mardi gras overload

I took sooooo many pictures at the parades. It's crazy. The floats were insane.
Friday night we went to the Hermes/Krewe D' Etat/ Morpheus parades...(all 3 were back to back).

There were some drunks standing next to us (see behind me in the picture below?) This one dude bent over to pick up some beads and he flashed most of his butt crack right at me. Not just the top inch or 2...I am talking almost the whole crack. But it was accidental. No intentional flashing was witnessed. I was so happy about that!

My sweet baby:::

If you click on the picture you can see this better. The floats were really pretty.

These creepy dudes were Emily's favorite:::

Julian spent Friday night at a friend's house because they had a Boyscout project the next morning. (parking cars on the parade route for cash to raise money for camp)

See...that's what we were doing the night before!!!

There's a ward building on the parade route with a nice parking lot. People paid $25/each to park there.

Friday was Emily's 8th birthday! She got to stay home from school. It's our little tradition. We went shopping all over town. She got to pick out her own present. Plus she had some birthday money so she got a bunch of things. Then we met Josh for lunch at Sicily's Pizza (her choice).

We went home, played, organized her room, and then headed off for the parade!!!

Po Dunk Parade

Okay...so our little town puts on an awesomely Po Dunk parade every year.
It's called the Push Mow parade, but I didn't see any push mowers, just a few riding mowers. LOL
It started out with some bag pipers...
Some Cleopatras

And then this lady:

I want to be friends with that woman. That was one of the funniest things I have seen in a parade. She was pulling a trailer with her mower...Her kids were in costumes, sitting on fold-out lawn chairs.

It got even better though. You know you're living in the boonies when you see floats with these types of themes:::

Here's Emily sorting through her loot:

She is so much fun to hang out with. She gets so excited. Everyone else was just standing around, not even smiling half the time!!!

Emily was jumping up and down, yelling "Hey!!! Throw me something!!!!"

That's how you're SUPPOSED to act at a parade!

If you look behind Emily, the majority of the "floats" were just trucks pulling trailers full of kids. LOL

Anyone can join in the parade. You don't even have to sign up in advance. Just show up. There were a few people just pulling a wagon with their kids in it.

One couple was pushing a stroller with a Chihuahua in it. Yep. A Chihuahua in a tutu. Now why didn't I get a picture of that?

There were lots of decorated golf carts! Oh, and some 4 wheelers too.

Mardi Gras has begun!!!!

We went to the Krewe of Eve parade and had a BLAST!

This was Alice's favorite seat:

Here are Josh and Randy hammin' it up:::

The women on the floats were flirting with them so bad! They both loaded up on garters. LOL

Julian &Logan:

All I wanted was some CUPS!!! That's my favorite thing to catch at a parade. We ended up with 7...but the season has only just begun! I hope to have a few dozen before it's over! I'll keep you posted about that! Carrie and Josh were so happy to catch the 1st cups!

If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you can see Carrie's tonsils! LOL

Ella is soooo adorable...I had so much fun holding her up as high as I could so she could get some fun stuff. She must have caught 5-6 stuffed animals.

Me and Josh and our sweet niece Alice (looking away).

She is so precious!!!!!

My baby bro Cori:::

I don't know who has more fun at these parades- the adults or the kids. It's a toss up!

My pretty friend Danelle:::

Ya gotta love those goofy boys:

what's happenin' hot stuff?

I made a collage for Julian. I may have gone a little overboard with this one, LOL.
The kids at the park:

I love when they play together:

It's so cute how Julian & Emily will squeeze onto the loveseat with Carrie even though the other sofa was empty. LOL

Friday night I made the biggest meatloaf EVER:::

Last week Josh brought me to the firing range, to teach me how to shoot his new gun- it's a 40 caliber pistol. It kind of freaked me out at first, but I hit the target every time! Not too shabby!

Of course, Josh hit the bull's eye every time:

He has perfect aim.

Here's Julian's completed Science project. He did such a good job on that. He did the written paper on his own, with zero help from me or Josh...and he got a 100% A+!!! I am so proud of him. He printed out all of the stuff for the project board, made the letters using a stencil, glued them on, looked up pictures of planes to print out...made that graph using microsoft office. He's so smart!

Julian and my Momma:::

We had my Dad's 63rd birthday at our house! It was fun! I made a big pot of stir fry.

Julian saved up $50 and bought this World of Warcraft game kit with miniature action figures. It took him quite a while to earn that much money, but he had a goal and he achieved it.

Josh is such a handy man!!!

So Josh has been doing all kinds of home improvements lately.
It's awesome!
First- he put in a little walkway between the house and carport, where it used to be just red mud. So much better: I wish these pictures were in order. Oh well.
He has put up most of the siding on the carport/shed:

What a hunk. Josh turned 33 this past Saturday! All he wanted to do for his birthday was work on the carport...but I baked him a german chocolate cake from scratch. It was yummy. Plus I got him a nice Columbia shirt. We had meatloaf subs...we finally finished off that gargantuan meatloaf last night!!!

Our bro-in-law Randy helped him out a lot with wiring the shed with electricity and putting up siding.

Josh also built a counter for me in my laundry room. It makes such a difference. Plus, now that we have the shed I don't have tons of tools and junk piled in the laundry room. It's been completely transformed.

Here's Josh in his shed. The night he got electric wired up in there, he was in hog's heaven. He had so much fun organizing his tools:

I noticed something funny about the abbreviation he used for "door knob assessories"...see what I mean?

He loves that shed!

I can't watch this stuff:

He also repaired the damages from hurricane Gustav, LOL....When did that storm blow through again? I was so nervous about him being up on that tall ladder...

From the looks of that clenched butt, I think he might have been a little nervous too. LOL