Happy Monday all!  Hope you had a good weekend.  Ours was full of family and fun.  We headed down to Montgomery to see Robert’s family and go to the Maskers Ball.  Now….let me try and explain this ball to those of you that have no idea things like this exist (which was me too before marrying Robert).  In short, it’s a debutante ball…but just calling it a deb ball doesn’t even remotely do it justice.  The origins of the ball (and the several others like it that go in Montgomery, Mobile and New Orleans) are rooted in Mardi Gras.  The balls are put on by krewes and all krewe members dress up in these very elaborate costumes and masks during the ball (like a masquerade party during Mardi Gras).  There are several maids (debutantes) and one queen.  There is also a king (a senior member of the krewe) who escorts the queen.  This year, the king was no other than Robert’s dad!  His costume was so elaborate that I didn’t even hardly recognize him…a wig, a fake beard, makeup.  They go all out, I tell ya!!  Robert’s sister is a former queen, our niece Katie was a princess last year and our other niece, Anna, will be a princess next year.  It’s a family affair!

The whole thing is just a big, fun party and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly!  I personally just love any excuse to get all dressed up!  🙂

Maskers is always the weekend before Valentine’s Day with a “sweetheart” theme.  Lots of pics from the ball below.  Check out the king’s garb!!

Told you they go all out!  I guess I didn’t get a picture of them, but all the Maskers members have masquerade masks that they wear with their costumes.  Most of them take them off after the deb presentation though…they’re a little hard to drink in!  🙂

Meanwhile, back at Lulu and Granddad’s house, Maxwell was having a ball playing with Katie and Anna….or maybe that was the other way around!  Katie and Anna sure had fun treating Maxwell like their little doll!  My pretty little boy got hair bow’ed…

be-jeweled…

and even magic wand-ed!!

Oh, the joys of girl cousins!  These 3 were running around like the musketeers all weekend.  They sure do have fun together!

One funny story to end on… While we were all at the ball, we had a sweet sitter named Connie watching all 3 of the kids.  Maxwell has a history of not sleeping while we’re in Montgomery so we warned Connie that he might cry a LOT before going to bed and that if she just wanted to keep him up until we got home, that would be just fine!  We didn’t want to torture the poor woman!  Well, when we got home around midnight, Connie said that Maxwell had only cried for about 2 to 3 minutes before going to sleep.  We were so excited!  He slept all night and we could not have been happier or more relieved.  However, the next morning when Katie and Anna got up they both said, “Is Maxwell ok? because he was crying a LOT last night!”  HA!  We may never know the truth but I appreciate sweet Connie for perhaps bending the truth just a bit!  🙂

Alright, that’s it for today.  Let’s all go make it a great week!

On Sunday we went up to Huntsville to visit some of Robert’s family.  Robert’s cousin, Mary Ellen, was in town from Virginia with her husband and little boy, Andrew.  We hadn’t seen Andrew since he was itty bitty and, oh my, these boys grow too fast!

Drew and Andrew…

Love his curly do!

Andrew is only 3 months younger than Maxwell and it was so fun to see them check each other out!

Even though Maxwell is a little bit older, he was only a hair taller than Andrew.  I think they both loved having someone their own size around!

These two little rascals were getting into things all day together!  Look at those curly headed little boys…

Of course, Andrew wasn’t the only exciting thing for Maxwell that day.  He also had fun getting to check out Sweet Pea the dog…

and getting his first slam dunk (thanks to a little help from LuLu)!

The one place that Maxwell’s age gave him an advantage was on the stairs.  Andrew thought he had the lead but Maxwell snuck up behind him and beat him to the top!

Cute, sweet cousins!

It was a beautiful day so we also got to spend some time playing outside. I love Maxwell’s face in this one…

Ha!  He means business with that noodle!!  Don’t worry, they were playing happily one second later…

We ended the day with an attempt at a group cousin shot.  If you remember the pictures from last time, you know we haven’t had much success with this in the past.  Unfortunately, this time was no different.

Eh.  Maxwell and Anna are clearly more interested in Sweet Pea than smiling for the camera!  But, it’s the best we got so it’ll have to do!

One last picture…Robert snapped this one with his phone and it’s so sweet I have to share…

Thanks for a great day Betty and Don!