Christmas Cookies and Celebration in the Oaks

The boys and I, as well as Aunt E and Kate, went over to Nola and Nopsi’s house after school on Tuesday. Nola had requested the kids’ help in decorating the Christmas sugar cookies she made for them. Riley and Kate had multiple colors of sprinkles and sugars to choose from, and they only made a little bit of a mess. They both did a great job!

  

Nola also organized a family trip to see the lights in City Park that night. After all of the cookies were out of the oven, we piled into Nopsi’s van and went to get dinner at Lakeview Harbor before heading to the park. It’s amazing how easily Mickey can entertain these boys.

Kel-Kel, Skeets, Uncle Jeff, and Kenny met us at the restaurant, and then we all caravanned to the park. I wish I had taken pictures as we were walking up to the entrance; all of the trees lining the street were lined with colorful lights and it looked so cool. (Please pardon the pictures I did manage to take: lighting was a challenge.)

We walked through Carousel Gardens first (Riley of course had to duck into Storyland to go down the dragon slide once) and then made our way to where the lights were.

Since we had come in from the back, one of the first things we saw was the train display. There are huge raised areas, waist-high, surrounded by little curved fences all festooned with lights, upon which exist little villages and countrysides through which run lots and lots of train tracks.

Percy and Thomas and an array of other big locomotives hitched to all sorts of interesting train cars, in addition to little New Orleans streetcars, run all over those tracks. Riley and Rory were MESMERIZED, so much so that Riley did not want to leave to look at the rest of the lights.

 

We eventually got Riley to agree to leave the trains, but only by promising him we would go back before we left (which he made sure we did). We walked by a really cool sea life display and through a little bug display as well. Then we made our way to the big poinsettia tree.

 

Riley pilfered two leaves (one red and one green) that he carried around the rest of the night. And I got some cute pictures of Riley and Kate in front of the huge tree made entirely out of poinsettia plants.

Next we went to see Aunt E’s favorite tree. The boys loved walking underneath it and looking up at the lights above them.

Finally, Kenny and I had to recreate some moments from the night of our proposal eight years ago. The top was taken on the same bench where I posed just before the big event, and the bottom picture was taken in the very spot he proposed. So many good memories. Love you, Baby!

We all enjoyed looking at the lights very much, but I think all of the adults enjoyed watching the three kids more.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! I’ll leave y’all with this image and these last lines of A Cajun Night Before Christmas.

“So he run out de do' an, he clim' to de roof,
He ain' no fool, him for to make one more goof.
He jump in his skiff an' crack his big whip,
De' gator move down, An don' make one slip.

An' I hear him shout loud as a splashin' he go,
’Merry Christmas to all 'til I saw you some mo'!’"