The Nightly Towel/Blanket animals

We all looked forward to seeing what would be waiting for us at night when we finally dragged the girls in to go to bed.

Crab

Elephant

Gorilla

Dog

Sting Ray

Bear

Turtle

On one of the cold, windy sea days, Courtney, the girls and I took a fun towel folding class.

Emerson's puppy dog

My puppy

Emerson's elephant

My elephant

Not as easy as it looks...

Mardi Gras Break- Disney Cruise

So we did it again.  Another Disney Cruise.  Would we have done another Disney Cruise second year in a row, probably not.  However, Emerson's bestie, Lila Grace, and her Mom, Courtney, expressed an interest in doing the next one with us.  So we said, "Why not now?" This is the first post of many about our cruise. We did a one week cruise on the Disney Fantasy.  We went to Cozumel, Grand Cayman's and Bahamas.  Was the newest and biggest Disney boat wonderful- Beyond!  We pulled the girls out of school on a Friday to fly to Orlando.  Didn't really have an option on that part, as all the other flights were booked.  We spent the night in Orlando and then took the Disney buses to Port Canaveral to board The Fantasy.

 The Port was pretty cool.  Everyone got their "Key to the World", hung out with Mickey and then boarded the ship.

Our rooms connected, so the girls were thrilled about that.  We did a larger room with a port whole this year and it was perfect! SO nice!

This cruise was one of eight special Star Wars Cruises this year, so Emerson made some Perler Bead Magnets for your door.  We were really happy with our room.  2 bathrooms, so much storage for one week and the port hole was awesome.  Our Room Hostess, Stevanie, would fold Emerson's bed out of the wall each night. It was closest to the window.  Our bed was so comfortable! 
We were super thrilled to get a whole day on the boat before we even left port.  It gave us time to unpack, figure our way around, get girls checked into Kids Club and just get our barring as to where everything was.
I am not sure how I will organize all the hundreds of pictures yet.  We did some amazing excursions and generally had a lot of fun. Our first 2 days were sea days and were cool, cloudy and windy. However the rest of the trip was perfect weather!  Our day in the Bahamas at Castaway Cay was beautiful.  Warm but not hot and not a cloud in the sky. Now that we have gotten to experience Disney's Private Island, it kind of made us mad we didn't get to experience it last year.  But we can't control the weather!
So much more to come.

17th Wedding Anniversary

 Denny and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on January 22. We spent it in NOLA with friends. Pretty proud of our years together!  Looking forward to 17 more!

Louisiana Marathon

Emerson's Running Club ran the Kids Fun Run at The Louisiana Marathon a few weekends ago.  It was pretty cold but the sun was shining and it ended up being a beautiful day.  She was one of the only 4th grade girls that ran and we are super proud of her.

A day off together

These two spent Martin Luther King Holiday at our house in their PJ's. Courtney took them to the mall for awhile the day before then the sleepover began. 

 This is scary to say the least. Makeup lessons will have to happen before either of them will be allowed to leave the house with anything on their face. But we don't have to think about that for awhile.

 Then they made chocolates.  They both have these pretty cute chocolate making kits.  Emerson's makes small candies and Lila's makes chocolate bars.  Needless to say, we had chocolate from one end of the kitchen to the other.

Fun times!

Its the simple things

That make you smile.  Weather advisories were out and people at Em's school were scrambling to get everyone home before the bad stuff arrived.  On our way home this is what we saw...

Can you see it? Double rainbow...Amazing!

Ringing in the New Year

The rest of our visit was pretty low key.  I cooked a traditional NY Day lunch and the girls played a lot.  We all spent a little time on KK's Christmas Gift.  The girls baked and decorated cookies.

Can't believe it's back to school again.  The Holiday Break went by so fast!  Mardi Gras is pretty early this year, so we are now counting down to that break.