Celebrating Louisiana!

Hey, ya'll.. it is a late blog for me tonight, but I wanted to get it in real quick. I just spent the last three hours getting Calib's photo book put together for his home school evaluation. The evaluation isn't due for another six weeks or so (October 23, I believe), but I had a coupon code for a free photo book that expires tomorrow, so I needed to get it done. Plus, I'm totally sick- and have lost my whole voice so it's was a good and productive thing for me to do while laying in bed. Luckily our state today didn't have too many projects to go along with it- I felt like I could power through that just fine. 

We started out the day a little out of order, because Asa let me sleep in until 10:30 this morning. (Hoping that would curb this cold I have coming on- I took nyquil last night and boy was I out!) I ran to the store (still eyeing Target's Back to School section hoping for 70 percent off!), cleaned up a bit and helped get chores off and running. Before I knew it, it was lunch time. Asa made us all these AWESOME Shrimp Po Boys! 

Then, instead of doing the road trip map project first like always, we moved on to an outdoor activity- I knew it was going to POUR (and boy did it ever), so I wanted to get it out of the way. 

We re-created a swamp, or the Bayou in the baby pool, and the boys had a minute to fish out as many (plastic) swamp animals as they could with the net. 

Calib got seven, Hayden had five, and Peyton only found three. He wasn't thrilled. 

Then we came inside for our roadtrip map. 

TIL: None of my kids can pronounce Shreveport. 

You can't talk about Louisiana without talking about the famous 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Thomas Jefferson bought the land for $15 million dollars- and it equated to about 4 cents an acre. 

Wanting to make the activity a little more fun than the worksheets they had, we made a Louisiana Purchase brownie. I drew a rough outline of the USA with frosting. 

The boys filled in what was the Louisiana Purchase with frosting and sprinkles. 

Then all day I got asked 'Can I have a piece of the Louisiana Purchase please?'

We did mention Jazz, and had some plastic instruments-- 

--that drove Asa crazy in about 2.3 seconds. (In his defense, he was trying to work as it's a work from home week) 

Then we talked about Mardi Gras, and constructed some masks out of paper plates. 

Hayden used lots of glitter glue, while Calib went with some beads. 

Peyton cut his out the coolest though (it took him about four paper plates before he was finally happy with it) 

Mine even had feathers. It's amazing the stuff I have laying around in the craft drawers. 

Then the rain came, and Asa attempted to show Porkchop it was nothing to be scared of. Which didn't work at all. 

That's it for Louisiana- It's up on the board not taking up too much space, which is good because we're running out. 

Also worth noting, Asa made an awesome Gumbo for dinner- which I neglected to take a picture of. Then he passed an exam, and we didn't have ice cream or rootbeer to celebrate. I'm such a terrible wife. We'll get to it soon, I promise! 

Then I spent my evening getting my coupons in order for the new Publix ad, and getting the Photo Book done. I was hoping to make it to the zoo tomorrow for Swaptember, but I don't think I'll be quite feeling up to it, so we might have to shuffle a few things around and hope I'm a-ok by Thursday. 

Up Next: One last state, we're celebrating California (and trying to replicate the best fast food ever!)