Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

This morning, Shrike and I led a Mardi Gras / Doughnut Day activity for MOMS Club. Another mom brought munchkins for the munchkins in honor of the local custom of eating doughnuts or "fastnachts" (hole-less doughnuts), and we did the Mardi Gras thing.

We had hoped to read a children's book about Mardi Gras, to teach the kids (and moms) about some of the customs, but the one such book at our local library was checked out, so I just talked about that a bit.

That part went over like a lead doubloon, but they did enjoy wearing beads, decorating masks, coloring Mardi Gras - themed pictures and eating both doughnuts and king cake.

I explained the tradition of the king cake, and told everyone that the person who "got the baby" would be the "King or Queen of Mardi Gras" - and warned the moms to check their kids cake for the baby before letting them dive into it!

I had cut about half of the cake and had found the baby and rehidden it before we started serving. By the time I went to get myself and Peeper something to eat, there were only two of those slices left (plus another 1.75 cakes) and no one had yet announced that they had the baby, so I suspected strongly that he was in one of those two pieces.

I actually had a suspicious which one it was, so I told Peeper to choose which piece she wanted - to remove myself from the decision of which one to get.

Sure enough, she picked the one with the baby!

Of course, my announcement went something like "I swear I didn't do this on purpose!"

This evening, she was wearing her mask and her hat - and the remaining part of the tiara that was originally going to be for the king/queen, except it broke on the way home from the Dollar Store - and I was telling her "You're the Queen of Mardi Gras!" and she was saying "Queen Mahdi Gah!"