Mardi Gras

Living in the west as I do we are not celebrators of Mardi Gras. Be that as it may it is still a good excuse to make some masks and a King Cake. I found this quote on a website for Mardi Gras

"Mardi Gras is a time for families to celebrate and spend time together. A mask and costume allow a masker to transcend his or her everyday life and construct a new self along with a lot of other people doing the same thing". More or less being trapped indoors with two small children who wouldn't want to celebrate and possibly transcend his/her everyday life?

I found the download for this mask at Skip to My Lou here and although my daughter didn't feel like modeling one for a photo we had a lot of fun with glitter, markers, stickers, and crayons.

Now being that we are a G-rated household there will be no Mardi Gras beads :) but we did make a King Cake (link to the complete history of King Cake). Recipe found here

We mixed and kneaded and came up with this dough that had to rise....

We rolled the dough and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar......

The dough was then rolled into two tubes and wound around together where we then hid the baby. Whoever gets the piece with the baby will have good luck for the next year.

After it was cooked and icing was liberally spread it was decorated with as many colors of colored sugar I could find. My daughter wanted it to be a rainbow cake so a rainbow cake it was.

Even if you don't celebrate Mardi Gras where you live I think it is still a good excuse to make a cake and some masks and escape your everyday life a little bit.

I have also officially cast on for some socks....