The Lower 9th Ward, 5 years later

After we finished at the aquarium we wanted to drive through the Lower 9th Ward. Last year when Grandpa Jerry came we were all worn out from roaming around the French Quarter and just didn't go.


It's really been a while since I've driven through a neighborhood where I was truly scared to even get out of the car. Once when my sister moved to Chicago we "took the long way" somewhere and drove through some pretty scary places. Even living in Jackson there are some scary neighborhoods but for me they don't compare to the eerily empty, deserted streets of the Lower 9th Ward.










Kelloggs built a cute little playground here dedicated to the victims of Katrina. It was all over grown and we couldn't even find an entrance that didn't have 3 foot high grass blocking it.


These are the Brad Pitt houses. They look absolutely ridiculous and out of place. Yes they're new. Yes they're "green". But they are hideous. They do not fit in. I can see where you can interpret New Orleans as being an "artsy" place but this is the Lower 9th Ward. This is the ghetto. Literally. People in the ghetto do not live in houses that look like this.


I am not saying that new houses shouldn't be built here, I'm just saying why couldn't he build a practical house. Why do they all have to be so weird?




Where the levies failed and the walls broke.




Seriously, I would have to be absolutely running on fumes to get out and fill up gas in this neighborhood.


I felt like a sardine driving down this street. These houses are so close together I don't think a person could walk between them.

The chaos known as Christmas morning

I lovingly refer to this as the mountain. I am convinced that no matter how large the mountain gets, Lana will forever want the mountain to be bigger.







This was a fantastic moment. The one gift she really wanted from Santa was a purple unicorn Pillow Pet. We wrapped it up in a computer box and when she took off the paper she said, "A computer? We already have a computer! Ugh!"


Then she opened it and found her new favorite toy.


Earlier this year the kids broke their toy stroller that we've had since Lana was 2. I was bound and determined not to get another one since I continuously tripped over the old one. Well, a couple of months a go a neighborhood friend brought her stroller to the play ground and Tanner completely hijacked it and played with it the whole time. (Thankfully the little girl loves Tanner and let him play) So for Christmas we bought him a stroller. I tried to find a "manly" stroller but this was a good as it was getting. He honestly doesn't care about the color anyway. He loves to take Lightning McQueen on walks all over the house.




As sad as I am about not having lots of family close by during the holidays, I really enjoyed Christmas Day. We sat around playing with toys and playing our new Wii games. Unfortunately Lana came down with a fever that night and Tanner a fever the next night. Thankfully by the time Grandpa Jerry showed up on Tuesday we were almost all better!

The red neck Christmas lights

Every year since we've been here, we've come to see the Lewis lights and every year we laugh and make fun and call them the Red Neck Lights. But know that it's all in jest and we'll still come, laugh and make fun for however many years we'll be here because they're great and the kids love it. And let's face it, when you live in a small town, you're limited in your holiday activities.



The weather this year was a little on the chilly side. The last two times we've gone the weather was more on the mild side and we could get away with wearing jackets.


I never really liked Yogi Bear.








Match making at its finest. Tanner and Ella


Dark, but a cute picture of Tanner.




Lana posing with Snow White.

It's a reverse Christmas miracle!

The ward Christmas Party was last night and they had pictures with Santa before the festivities began. I was pretty sure it was going to take a miracle to get both our kids up there for pictures this year. Last year I ruined Christmas (for the record she doesn't remember) and Tanner was freaking out. The year before both kids were screaming.


As soon as those jingle bells started jingling, Lana turned into this. And Tanner perked right up and as soon as he saw Santa he sat up real tall, looked at me with his eyes wide open and said , "Momma...it's Santa!"


It took hardly any convincing on my part for Tanner to go sit on Santa's lap for a picture.


He was all about telling Santa about getting anything and everything Lightning McQeen this year.


It also helped that Santa had a bag full of candy canes.


We tried to convince Lana that she needed to tell Santa about the one thing she REALLY wants for Christmas (Unicorn Pillow Pet) to make sure that it will be under the tree, but not even that would convince her to go up.

Thanksgiving fun

We had a fantastic time hosting some of the Judson's (and Miller's and Kowallis'...but they're all Judson's at heart anyway) at our house again this year. And since I was so incredibly busy trying to make sure everyone didn't starve no pictures were captured of the actual "Thanksgiving Feast". Rest assured everyone ate well and we had sufficient amounts of left overs this year. Except for the Cheese Ball and Fudge. I don't think we would ever have leftovers of Cheese Ball and Fudge no matter how much I made.

Some of us attempted Black Friday shopping. Some of us stayed home (me!). All of us went to multiple Dirt Cheap locations and we even decided to have a last minute White Elephant gift exchange.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day so we took the kids over to a park in Petal that we've never been to. Turns out it was a fantastic idea because this park is awesome. It's geared to both big and little kids. And I think the adults had more fun than the kids.




There were these two gigantic slides, I've never seen slides so big. I think Tanner was the first one up and he went down the red one first. He literally came shooting out the end about 3 feet and landing on his bum. Everyone (including Tanner) was a little shocked and then we're all cheering and laughing so he doesn't freak out.


No freak out in sight. He actually went down both slides multiple times. The Blue slide is a little more tame.


Hi Brayden!


It took some convincing but Lana finally decided to try the Blue slide.


Scott and Paul on the teeter-totter







Karen catching some air on the teeter-totter.


Paul on the one person merry-go-round.


We all had a blast. Definitely going back to that park when it warms up!

Happy Birthday Tanner!

Sometimes I feel a little guilty about celebrating Tanner's birthday with Thanksgiving. I feel like I'm short changing him or something. But in reality, he didn't care. He enjoyed having some of his cousins and a whole bunch of aunts and uncles and grandma and grandpa there.


Thanks to everyone for Tanner's bday gifts. He loved them!


And unfortunately he's still not too great at sharing (still working on that). Sorry Daniel!






He absolutely loved this Lightning McQueen book Grandpa Jerry sent. I have read it to him multiple times a day. Now he can "read" it (in Tanner-ese) to me!

Tanner's Holiday Program

Tanner is awesome, what more can I say? I love to watch this kid perform and be a "big" boy. He makes his momma proud! I wasn't sure how he was going to react when he saw us (we sat on the front row for easy viewing). My guess he was either going to

A. Run to us and not want to perform or
B. Make a big fuss about us, wave and yell at us (and he is NOT quiet by any means).



We made contact as they were walking in from the side hallway. He saw us, waved and then went to the stage. 15 seconds into the first song he came running over to us (and started 3 other kids running to their parents too...oops!). He was so excited to be showing us his program they've been working on. We told him to go back and he did. 20 seconds later he told his teacher, "I be right back ok?" and came running back. He did this a few times and finally stayed in one place. He did such a good job, mostly doing all the actions and singing some words when he wasn't mesmerized by the gigantic projector screens on the wall behind him!





You can tell he's poised to make a run for it. And we're sitting in our seats waving at him and trying to convince him to stay there! He doesn't listen and ends up coming over anyway...


Listening to Ms. Sharon (that's Gracelynn's mom...Grace was/is Lana's friend from last year.)


Tanner and Ms. Emily.



Awesome job Tanner-Man!

Family turkey projects

Both Lana and Tanner came home with a Family Turkey Project for school. We were to disguise the turkeys as anything we wanted and were encouraged to be creative.




Paul took off with Tanner's turkey and made him into an excavator driver. The scoop moved and everything. I did remind Paul that Tanner needed to do something with the turkey too so he had him color the feathers. Tanner was absolutely thrilled with it and was sad he had to leave it at school.



We let Lana choose what she wanted to do 100%, I only helped with some cutting and gluing. Hers was a ballerina princess complete with fluffy skirt made of some left over Easter basket filling.

Halloween

The week of Halloween for us is always extremely crazy. We had a birthday party, 2 class Halloween parties, Ward Trunk or Treat/Fall Festival, Elementary school Fall Festival and a neighborhood Halloween party. I pretty much forgot my camera at all of these events but did at least remember to snap some pictures of Lana and Tanner in their costumes. This was right before the Ward Fall Festival. We had some intense thunderstorms move through that night and so we didn't "trunk or treat" but had it inside around the building. Lame since we actually bought stuff to decorate our trunk this year! Oh well. Paul won the prize for best festival booth, he made a putt-putt hole-in-one game which turned out looking like a real putt-putt hole.




Tanner absolutely loved being Lightning McQueen this year. It's a cheesy costume and Paul didn't really like it but Tanner didn't care about it being cheesy. There were no complaints from him at all. Lana was a beautiful snow princess. It was perfect this year because the actual Halloween night it was pretty chilly.




At our neighborhood party we all gather at the playground, eat, laugh, do a hay ride around the neighborhood and then trick or treat. Well, Paul found this full body gorilla costume at Dirt Cheap and the other dad's in the 'hood asked Paul to spook the kids on the hayride. It was hilarious. There are 3 boys who were talking the whole time on the ride about Big Foot and how he lives in the unfinished portion of our neighborhood in the woods. Paul jumps out and scares the kids silly. We had a good time at the party.


We only carved 1 pumpkin this year mostly because we were so busy we didn't have time to do the rest, plus pumpkins around here don't last very long. 2 days later they grow mold so we carved this one, enjoyed it for a day and it went out with the garbage on Wednesday. But we still have our other un-carved pumpkins for "fall decorations".

I normally enjoy Halloween but this year I am so thankful it's over. I'm tired of hearing the phrase, "I want candy."

Tanner and his naps

It really just depends on the day and how Tanner is feeling if he ends up taking a nap or not. I have stopped trying to put him down in his room as that usually ends in frustrating the both of us. So now he enjoys finding places in which to lay his head. I snapped this picture the other day, we had been sitting outside on the back porch. Tanner was laying on the cement. I brought him inside to lay on the couch thinking he would fall asleep there. Then my phone rang. I stepped into our computer room thinking Tanner would fall asleep and was on the phone about 5 minutes. I walked into the living room finding Tanner gone. I checked his room to see if he'd gone in there to sleep but no Tanner. After scouring the entire house I found him on the back porch fast asleep. To his credit it was a really nice day outside.



Once a while back it was a Sunday afternoon and we'd just gotten finished eating lunch. It was around the time where we all unwind and take our naps. I had finished cleaning up and hadn't heard Tanner in a while. I asked Paul if he'd seen him and he said no. So we start looking for him around the house. Nothing. The front door was locked so I knew he hadn't gone out there. We checked the back yard. Nothing. I'm getting a little nervous at this point but went to look in our room again. I had looked earlier but had only seen a bunch of blankets on the floor in the closet. I took a closer look and found Tanner fast asleep under that bunch of blankets.

Most of the time Tanner takes "normal" naps but on occasion he mixes it up and finds new places to crash.