Painting with a Twist

A few of us signed our girls up for a Painting with a Twist class Saturday. The all painted owls except for Emily who painted a butterfly. 

 

Before: 

 

After:

Cutting up. I love this picture because they all are so silly. You can see Emily and Annelise, the youngest two,  looking up at the older girls acting up. 

While the girls were painting, we parents were across the street having lunch and margaritas.  We walked back over to check on them after we were done and I was so surprised how quiet it was in there. Besides our girls, there were about 15 or more other girls we did not know. For having that many girls in one room, it really was shocking how quiet it was. They were all concentrating on their paintings listening intently to the teacher. It was so cute to watch.

Rocks and Minerals

Eva's class is studying rocks and minerals right now at school, so I volunteered to go to her class to show some of the rocks, minerals, and fossils that I had.  Below are the girls that helped me show them around to the other students.

 

Mardi Gras World

I know it's a little late, but I have finally gotten around to posting pictures from Mardi Gras World.  Again, it was lots of fun and very interesting, even for us locals.  I definitely recommend the tour for anyone.

 

Emily's Birthday Party

Party pictures, as promised. We had a beautiful day and lots of kids showed up.  Unfortunately, these are the only pictures from the party - we were having fun, too. 

 

By the way, I made the cake - and it was purple and gold inside.  And it tasted yummy,too.

 

Happy 7th Birthday, Emily!

Our little peanut has turned seven.  In this last year she stopped sucking her thumb, started reading, started taking piano lessons, joined the team with Eva (hates it), and entered 1st grade -at a new school.  She's come a long way in that year. 

 

Granny gave her a Snuggie, as requested (just like Eva).

 

 

Eva gave her this Rapunzel nightgown, which can double as dress-up.

David and I gave her this cool bow set.  She's been practicing and is getting better.

Here is a video of her shooting it. Be sure to listen for the 'thud.'  That's her sticking the side of our shed. 

 

Her birthday party is this Saturday - pics to come. 

 

Here's hoping the upcoming year is as good, or better, as the last.

David's New Car

So, David's Prius gave him a serious caution sign one day.  He researched it and unhooked the 12 volt battery then hooked it back up and Voila! - the caution sign was gone.  About 2 days later it happened again. This time we towed it to the dealer to find out what was really going on with it.  Turned out it was 'something' with the hybrid system, but they were unsure what exactly.  It was going to cost us $500 to find out.  If a part needed replacement, the cheapest part was going to cost us about $3000.  Keep in mind, this is an 8 year old car with 225,000+ miles on it.  And, he puts at least 100 miles per day on the car. 

 

So, we painfully opted to buy another.  He got a 2014 Toyota Corolla. Nothing fancy, but they're much bigger inside than previous models. 

 

2014 has been rough so far.  More on that later.

 

 

 

Maybe we'll still have it when Eva starts to drive. That's in 7 years.  Eek!

Christmas 2013, con't



Christmas was excellent this year. We had lots of time with family, and we did touristy stuff also.  One of the cooler things we did was take a tour of Mardi Gras World. I highly recommend it, not only for tourists but locals, too. It was neat seeing all of the characters from the floats and being able to recognize many of them.  The tour starts off with a short film, costumes to try on and take pictures in, then a piece of Gambinos king cake.  Next your head into the shop area where artists are currently working on floats for mardi gras 2014.  They gave you plenty of time, as much as you'd like, to walk around on your own and take pictures.  They do have a cafe, but it was closed for remodeling.  Because of this, they did allow us to bring lunch in and eat it there.   

 

 

     

 

 

I do have more and better pictures, but I haven't had time to go through them, so these will have to do; they are from my phone. 

The Sunday after Christmas was Saints Sunday, and we gave our tickets to David's brother and his wife so they could experience a Saints game in the Dome.  We started with lunch at Port-of-Call, then walked through the French Market and ended up at the Roosevelt Hotel for a sazerac.  We walked them to the Dome and David and I headed to a bar to watch the game.  It was a really nice day, plus the Saints won, their last win, by the way.

 



Christmas 2013