Clearly, Gary lost a bet.





Gary bet his friend Darren that the Patriots would win the Superbowl, so when they didn't, Gary was forced to buy this New York Giants gear and take photos of Emmylou and Lola in it. I think the worst part of it for him was that he had to buy Reebok products (everyone knows Gary is a Nike fanatic). Luckily, Darren has 4 year old twin boys who'll eventually enjoy the outfits.

And Eric, we know you're loving this, too...

Happy 23 months, Lou!

I think I'm in denial that you're actually turning two in less than a month so I've kind of been trying to ignore this past month's milestone. So let's just not talk about it and have lots of cake in a month, okay?

Love you,
Mama

P.S. You're still wonderful.

In your pigtails...

"Oh, shoot!" That's what Emmylou just said when she dropped her cup on the floor a few minutes ago. Can I say that I'm happily surprised that it wasn't something else?

And I'm especially pleased that she's starting to put two words together. It's been drilled into my brain as part of my speech pathology training that 2 year olds communicate with 2-word combinations, so I've been a little concerned that we only have one month to go before that deadline. But today she also said "more baby" when she saw a friend's new baby sister at school and the other day she said "uh-oh fall down," so I think we're in the clear. As I've mentioned before, she's a little stubborn with her talking and will never say something if we specifically ask her to. Saying "can you say xxx" only brings a quick "no" or a sly smile and maybe a little laugh. I swear, she is totally playing us!

We got back last night* from a very fun Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We all had a great time but Emmylou, especially, LOVED it. She loved sitting in the ladder for the parades and catching beads and marching with the bands when they walked by.

"Hey, throw me something, Mister!"



The catch...



Have to put it on...



And get ready to catch more!



It was a successful parade...



The next day Emmylou tried her first crawfish but it was a little spicy so she stuck with the corn. I think she ate at least 4 or 5 cobs.







And there were so many kids there this year! Here are a bunch of them sharing Cheetos and those things that you throw that pop...



Here's Emmylou with Ella...





And with Zach, one of my cousin Amy's sons...



Some of the others in our crew...

Emily, Leslie and Sharon:



Emily and Sharon, in their best Mardi Gras garb:



We celebrated Lizzie's birthday on Saturday night with a yummy Doberge cake...



Emmylou looked pretty excited about that cake...



We had lots of fun on Fat Tuesday. Emmylou wore her peacock costume but only for about 15 minutes because it was so hot. Here she is in it with Grammie...



Then during the Rex parade, the LSU marching band and dancers stopped in front of us for a long time. Doesn't Emmylou look excited to be posing with the dancers? (This photo is really for Daddy.)



And here's Emily getting paddled by some guys who had a pretty elaborate costume/set-up as the unofficial New Orleans Ping Pong League. Ouch!




*So I started writing this post a while ago but got frustrated because Blogger would only let me upload one photo at a time. Today (2/11/08) I've finally gotten back to it!

Before we left for Mardi Gras in New Orleans, we had a chance to spend an afternoon with Emmylou's PawPaw and Nana in New Braunfels. They gave Gary a gift certificate for Christmas for about a million pounds of meat so we could fill up our new freezer, so after lunch we headed to Granzin's to pick it all up. The place is amazing- we highly recommend checking it out if you're ever in New Braunfels!

Here are pics from our lunch at Huisache Grill, a really cute restaurant...