Visit from Ted

Last night Ted spent the night with me and we enjoyed many adventures before I had to send him back to school. Here are pictures of us.

Mardi Gras in full swing

Mobile Mardi Gras is in full swing at our house. We have already attended two Dauphin Island parades, two downtown parades, one school parade and one neighborhood parade. The prize catch so far is a giant Brown bear that connell has begun to sleep with. We also managed to catch Casey a cheeseburger squeaky toy which she has thoroughly enjoyed. We have had one really cold night and today was a wet neighborhood Mardi Gras parade. We weathered the rain and got out there and caught some beads. Connell will be parading at his school on Friday and we already have a huge bag of items to throw. We have already been to one float inspection. We almost didn't make it since Clara let Casey out the door and the family along with two separate neighbors chased Casey down the block for about 30 minutes. Included you will see a picture of the kids with Casey prior to her escape. You will also see a picture of Connell with some of his friends from school at the float inspection. Hopefully the weather will clear up. Ben has been checking the 10 day forecast and he assures me it should be nice by next weekend. Here's hoping at least.

The Smurfs are making a Comeback

Ben is not happy and I couldn't be more thrilled about the Smurfs impending comeback.  Apparently there will be a new movie by Paramount Pictures coming to theaters soon.  It will have more female Smurfs.   I am most excited about all the toys and games that may be coming out with the movie.  I think there is great possibility that Clara could become a Smurf Addict and join the rest of us that love the Little Blue People.  If only my mother didn't sell my Smurf game at that garage sale, I could have made a ton on Ebay.  I know Ben is cringing as he reads this. 

The Tooth Fairy

January 9th was a big day in the Heinz household as it marked the very first lost tooth of Connell Heinz. His bottom tooth has been loose for about two months now. He would not allow anyone to pull it and he was insistent on losing it at school. You might be wondering why anyone would care whether they lost it at school or at home. Apparently, when you lose a tooth at school you get a treasure box to put the tooth in to take home. We had to be careful not to lose the tooth during Christmas break since we would not have access to the $.10 treasure box to put it in. He told both his dad and I on Tuesday the 8th that his tooth had really gotten loose that day because he had eaten a popsicle he received for picking up trash on the playground. Well one bite of an Andy Capp's hot fry at after-school care and that was all that tooth needed to come out. There was a mad rush to the office for fear of it being closed and not having the opportunity to claim the most important treasure box for the tooth. They made it in the nick of time. His after-school teacher told me that if the office was closed, she was going to have to break in just to make sure Connell had that treasure box for his first tooth. He placed the tooth in his special tooth fairy pillow and was thrilled to find $2.00 from the tooth fairy the next morning. Clara is a little upset that Connell won't share his money with her. After all, he has 2 $1.00 bills, why can't he give her one? The big question becomes, "What on earth will Connell find to spend his $2.00 on?"

Mardi Gras 2008 Kicks Off

We kicked off Mardi Gras 2008 with our first parade on January 5 on Dauphin Island. We were worried that we weren't going to make it on time only to have about 1 1/2 hours before the parade made it to where we were standing. Mimi and JoeJoe made it down in time for the parade and we met up with the Veaseys and Cookes. We caught a fair amount and it has now magically disappeared into a bag we like to refer to as "rethrows" that Daddy can load on his float on February 5th to give to all the other deserving children.