![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/touching-my-toes.jpg\" "\\"touching-my-toes\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nDid you celebrate Mardi Gras in any way?\u00a0 I’ve been reading the blogs of a few ladies who are getting ready to meet in New Orleans and set sail on a beading cruise!\u00a0 Really.\u00a0 Sound like fun to me.\u00a0 New Orleans brings back great memories…that was the last vacation that my husband and I took alone (several years ago!).\u00a0 I used to live there when I was in the 2nd and 3rd grade.\u00a0 I remember vividly the fun we had at the Mardi Gras parades and how the people on the floats always threw big bags of beads to my Mom.\u00a0 And I remember my doll Lucy who I still have with the painted fingernails and her poor head that keeps falling off.\u00a0 Another memory was standing outside of my school, St. Julian Eymard, and hearing the bad news that Elvis Presley had died.\u00a0 Wow, where am I going with this?\u00a0 Fat Tuesday!<\/p>\n
A couple years ago we received a mysterious package in the mail from a bakery in New Orleans.\u00a0 It was a colorful King Cake.\u00a0 Are you familiar with the tradition of the King Cake?\u00a0 There is a wonderful (long) history of the cake here<\/a>…scroll all the way down to get to the bottom line about the hidden baby.\u00a0 No one took credit for sending us that cake to this day.\u00a0\u00a0 I suspect it was my Dad or my sister in law.\u00a0 After that, we’ve been ordering a cake every year and the kids just can’t wait to see who finds the baby in their slice.\u00a0 This year I decided to make my own version.\u00a0 My sister in law sent me a great recipe (which involves a yeast bread), but I knew I wouldn’t have time to make the real<\/em> thing.\u00a0 This is what I came up with…at least it is still along the lines of a brightly decorated crown!\u00a0 And I won’t tell you what we hid inside since we didn’t have a little plastic baby! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n