veggies and other randomness.

this week, hollis ate a baby carrot! and also a slice of raw bell pepper (yellow). this is exciting news in my life.

also, emme has started saying "bucks wild". i.e. "i'm going bucks wild"; "that song makes hollis bucks wild". it's my favorite.

also, how many times can we listen to uptown funk before i start hating that song? it's so catchy, but omg my kids cannot get enough of it. i also wonder if the language is a little questionable (probably intentional, but whatever), but have i mentioned they really reeaaallllyyy love it.

i'm ready for it to be warm again. and yes, i know how ridiculous that is compared to all the people basically everywhere else in the country. i get depressed and reclusive when it's cold.

mardi gras 2015.

we continued our annual tradition of heading to my hometown for mardi gras weekend this year, and it was absolutely the best time yet. the kids were soooo into it and we had a blast.

we got in late thursday night and hung at my parents' during the day friday. we ate judice inn (obviously), had gumbo for breakfast, let the kids play and hang out and watch movies all day, jb and my brother got out to play some tennis, and then we hit up the parade friday night. our tradition is to park in our area, walk over and get some pizza at this yummy spot, then back to our parade station and wait for the action. the friday parade was later than usual this year, but super fun. hollis loooooved the marching bands and the kids were both so cute waving their hands for beads. we caught a ton of stuff and by the time we got home, both kids were asking to go to bed. win!

saturday we took a nice long walk in the morning (after king cake for breakfast, duh) then headed to the fair. since they'd never really been to a fair, i had no idea how they would take it, but oh.my.goodness they were in heaven. we were there for less than two hours and spent an obscene amount of money as they wanted to play every game and ride on everything. it was awesome. some friends came with, one of whom is a 6 year old who emme loves and the two of them teamed up to ride lots of stuff. ek was so brave i couldn't believe it. she even convinced me and jb to take her on this terrifying ride called skater. she was so tough...i, on the other hand, was shaking and counting the seconds until that awful ride was over. ha.

after naps we headed back out. some friends of my parents have an awesome gathering saturday evening every year with all the food/snacks/wine/etc. this year they had cute crafts for the kids and we got to eat and chill and play before heading to the next parade. our friends met us and emme and amelia were thrilled to play and run around together. we caught another boat load of stuff, then let my parents take the kiddos home while jb and i headed over to the blue moon for some zydeco dancing. we saw cedric watson who was amazing, as usual. we also met up with some austin friends who were in town enjoying their first lafayette mardi gras.

sunday everyone was pretty tired, so we took it easy. more gumbo for breakfast and my mom fixed an amazing pork roast with limas and sweet potatoes and french bread, etc for lunch before we hit the road. i would have sworn the kids would sleep the entire ride home, but they were only out for about an hour. amazingly, for as tired as they were, they did great on the ride. we got back, got in jammies, and relished a restful night back in our own beds. laissez les bon temps roulez, indeed.

happy valentine's day (almost).

the kidlets will miss the valentine's party in their classes tomorrow because we will be heading to my hometown for some mardi gras weekend action. ek was sort of sad about missing the party, but when given the choice, there was no question she wanted to hit up the parades.

luckily, their teachers said we could bring our cards in today and they'd collect cards for my kids tomorrow that they can get on monday. i procrastinated on these (should have made them over the weekend), but they turned out ok. the kids watercolored on paper, which i then cut into hearts. we needed 40 valentines total, so there was no way to let them cut out that many. i cut up some card stock and wrote their names and then emme and i rubber cemented the hearts on. call it good. ek can write her name (kinda), but it takes up basically a whole page and takes her 5 minutes to write it once, so i couldn't figure out how/when to get her to write it 23 separate times. sigh.

talking.

hollis is talking a ton these days. i love hearing how he expresses himself and thinks to convey what he wants us to know.

he's been snotty for about two weeks now, post flu, late winter awesomeness. he crawled up in bed with me the other morning early. he likes to whisper and tell me things at this time. that day, he was rubbing his leaky nose and he whispers "i need a nose napkin". obviously, it's been nose napkin ever since.

also, this weekend we were at a bookstore and i heard a mother talking to hollis. i turned around and there was a little girl - probably 12-18 months. i asked if her name was hollis (it was) and i looked at hollis and said "hollis! her name is hollis too! isn't that neat?". he looked at the girl, then looked at me and said "no."

brrrr.

our heater went out yesterday. huge bummer, but this time around the fix isn't too crazy - we just need to replace the ignitor. apparently our furnace is 16-17 years old, though, and 15 years is considered unbelievably great, so...it's likely it will give out in the near future (hopefully that means we can get 2-3 more years out of it...). so that will be $7-12K. which is an astronomical amount of money. yikes. maybe we will win the lottery before then!

anyway. stuff like this makes me super appreciative of a lot of things. where we live - seriously, if we lived in another state, we would have much crazier winters and this would be a huge ordeal. it only got down to 39 here last night, and it stayed a balmy low-mid 60s in the house. we bundled the kidlets up in flannel footie pajamas and let them sleep in ek's bed with the space heater. and jb and i just rocked lots of blankets. but all in all, no worse for the wear. definitely wouldn't be the case if we were dealing with temps in the teens and below.

i'm also just grateful to even have a house and warmth and all those modern necessities that we take for granted. it's crazy. there are so many people who don't have a place to live at all, and this time of year has got to be just awful - even in (mostly) sunny texas.

here are the kids last night and this morning. in spite of the chilliness, they are very resistant to wearing winter-appropriate clothing. also, gumbo makes everything better.

menu.

i've been doing a decent job of menu planning lately. except when jb was traveling, but whatever. most of the stuff i've been making is very vegetable-heavy, so i'm in heaven. i am a veggie lover (much more so than fruit, which i can take or leave).

anyway. the hardest part about this is that the kids aren't super veggie eaters, especially in their current picky phase. i want to be a hard-ass and only serve what i'm cooking for the adults to them, but somehow i just know they're not going to eat a brussels sprout salad or cauliflower veggie stir fry. so, i cook two meals most nights. maybe if they just see us eating healthy stuff, it will normalize it for them a little?

the food is pretty, i think. points for trying.

asian noodle jar salad (modified a little).

steamed veggie salad with macadamia nut dressing

emme & cate.

we met cate and her parents at ek's dance class a couple months ago. turns out they live around the corner and they are awesome. emme loves cate and it is super nice and convenient for her to have a neighborhood buddy that's her age (and whose parents we also like).

hollis loves cate too - every time we walk or drive by her house, he says "i wanna go cate's house right NOW!".