And another reason...

Eight reasons, actually. A couple from church already had two sweet little girls under the age of four when they became pregnant with quadruplets. After the babies where strong enough to come home the whole church pitched in to help with the feedings. Mike and I go almost every Sunday evening. I had forgotten how soothing it could be to hold a tiny baby. It was like therapy. At six months they are starting solids, smiling and laughing. These photos were taken when the babies were around three months old. Being able to be part of this family in this way has meant so much to us. Paul and Jenny Kate always say, “thank you so much for all your help”, but it is us who are thankful. Thankful and so blessed.

It is seldom boring

There is always something to do in New Orleans. I consider that a perk to living here. If we don’t celebrate it with a parade, we celebrate it with a festival. (This is not an exhaustive list, just the ones that come to my mind first.) We have parades for holidays- Halloween, Mardi Gras, Easter. We have parades for Saints- St. Patrick, St. Joseph, Joan of Arc. We have festivals for food: Po’boys, mirlitons, seafood; separate festivals to celebrate different types of music (Cajun, Brass bands) and festivals to celebrate wide ranges of music (Quarter Fest and Jazz Fest). That is one thing the festivals and the parades have in common: Music-everywhere, all the time. The parades generally all have throws in common-beads, cups, coins, stuffed toys. But St. Patrick’s Day parade Uptown is different, they throw food! Everything you need to make Irish Stew, but the corned beef. I love that parade. This year we caught carrots, potatoes and seven cabbages. I gave all but two away. It rained before, during and after the parade. Hey, in New Orleans water in one form or another is always interfering with our plans. Do we cancel? Not us. We get our umbrellas and shrimp boots and off we go. Ian was home for spring break so he went with us. (I asked Ian after Thanksgiving if he went to the Macy’s parade in NYC. He said he saw it last year, and well, after growing up in New Orleans he found parades without throws kind of boring) We bumped into some friends, Mary Lee and Toy, from church. They had friends with them from out of town. Half the fun for us this year was seeing the out- of -towners enjoying themselves at the parade. It was delightful despite the rain.