Mardi Gras

Since I took our unborn child to Sixth Street last weekend, it seemed only fitting to follow it up with a trip to Mardi Gras. Nick and several of his classmates were in Florida last week for a "conference" (apparently they did have lectures in the mornings, but they were also staying at a house with a heated pool and made time for some deep sea fishing), so I headed to Shreveport with two of the families left behind- Jamie and her son Reaves, Jennifer and her daughter Aubrey. Here are the kids with their selections from the party store:

Jamie is from Shreveport and was a wonderful tour guide for our first Mardi Gras experience. The celebration there is much more family-friendly than New Orleans - we didn't see any of the stereotypical - ahem - bead-gathering gestures. (Of course, this may have also been due to the fact that it was 45 degrees at parade time...) A friend of Jamie's built a wooden grandstand on a trailer, which made a perfect bead-catching vantage point. The kids thought the beads were awesome at first, but then got overwhelmed- Aubrey looked like she was going to tip over and said they were choking her, so we unloaded them.

And here is the long-awaited 21 week photo. Getting bigger!! Hannah is kicking (punching?) quite a bit, but she's still less than a pound, so it's just like little taps in my stomach.