A couple of weeks ago I was distraught I wasn't in New Orleans celebrating Carnival season. We had a great time last year and I fell in love with the strong culture of New Orleans. Of course, I have shared as much as I could with my minis and tell them all about whenever I can. We've celebrated Mardi Gras in the past, but with all of my talking, the minis were extra excited about it this year. They were even more thrilled to learn they had the day off of school and would be home to celebrate!
Therefore, we did it up. I've spent the last week talking about Mardi Gras with daycare kids (so they would know what we were celebrating when the day came)....the big take away from those talks was "we get to eat cake and you can't swallow the plastic baby." So, there's that.
The minis "helped" me set up the night before...and by set up, I mean standing next to me squealling, "oh my gosh it looks so good!" over and over again until my head hurt.
Then we moved on to read their favorite Mardi Gras book, The King Cake Baby. We also watched a video of the kids Mardi Gras parade and spoke about the history of Mardi Gras. Then, the kids got their first bead throwing experience.
Lunch was muffaletta (delicious, but not as delicious as Central Grocery) while we listened to Mardi Gras sounds, courtesy of Amazon Music. We didn't just listen to this play list during lunch...we listened to it all day long. Because, why not??
I couldn't find a great Mardi Gras movie for the kids, but we did watch Princess and the Frog for probably the fifth time this year. No one complained about that.
The big to-do for the day was the King Cake. Elizabeth wound up with the baby in her piece of cake and was instantly grossed out by it. I heard plenty of little voices saying, "it looks so real!" Perhaps I should have re-thought the cherry filled King Cake...
