If I decide to frame it (I’m still up in the air on that,) here is an idea of what it would look like…

From February 2012

Here is a group shot of us with our paintings…

From February 2012

I LOVED doing this and hope to do another one soon. If you book your own party, you can choose what to paint. Sometimes, they have couples nights and each person paints half of a picture and then you put them together to form one big picture. It is neat- here is an example of that…

From February 2012

So fun!!
🙂
Steph

Support our friends, Jeff & Alicia!!

Buy a shirt- they are cool and they help our friends bring their kiddos home from Africa!!!

From February 2012

You can buy a shirt here.
Note: they have children – adult sizes. Sam is wearing a child’s small.

🙂
Steph

Our Fat Tuesday Fun

Our Fat Tuesday was rather low-key. Travis had to work so it was basically like any other day. My mom found Sam a Mardi Gras shirt earlier this year and so him wearing it was the closest we came to doing anything “Mardi Gras”ish.

We started off by going to the park- this time there were oodles of kiddos since the schools were out! Sam LOVED having other kids to play with. It was so nice AND WARM! I love LA “winters”…

From February 2012

Then, after nap time, Sam biked for the first time from our house to his Daddy’s office.

From February 2012

Once we got there…we had to lock his bike up “for safekeeping”- HA!

From February 2012

He biked home, we ate supper and then we went to LC’s first baseball game of the season. Have I mentioned that we like going to sporting events? 🙂

From February 2012

I think my favorite part of the day was when we got home from the basketball game. I have an app-a-day calendar and one of the recent apps was something called “CamWow”- it is an app that lets you do funny things with your pictures. So, we all got super close on the couch and took funny pictures. Sometimes, it was difficult to get a “clear” picture because we were all cracking up! It was fun!

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

We love goofing off!!

🙂
Steph

What we thought were the last regular season home basketball games…

After naptime, we walked to the gym to watch basketball. We were given season tickets within a week of moving here and, according to the tickets, today’s game was supposed to have been the last game. However, we learned at the end that an earlier game had to be rescheduled and so we will get to go to another game soon! YAY! We love going to basketball games. Since I thought this was the last game, I brought my “good” camera so as to get some decent pictures from our first season of LC basketball. Some of them are below…

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

FYI- #20 is getting her number retired at the end of the season… she joined the 1000+ point club during the first game we attended. 🙂

From February 2012

Our coach likes to sub 5 players at a time. It is like we have 2 teams! HA!

From February 2012

#20 is a great 3-pt shooter. She sent them over 100 points with this shot!

From February 2012

Final…

From February 2012

We then watched the guys warm up…

From February 2012

and be introduced…

From February 2012

The opening jump ball…

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

I am still in shock that the first dunk of the game was made by a white guy. HA HA!!

From February 2012

We left shortly after that so that we could eat supper and go to bed. Travis has to go to work tomorrow.

🙂
Steph

My naptime craft!

AFter the Nereids parade in Mississippi, my mom helped me sort the beads by color and pick out 50 each of the purple, green, and gold. I had seen a picture of a Mardi Gras wreath online and decided that I would attempt to make one since I now had easy access to beads. It took me all of naptime but it was so worth it!

From February 2012

In case you are wondering, that wreath weighs close to a ton! It has almost 100 strands of beads on it!! It is heavy!

🙂
Steph

Another Zoo Visit…

Travis had today off so we went to the zoo this morning. Again, there weren’t a lot of people.
Our first stop this time was to see the fish…

From February 2012

Their lining up to beach themselves always makes me laugh

From February 2012

Sam got really into feeding them this time.

From February 2012

From February 2012

I like the blue-speckled fish in the picture below. Travis likes how you can see the “brain” of the fish on the far right.

From February 2012

I’ve never seen any of the zoo gators or crocodiles with their mouths open before!

From February 2012

The BIG gator was FINALLY out of the water. I wish this picture could convey just how big this gator is!

From February 2012

We’ve been watching Season 1 of “Swamp People” on Netflix. I zoomed in on the gator’s head to try to find that “sweet spot”- the quarter-size (regardless of size) spot that you have to “choot ’em” in in order to kill them. My understanding is that it is the smooth spot between the bumps that are behind their eyes. I could be wrong though- I am not gator hunter. 🙂

From February 2012

I don’t think these guys ever move and the one on the ground is looking at me like I am crazy!

From February 2012

I thought he was going to fly away (FYI- he can’t because he is missing a wing on the right side)

From February 2012

See his injured right wing?

From February 2012

I love this shot…

From February 2012

Shhh… Swiper is sleeping!

From February 2012

Breakfast time for the kangaroos!

From February 2012

We ended right back where we started…

From February 2012

Here are the instagram pictures I took while at the zoo today…

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

Here is the video collage I made…

🙂
Steph

Our First Cenla Mardi Gras Parade

After church and lunch today, we decided to attempt the big Alexandria Mardi Gras parade. The parade was supposed to start at 2pm and that is about what time we got there. However, we parked and walked to this Family Friendly “No Zone” (no alcohol, drugs, cigarettes) near the end of the parade line. We found a not so good spot in the corner of the lot. We had a stop sign kind of in front of us and a group of high school girls all along the barricade in front. It was OK though. We really weren’t to catch a bunch of stuff. We were just there to check out the “big” Alex parade. I don’t know what “Krewe” it was or the theme but I am thinking it was some kind of musical theme.

One of the first floats…

From February 2012

How Sam started the parade…

From February 2012

From February 2012

From February 2012

Another float…

From February 2012

Our group of high school girls in front of us…

From February 2012

Sam started getting interested…

From February 2012

He got a bead and then wanted down so he could play with it…

From February 2012

From February 2012

Then he wound up on my shoulders…

From February 2012

I hope you can see this guy’s mask. It is one of those clear plastic ones. They freak me out- I always think they are going to go rob a bank or something. HA!

From February 2012

Watch out for flying beads!

From February 2012

From February 2012

About the time that Travis took the picture above, the chaperone of the group of high schools came up and told us that we could go down to the fence and try to catch some stuff. Up until this point, she had been strictly keeping others away from the area but we never asked to go up there and we didn’t stand near them. Apparently our politeness/respect/whatever paid off. She told the girls to let us through. Sam and I wound up on the front row right at the barricade.

From February 2012

Do you see the girl on the far right in the picture above? She is about to throw a yellow feather boa. Well, unbeknownst to Travis, that boa became Sam’s. One of the girls beside me caught it and wrapped it around Sam. He was so excited. We only stayed down there through about 3 floats because high school girls scream LOUDLY and HIGH PITCHED. It hurt Sam’s ears something awful. He had a panicked look on his face when the float would stop (the judging stands were across from us) and all the girls would start screaming. The girls were good to Sam though and hooked him up with quite a few beads. 🙂

From February 2012

When I first saw the girls, I thought they were in some kind of at-risk program. While Sam and I were down there amongst them, Travis talked with their leader and she was telling him that they were a part of the Youth Challenge program. They were responsible for manning all the booths, the port-a-potties, and cleaning up the trash for the NO Zone. They also can’t keep any of the stuff they were catching. She also told him that by the end of the night the majority of them will have gotten in trouble. It makes me so sad. They were really sweet girls and were really kind of Sam. I just feel bad that they are all so young and have already been in so much trouble that they are in this program. However, they seem to have a leader who genuinely cares for them. So that is a bright side.

We left immediately after Sam and I climbed back out of the crowd. This was all occurring during Sam’s nap time and so he was exhausted!!

From February 2012

Thankfully, we brought the yellow car with us…

From February 2012

As we maneuvered through the crowds in an unsuccessful attempt to get back to our car, Sam fell asleep. We had pulled the cover down over him so beads and stuff wouldn’t hit him and I “rolled” the windows down so that it kind of kept the wind out and the noise level down somewhat. In order to get into the NO ZONE we had to cross the street. Therefore, we couldn’t cross the street again until the parade was over. It really wasn’t that big of a deal since Sam was asleep but if he had been fussy or we had been having to carry him that would’ve been a whole different ball game. Whew!!

It was a decent parade. It isn’t up to New Orleans standards, but that can be a very good thing- I didn’t feel like I needed to constantly look over my shoulder. However, I decided the parade in Mississippi was better. Alexandria has a children’s parade on the Saturday before Fat Tuesday but it was rained out yesterday. I think we will just start going to Nereids and then trying to hit the Children’s Parade in Alex from now on- no more “big” parade. 🙂

🙂
Steph