Throw me somethin' mister!!

Mardi Gras is this Tuesday. (That's actually a redundant sentence--it's like I defined a word by using the word--you get my drift, though.) The Droddys do not necessarily "celebrate" Mardi Gras. This weekend, however, we did "participate" in some of Shreveport's Mardi Gras festivities. Saturday night was the Krewe of Gemini parade. A couple in our Sunday School class (word, Sotos) live down the street from the parade route. We met, ate, and walked down just in time to scream for plastic beads. Here is Mary and Kenya Soto on the parade route--pre-beads:
Mari (a former student of Mary's when she did BCM at Agnes Scott) is visiting us from Japan. We have been able to do some special things with her (see above) but mostly she has just been tagging along in our crazy life. Here are Mari and Jonah at Jonah's basketball game on Saturday:

Today (Sunday) we went to the Krewe of Highland parade. We had heard that it was the most kid-friendly of all the Shreveport parades. It was great! We had a great spot and got a lot of throws. Here's Jonah with SOME of his haul:

I have to admit--I used Abram as baby-bead-bait. Wouldn't you want to give this handsome fella' some beads (and his cute son)! Just a little joke! Actually, I spent most of my time slapping down the laser-like throws coming off of the floats. I'm happy to say that Abram did not get hit once (that I know of).

Always the ham, Seth shows off his beads. We kept asking him if the beads were to heavy. He insisted on keeping them around his neck. It was funny watching him lumber along the sidewalk with all his bead-bling.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!

KISSY, KISSY face....our boys are really getting into the Valentine's excitement. Seth has been so excited all day about having his big "WIPS" (aka lips) sucker. Yeah, big WIPS rule!!!

Here is another shot of Abram just hanging out. Yesterday, both the boys had their school Valentine's parties, and this is how he spent most of the party time. He's usually content just watching the boys and all the other kids. He even got to experience, for the first time, a couple of nibbles of a Valentine's cookie. Yeah, solid foods!!!

In this picture, Jonah and Seth are smiling because they are on a HUGE sugar high thanks to lots of Valentine's goodies from school. The other side of the story is that they also took a VERY long nap that afternoon, and so did mom. Yeah, naps....the best Valentine gift ever!!!

No, this is NOT a picture from the latest horror movie (why do they always come out around Valentine's Day?). This is our boys going at a bowl of red velvet cupcake batter. Can you tell they are having a good time? I made them take their shirts off to avoid the nasty red stains they would have probably acquired. Yeah, red velvet cupcakes!!

Overall, this is a great day to let all those important people you know that you love them, and to think about God's great love for each of us. So, thanks for checking our blog......WE LOVE YOU!!!

Happy Birthday/Groundhog Day Mary!

I always like Mary's birthday. I think it's great that she gets to share her day with an obscure holiday in which we celebrate the forecasting abilities of a giant rodent. The day is unique and fun...which brings it back full circle to my Mary, who is also unique and fun.

I had the boys help me pick out a gift for Mary. Here was their shopping list: 1) a pez dispenser (we've started the new tradition of collecting/giving pez dispensers a la our friend House--the boys are all over this), 2) something for Mary to use in her scrapbooks, and 3) a pink Power Ranger (in their logic, they like them so OF COURSE everyone else would want a Power Ranger--and pink was the obvious choice since Mary is a girl). The RESULT: 1) the only pez dispenser we could find at Target was a Valentine's Day one--it worked, 2) they opted for an assortment of Disney princess stickers since we just got back from DisneyWorld and Mary, again, is a girl, 3) no luck finding a pink Power Ranger...we opted for this instead:
It's a monster in a pot that grows grass for hair. We will provide an "after" shot at a later date.

Here is Mary with the boys and her birthday pie (a peanut butter pie from Southfield Grill--the best pie ever). I thought it was fitting that the only two number candles we had were a "3" (from Seth's last birthday) and a "5" (from Jonah's last birthday). Since Mary turned 35 today, they worked perfectly. We decided to see how much mileage we can get from those 2 candles in the future--my 35th birthday, Seth's 5th birthday, Abram's 3rd and 5th birthdays....Mary's and my 53rd birthdays. We will see just how long they last!

I took this last picture before the picture above. When I was looking back through them I laughed because Abram is just stuck in the background doing his own thing--the perils of being the 3rd child. I imagine a thought bubble above his head with him saying something like "umm, hey guys...you got a party going on over there...guys..."