{Mardi Gras 2012: French Quarter}

I'm having so much fun looking back at all the pictures from our Mardi Gras trip. I can't believe that we actually made the trip. It started out as a casual invitation from my dear friend Ra last year. We were out celebrating her mom's birthday last December and they talked about Mardi Gras again. I got excited and told them that I'll ask Ed if he wanted to go and he said, definitely. Hence, the plan for this wonderful Mardi Gras trip.

We can not thank Ra and her family enough, for welcoming us and sharing this beautiful tradition with us. We had some bump with our hotel reservation but that did not stop us from going. Her aunt graciously opened their home to us and we stayed with them the whole time. It was a blessing in some way, because we all got to spend a lot of time together.

The Saturday afternoon parades were cancelled due to rain and thunderstorm. We decided to brave the weather and explore the French Quarter. New Orleans is definitely a unique place. We love the food, the atmosphere and the people.

A couple of pictures at Jackson square before the big rain.

The balconies at the quarter were beautifully decorated. Some folks were handing out beads to all the tourists. The kids learned well from the parade the night before and was very well aware that they can holler, "Hey, Mister throw me somethin" and get beads.

The rain distracted me from taking a lot of pictures. I can't believe I didn't took a single picture with Ra and Brian. It was so nice of them to join us at our French Quarter adventure. I also neglected to take a picture of the awesome Po boy sandwich we had for lunch at Johnny's Po boy.

Before the downpouring rain, we had the chance to see St Louis cathedral, a traditional mardi gras band playing at the square, check out some more shops with all the cool beads, take a peak of the long line at Cafe Du Monde and stroll the streets of the quarter.

Later that night, the boys had a great night in with popcorn and TV.

{Mardi Gras 2012: Audubon Zoo}

We got in New Orleans late Thursday night and allocated Friday morning for our trip to the zoo. It's great time to tour landmark destinations before partaking on the parade festivities in the evening. We have a pretty good zoo in Atlanta but I have to admit that Audubon Zoo is now my favorite zoo. It's unique and you are close and able to get a good view of all the animals.As soon as you walked in the entrance, you are welcomed by beautiful trees and this wonderful elephant water fountain. This got the kids(and parents) really excited! We knew that this would be an awesome adventure.

William and Samantha was absolutely mesmerized by the elephants. They were beautiful!

In addition to the elephants, the white tigers were one of our favorite animals in the Asian exhibit area.

We were a lil bit hungry and decided to grab a quick bite at one of the cafes at the zoo which also offers a view of the flamingos. The kids loved the beignet fries. It was their first time trying it and decided to eat beignets instead of their chicken fingers.

With a full belly, we continued on with our adventure. William spotted this lion and asked me to take a picture of him...only him :)

Samantha was hesitant to touch it but loved looking at the lion.

As I mentioned earlier, I love how close we were to the animals. We got a great view of the gorillas basking in the sun.

This orangutan was having way too much fun playing in their playground.

This bridge leading up to the aviary area house so much birds. The pictures don't do this area justice with the quantity of birds around the area.

The jaguar jungle area was really cool. The statues and monuments made you feel like you are in the Mayan jungle. It very much reminded Ed and I of our Mexican honeymoon.

The jaguars were beautiful. You have a thick glass between you and the jaguars but it felt like you were so close. At one point, this jaguar made eye contact with us and hissed and showed us his pangs.

Audubon zoo prides itself for having a natural Louisiana swamp section. There were plenty of gators around the swamp. It's really a unique area.

This scary creature is the swamp voodoo---intended to protect the bayou.

The zoo also has sections were you can pet different animals. This was heaven for our adventurous boy who loves animals!

What a fun trip to the zoo. The kids really enjoyed it. William did not want to leave and was hoping that they have more areas to explore. Each exhibit is so unique and engaging. We didn't even realized time and stayed at the zoo longer than what we initially had planned on.

{Birthday}

With our upcoming big trip this weekend to NOLA for Mardi Gras, Ed requested for a low key birthday celebration. Isn't ironic that when you are going out of time, is also the time where urgent stuff at work must be done.

We didn't had the chance to pick up Ed's favorite cookie cake, but it's all good because we got him his favorite chocolate cake from Publix.
We had pizza and cake with friends the night before his birthday. It was a fun and intimate celebration!

Happy birthday Ed! The kids and I are so blessed to have you! What great person you are.
You are kind and I am extremely proud that our kids sees that.
You are goofy too but that's what makes our house so fun!

{Valentines 2012}

In our house, we celebrate holidays big time! We craft, we decorate...the kids definitely love it.
The kid's school was offering a parents night out the weekend before valentines, so I even had a date night with my Valentines. We had a lovely dinner at McCormick & Schmick and even managed to squeeze in a cup of latte at Cafe Intermezzo. The morning before our date, I ran the Chattahoochee challenge. This is not the most flattering picture...but I just completed a 10K in the frigid 30 degree temp, as part of my 12 months a racing goal. I ran this race in 1:05:05. Not bad. Getting closer to my other goal of running races slightly faster. Back to valentines... we had so much with creating Valentines craft this year.
Samantha handed out butterfly pops to her class.
and William gave all his Valentines peeps this goodie :)
We love all their teachers and will take every opportunity to tell them how much we appreciate them!
The kids also had a great time working on their Valentines boxes.
Princess castle for Samantha and a robot for William.
We've been reading some Valentines theme books. Samantha snuggled Riley with her blankies. If you know how much Samantha loves her blankies, then you know that she loves Riley that much for her to snuggle him with it.
We celebrated Valentines day with an intimate family dinner at Five Seasons Brewery. There were plenty of other couples celebrating as well. We were so proud on how well behaved the kids were and it allowed other people to enjoy this special day! Hope y'all had a great Valentines.

{Sock Bun}

Hi my name is Donna and I a sock bun junkie. OMG, it feels like this hairstyle was made for me...

• Easy - check



• Cute - check



• Quick - check



• Makes your hair looks fuller---double check!!!

The hubby of course had to insert funny comments when he found out that there's an actual sock in my hair. "Make sure it doesn't fall while you are walking at your office hallway" or "Don't loose it, while you are in the middle of a meeting". Yes, he's a funny guy :) Whatev, I've already converted 2 (that's 90% of the woman population at my office by the way) of my lady coworkers to this hairstyle. Can't wait for them to rock it out!

Here's my favorite sock bun tutorial, pinterest has a bunch of them but I think I love the simplicity of this one the best.

http://www.sarahtoshreveport.com/2011/10/sock-bun.html

{Growing up too Fast}

This lil princess is. Her vocabulary has expanded a lot. Favorite phrases:

I do it

Look at that

There it is

Read it please (Loves to read the Look and Find books)

{William's 1st Trip to the Dentist}

Ed took William to see our favorite dentist, Dr. Berger. If you are still in search of a dentist in Atlanta, I highly recommend him. Anyway, Ed being the awesome daddy took plenty of pictures of his first visit.

William did so well with his first visit. They had a pediatric dentist visit his school last year so he's been kinda ready for this day. We had to tone down his expectations though because they made it sound like that there's a party at the dentist office. Dr. Berger is not a pediatric dentist but he is a kid at heart so we were confident that William will enjoy his visit as well.

The staff toured him around the office and even let him "play" with some of the equipments. They told him that he can spray Dr. Berger with the water pik so he was so excited about that.
The first thing he told me when he got home was that he sprayed Dr. Berger with water. Evidently this is one of their "kid" tricks and it seems that Dr. Berger was ready for it. William was so calm and cooperative that he also got his teeth polished instead of just the routine teeth check.
No cavities for this lil boy. William really takes good care of his teeth and brushes them with a sonic toothbrush. He's also very fascinated with flossing. Let's hope he keeps up at it.