Rainy Saturday and Super Sunday- Juner.

It was the weekend, so naturally, it was cold and rainy. Sigh.

Mama and Henry entertained themselves by building a parking garage out of blocks.

It was originally two levels higher, but not very stable, so they downsized.

On Sunday, we woke up to the best day of the year- Super Bowl Sunday!! I decided to root for the Colts, so I picked out all blue clothes to wear.

Juner picked the Saints and wore black and gold.

Sunday was actually a very nice day, so papa took us to the park so mama could stay at home and start cooking for our 6th annual Super Bowl party. Usually our theme is delicious Wisconsin food, but this year we expanded the theme to New Orleans vs. Indiana. Inspired by all the baking she's been doing this week, mama decided to make a king cake from scratch. It had to be set aside to rise twice and mama was pleased with the result. She said that the cake is to celebrate the Epiphany (King's Day) and you only eat king cake between the Epiphany and Fat Tuesday- the last day before Lent starts on Ask Wednesday. She even found a tiny baby to hide in the cake. No one at the party ate the piece it was in, so that must mean mama has to make the cake next year.

She also put together a big pot of jambalaya. It had chicken, shrimp, and Andouille sausage. We were very lucky, because mama could find a grocery store that sold it, but our neighbors saw her plea on facebook as they were shopping in a Whole Foods. Thank God for technology. They found her the best, freshest Andouille sausage she could have hoped for. It is very spicy and really made the whole dish. She joked that she was going to make it Indiana-New Orleans fusion and just add Lil' Smokies instead. We're glad she didn't.

Representing the Indiana side was a sugar cream pie- Indiana's state pie. We really wanted pork tenderloin sandwiches, but mama didn't feel she could do justice to a deep fried pork tenderloin as big as your head on a tiny bun. If you've never had a sugar cream pie, it is literally sugar and heavy cream (with a little vanilla, a few tablespoons of flour and ground nutmeg) in a pie crust. After some research on the interwebs, mama discovered that the true secret to making a good sugar cream pie is stirring the sugar and the cream together inside the pie crust with your finger. (Don't worry, she washed her hands.) It takes so long to dissolve a cup and a half of sugar into a cup and a half of heavy whipping cream, that you risk whipping the cream if you stir it with a fork. It didn't set up as firm as we'd hoped, but it was good- like eating sweetened condensed milk in a pie.

We also had a few midwestern standards- a cheese and cracker plate with big log of Klement's sauage courtesy of Aunt Jenni's visit to Menards- a hardware store (where else do you buy sausage logs?). And mama broke her ban of shelf stable cheese "product" and made papa his crock pot full of cheese dip with sausage and Rotel. Henry and mama spent a long time in the grocery store looking for the big yellow box and Henry was so excited to try what mama calls "Gross Cheese." This year's dip was so perfect, it wasn't even able to be captured properly on camera. It's like trying to get a picture of Big Foot. It's always blurry and you're not quite sure what you're looking at.

Here's the rest of the spread to prove that there were a few vegetable in there.

The party was so fun, the company so captivating, and the 6 kids aged 1-6 were so well behaved playing in the toy room, mama didn't even think to take pictures of anyone. She was too busy watching football and enjoying the company of other adults.

Mama and Papa stayed up late talking to the remaining guests that didn't have to take their kids home to bed at half-time, so we had a quiet day today. Henry refused to take a nap (because he wet the bed last night and his blankie was in the wash), but mama was very surprised that he actually played quietly by himself for an hour so she could take a nap. After supper, I decided to do some reading and pulled up the nearest dump truck.

And one more funny story from the weekend. Papa let mama sleep in on Saturday morning. He got up with Henry (I sleep until 10 am on the weekends). When mama got up, papa told mama that she needed to buy a new house phone when she went to the store. When she and Henry got to the Walmart, a friendly worker asked if they needed any help. Henry announced "We need a new phone because my papa dropped our phone into the potty- right in my poop." Surprisingly enough, the phone survived its fall and was still working. Mama thought it was gross and refused to use it. Sorry to Great Grandma Parsons, who was on the phone and had to suffer through the ordeal of being dropped in the toilet. Now we're the proud owners of a new phone with caller ID- the fanciest phone we've ever owned. But we still have an answering machine- not voicemail. Welcome to the 21st century, Turners!