mardi gras begins...

this is the first post of several posts that will inevitably follow.

in the deep south, especially this close to Nawlins', you can expect some wild awesomeness with mardi gras festivities. here we are a good two weeks out from actual black friday, but nonetheless, we found ourselves at the first of many mardi gras parades...

even though it has been in the 60's here for the last couple of weeks, it rained like crazy last night and it dropped down into the low, low 40's today. that being said, we spent most of the day trying to keep Will warm, happy and entertained. if only he could understand the spectacle that is the dirty south, we wouldn't have had to do much. Will mainly held it down by sucking his wrist as he has a tendency to do these days.

it must be great to be a little kid down here right about now. your hometown football team and hero (who dat, drew dat brees) are heading to the superbowl real soon. plus, you get to go stand in the streets and have people throw free crap off their floats at you.

but if i have to hear that ying yang twins' "who dat" song about the saints one more time, i think i'm going to go all confederate on somebody. cause the south will rise again. or so they seem to think and preach and show by STILL flying variants of the confederacy.

so the parade was pretty fun. we went with our friends, curt and paula (not pictured), reveled in the festivities and got tons of beads without having to do anything but stand there and have people chuck them at us. all in all, it was pretty rad. we're definitely gonna bust out our own mardi gras gear (purple, gold, and green) that we bought last week for the upcoming multiple parades, which will most likely be documented in obnoxious detail in a forthcoming post. so hang tight. you're not going to want to miss this one.

oh yeah. and check out this guy. nothing out of the ordinary about him. he totally fit in with the rest of the crowd that was out today for the kick off parade.

chatterbox

william is the biggest chatterbox these days. here he is telling me all of the wonderful things that are on his mind . . .

(sorry about the video being sideways; he was laying down and i was using my ipod so i couldn't change it to landscape.)

oh really?

this is Will when he doesn't really believe what we're telling him.

ballerina.

i guess it's the week for documentaries. today, while i was feeding Will, i decided to watch Ballerina, a documentary about 5 Russian ballerinas from the Kirov Ballet. it was beautiful. and interesting. to see the course that girls starting at the age of 10 take to become prima ballerinas in Russia is incredible and incredibly demanding. i don't know many girls who'd have the stamina to pursue such goals under such extreme circumstances.

my favorite ballerina in this documentary was definitely Evguenya Obraztsova. her style and technique are impeccable. however, watching Ulyana Lopatkina rehearse for Swan Lake in the studio against the light from the window was breathtaking. i could watch that all day. makes me want to go and work on making my arms flutter like a swan's wings . . .

after William was done eating, he finished watching the movie with me, however he was quite restless. i guess he's not totally into ballet. which is okay by me, and VERY okay by his dad, i'm sure :)

you can rent it here and here is the trailer, if you're so interested . . .

A man in the MLK mold

In the spirit of MLK day, Will and I woke up early and watched a documentary titled: Street Fight. You can find the trailer here or on Netflix. It's the story of Cory Booker, a young politician, who tries to unseat an extremely long standing incumbent mayor in the city of Newark, NJ. It chronicles the fight against years of political corruption and political machinery that dominates the local politics of particularly low-income areas, like those the exist in Newark.

It's a pretty shocking and inspiring story. I don't want to give away the ending, but you can read up on Cory Booker on his wikipedia page here. Even Barack Obama couldn't entice Booker to leave Newark for bigger and greener pastures on the national stage.

It's pretty rad to read and learn about people like this who fight against insurmountable odds and come out on top.

Anyway. Watch Street Fight and have a happy Martin Luther King Day!

i'm a big boy now . . .

3 months. can you believe it??? our baby is 3 months old! crazy. and just look at how much he has chunked up . . . i know i'm his mom, and it's a given, but i think he is sooooo cute! i wonder at what age he's going to get sick of me kissing him all day long. hopefully never :)

cute baby and cute daddy.

Christmas Break and Back

Prepare yourselves, this is a doosie, a really long doosie.

We took Will on his second trip for Christmas break. This time it was to Salt Lake, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. He told me last night when we got home that he really enjoyed all three.

It was a pretty hectic Christmas break: one week in Utah, one week in Los Angeles and a quick road trip over to Arizona for Emily's grandma's 90th birthday party.

With all of that we still had time to...

... 1) bless Will at my parent's home ward. It was great because so many of our aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents were able to make it. Here's a shot of four generations of Frandsens.

... 2) Pose for a J. Crew advertisement,

... 3) launch my brother Nick's modeling career,

... 4) pose for a Frandsen family Christmas card,

... 5) expose Will to his first dose of cold Utah winter while chilling with our nephews,

... 6) bond with Grandmas and Grandpas,

Here's another four generation shot on my mom's side:

... 7) make gingerbread houses for FHE,

and this was even all before Christmas. Not to mention the extended Frandsen/Ushio annual Christmas parties and all the associated revelry...

On Christmas, the kiddos got just what they asked for. I guess they were nice and not naughty. This is our nephew Zach and his new skates.

Will wasn't quite sure what to think of all the hoopla, but I'm sure he'll figure it all out soon enough.

Uncle Nick decided 2 months old is old enough to start the indoctrination of little ones and so it began...

With Christmas over and done, it was time to head to LA to hang out with Emily's family.

That meant more sibling bonding time.

More presents from Santa, like this rad sumo stocking stuffer that mesmerized Will pretty well.

He also got some more uncle bonding time in.

And met his new buddy/cousin Weston.

Plus we schlepped him all over LA and all the way to Phoenix to meet more relatives, which meant plenty of car seat time. Thankfully he loves his car seat and his buddy the swinging owl.

All in all, it was a really fun 2 weeks. We've decided that we could totally just hang out with our families all the time and be totally happy. Of course friends are great, but there is nothing quite like staying up late and goofing around with your siblings and parents, even if that means beating them in pictionary in the greatest come back ever known to the game of pictionary or any other game for that matter...

Oh yeah. And Happy New Year to everybody too.