Remembering Baby Parade 2011

 So... We' ve been a little lagging when it comes to posting the results of the Ocean City Baby Parade 2011. Well loyal readers, we came in third in the small float division. It was a fantastic day of babies, bonding, and beach. As you can see from the picture above, the kids had a great time being pulled by the chief Jeff Dever. The float was very cute.

 Here is a full on frontal shot of the official float. It was a lot of hard work but it paid off.

 The back of the float heading down the boardwalk. Sooooooooooooooo cute!

                                 The double stroller that held our younger participants.

                            The wagon that contained our medium sized participants.

Allison's Perspective on Baby Parade 2011
We woke up early and started loading the floats on the trucks to go to the boardwalk straight away. After everyone arrived we had a long wait. Entertaining the kids was fun and it was really hot outside. We played ring around the rosy and one of our younger members got hurt and I told them they were fine and to get up. Everything was good on the parade and no one cried. I was pushing the double stroller and our younger participants slept the whole time. It was the fourth year that we have done this and they still got our names wrong!!! We won a dish and that was pretty exciting. Once everything was over we had an awesome picnic and yep.


Elizabeth's Perspektive on Baby Parade 2011
Here is goes... um. The nights of praying and the long day of heat paid off when watching the kids receive their little trophies. Here is goes from the beginning. We woke up at 7 am (pretty early) and we started loading Uncle Greg's truck with our float, wagon, and stroller. Jeff and Natalie went off in UG's truck early in the morning (bright sunshine) to be sure our float arrived safely. When we all got to the convention center we had a tailgate with our babies and our float and I made some new friends with the judges. I think they liked me and I told them about our handcrafted float and how we are all related. Finally the time came to march up the boardwalk. My music teacher saw me dressed up as an m&m. That was awkward. Anyways back to the story... Everything went well. No babies cried and we came in third place. The fudge off the night before was nice. I think we would have lost without my prayers. Afterwards we took a nice walk past Jeff's land to the playground to have a picnic celebrating a learning experience and this year we will set off again and come in first place because I will pray more. The End. 


Katrina's Perspective on Baby Parade 2011
Words can not possibly describe the excitement, and joy of Baby Parade 2011. It was a lot of hard work but it was all worth it seeing those adorable babies being paraded down the boardwalk. While I think we deserved a higher placed finish, because our float was all home made, it gave us some serious ideas for next year. The babies were so excited to be in this parade and their constant chorus of "We love M&Ms" and "We're cute enough to eat" made the crowd swoon. We were def fan favorites. It did stink however that the announcer once again said the babies' names wrong. We called twice and gave pronunciation keys but they still got it wrong. I love the baby parade and I can't wait for 2012 and the excitement it will bring. We will win first in 2012!!!!!

The Chief Comes to Headquarters!

Jeff Dever finds a shopping cart.

Jeff Dever was working hard for the BPAC and got a little messy in the process!

There was great excitement at BPAC today as the chief came to town! Yes folks, that's right our very own chief, Jeff Dever is now at headquarters! Believe it or not this is Jeff's first baby parade, as a member of the float caravan. He watched the parade in 2009, but he is very excited to be apart of the parade this year. Chief was very busy today, he worked, he played and of course led the clan. Check out beow to see what the Chief was up to today!
Keep on Parading!

Jeff Dever scopes out his future land!

Jeff Dever sure does love M&ms

The Chief enjoys a post labor snack

We found a baby bunny!

ps: it is just about 36 hours to the parade!

A and E come to Headquarters

A pulls E in a mini test run!

E and A working hard on some paint touch ups on our main float!

Today there was lots of work and play here at the BPAC! A (our director of international affiliates) and E (our spiritual director) were here today (along with the director for the parading of babies, N)having fun and working hard on our float! Some of our other department heads, K(our art director) and Jeff Dever (our head of transportation) will be chauffeured by our matriarch and one of her close friends/body guard :-). While we were anxiously awaiting their arrival tomorrow we did some touch ups and had a mini test run with the girls! Here is a quote from A, who was recently in England: "This is by far a much more internationally accepted theme than Thomas and Friends". Above are some pics of what was going on today at BPAC!

Welcome to Baby Parade Week!

It has been a crazy day for the BPAC but a super productive one. We had about half of our baby parade participants and their mommies and daddies in Ocean City to help prepare. First up we worked on the wagon. We had our construction team there and most importantly our wagon master. He worked hard and it is starting to come together.

Wagon Master and CEO working hard.

Next we started to work on the float. We secured the wood on top of the wagon and began  final preparations. We still have a bit to do on the float but it is looking really good.

Construction head JV tests if the float can hold his weight. 

Once we were sure that it could hold the weight we started minor decorative steps. There is still more to come artistic wise but you'll have to wait until August 11 to see that!

The beginnings of an awesome float!

We got a lot done today but the last thing we needed to do was test it out with some of our BPAC participants JP,BP,and KM.

Just imagine 3 more kids on here :-)

3 Days and Counting and we still have some things to do but we are confident that this Baby Parade will be one to remember!!!

Keep on Parading!

648599 Seconds!

Or just in case you are not a math wizard that means less than 8 days until Baby Parade. We are sooo excited and we will just give you a little sneak peek about our theme of our float.

Can't believe that Baby Parade is a week away!!!!!! Were going to bring home the gold.

9 Days and a HUGE Accomplishment

9 days left to go and we made some Excellent progress today!!!! Our own JV made a push bar for our gigantic wagon and expansion. For now it is lightly bolted in before we transport to OC but we are sooo excited that this has been completed. This has been a huge worry for the BPAC for so long now and with 9 days left to go we have it done.

Check it out!!

This push bar should hopefully make it a little easier for Jeff Dever to push!

10 Days!

Happy Last day of July everybody. The BPAC is very hard at work as there are only 10 days left until the 2011 Ocean City Baby Parade! These next few days are going to be the construction days for the big float. As a little recap we got a flat bed wagon that was a bit too small to fit 5-6 kids so we got a piece of wood to put on top that way the kids had a little bit of room. We have the wood and it is cut but when we put big water bottles on it to represent the weight of the float it was near impossible to pull.

JV and K testing the wagon without the wood.

So the wonderful minds of the BPAC started thinking and searching hardware stores and we think we found a solution. While we know that our wonderful Jeff Dever will pull his very hardest, we need some push power from behind. So our construction department believes that we can use PVC pipes to create and push bar for the back of the float. Pretty creative huh?

So here is a little schedule of what's going to be going on and what you can look forward to on this amazing blog.
August 1 or 2- we are going to try to get the push bar assembled
August 7- is our official PRE BABY PARADE PLANNING DAY!!
               We will have half of the Baby Parade participants and families in OC so we will
               be planning the actual day and putting together some areas of the structures
August 8-10- These are our final preparation days before the Baby Parade
August 11- THE BIG DAY!!!!!!! BABY PARADE 2011

Look for plenty of blog posts coming your way in the next 10 days

Keep on Parading

Construction Updates!

The BPAC is hard at work with many meetings and lots of painting! While our art department is doing fabulous work, we are having many construction issues. We have realized that our beautiful float is much too heavy for even the fantastic Jeff Dever to pull down the parade route! We are now trying to spread the weight around by adding a handle bar in the back, but as of right now we are a little stuck on how to make and attach this handle! We will keep you updated and keep your fingers crossed that we find a suitable pushing handle!
Keep on Parading!

We're Registered

Hey bloggers! With 16 days to go we headed to the Ocean City Annex and the Music Pier Information Center to officially register for the 2011 Ocean City Baby Parade! Seeing the look on the man's face when we said we had 9 babies was interesting.

Here's a little account of our day.

First we headed to the City Hall Annex and the place was hopping. There was a line at 11 am. We had some action too as there was a person that left their dogs in the car. We eventually figured out that the car was running so it seems the dogs are ok.

We handed the guy the forms. The original form was too small to fit all 9 names and ages so we made a secondary sheet.

We handed in our forms and they told us we had to go up the Music Pier to get a number.

We headed up to the Music Pier and our official category is Division C Section 1 and our number is 502.

502 is a good number!!! Can't wait for the Baby Parade to be here already.

A message from the CEO

We had a big weekend at BPAC headquarters.

Construction on the Baby Parade Float has begun.

We have entered unchartered waters, but so far so good.

I am proud to report this is 4th year of OC Baby Parading and even

with the use of the "power saw" this weekend, the BPAC organization

is proud to say we have an accident/injury free record!

Here are a few photos from the Construction Crew, The Art Department, and

Costume Design Dept.

Sneak Peek

28 DAYS!!!!!!
A few weeks ago I was rather nervous about the very little we had gotten done but whoa a couple weeks makes all the difference. We still have a big project ahead of us. The design for the double stroller and wagon are pretty much complete but our biggest challenge yet is still looming. The BPAC has never built a real float before and this is our year. We have to buy some wood to make it a bit larger (to hold all those kids) and then decorate around it. It is going to be one heck of a job but we at the BPAC are up to it.

Here are two sneak peeks at what our art department has been working on....

This is actually smaller than the ones below but I zoomed in to give it more quality

These are for the sides of the double stroller. They look small here but they will actually take up most of the side of the double stroller.

Have a great week and keep on parading!!!

PS- go see harry potter and the deathly hallows part 2 :-) its a BPAC fav

Happy Fourth of July Weekend!!

Yep it's Fourth of July weekend which means trips to the shore, barbecues, fireworks, and fun! And it also means 40 days until the Baby Parade!! This week was a rather productive week for the BPAC. We got shirts, foam circles and our art department started on the first float's design. Here is a little sneak peek of what our art department has been working on.

Any guess what this is? 

Happy Fourth of July!!! Stay safe and have a great and fun weekend!!!
Keep on Parading

Update...

Hey bloggers and blog followers. It is now 44 days until the Ocean City Baby Parade. Is everyone getting tan and ready? Good.

Well the BPAC is hard at work and we cannot wait to show everyone what we are beginning to create!

Remember the pic that we showed you 6 days ago with the colorful circles... Well K painted m's on them and they looked so good that she made even more... Heres a pic of all the m&ms that will hopefully grace our amazing float.

We also went up to Ocean City and looked around to find some m&m shirts for the 5 eldest cousins to where while walking up the boardwalk. Believe me when I say that everyone must be in uniform on parade day :-)

Overall we are getting excited and nervous. When recently talking to E, our spiritual director, she said, she is "looking forward to the big day... we will dominate and we will do great with all the support of everyone throughout the globe that reads our blog."

Keep looking for many updates to come.

Keep on Parading <3

50 Days!!

Hey everyone.
Baby Parade 2011 is rapidly approaching and needless to say we are getting excited (and a little bit nervous too). We have sooooooooo much to do and only 50 days to complete it all. Things are very slowly getting done though. Costumes are beginning to come into place and little things for the floats are materializing. 


Here is just a little taste of what is to come....

A look at two costumes plus other m&m memorabilia

A little look at some painted circles which you can probably figure out what they are for :-)

We will have so much more to show you in the next few weeks and we are very excited about the Baby Parade




Keep on Parading!

Hail to the Chief

Jeff and the Matriarch in 2008

It is a very happy day as our own Jeff (aka chief) turns 16.
Watch out as he takes not only the roads but the boardwalk as our head of transportation for the BPAC! Hail to the chief!!

And the Official BPAC 2011 Theme is.....

A HAND FULL OF M&M's

Yep M&M's!!! M&Ms are a family tradition in our family. Every family party has M&M's and all the kids love them. They are the perfect chocolate candy. Our float name was created by one of the matriarchs of the BPAC. It is literally for the handful of M&Ms that will be decorated on the float and a handful of M&M's (aka the kids) that are in the float.

Our official kid count is 9!!!!!

All of the cousins will be in the parade. The five older and 9 younger will all be in attendance.

The official line up is...

AED- 4 yrs

JPD- 3 yrs

LCD- 3 yrs

PGV- 3 yrs

MGD- 2 yrs

BPD- 2 yrs

JBD- 1 yr

KMD- 6 months

JTD- 3 months

So we definitely have quite a handful on our hands!!

Keep looking for more upcoming updates about the beginning of our float construction!

100 Days Left!!!

Keep on Parading!

P.S. Tomorrow is a very happy first birthday to JBD!! He will be in his first Baby Parade this year!

116 Days to go

Hey everybody. What's going on? It's been about a month since our last post and we figured we should give our loyal readers a little update.

Our theme is pretty much set however we are going to officially announce our 2011 BPAC theme when there is 100 days left on the countdown.

The wagon you see above is similar to the wagon that we have purchased for the baby parade. We plan on getting a piece of plywood to make it a tad bigger to hold so many babies. We are going to have two structures. The first being our main structure of the wagon and the second being a double stroller for our participants that are too little to survive in the wagon with the older ones. At a recent family party we placed the 5 elder ones on the structure without expanding it and it went rather well. They stayed on and we practiced our waving abilities. 

Look for our 100 day post where we formally announce our theme!!!

Keep on Parading!

The Luck of the Irish

Today is a very special day. As a very Irish family we celebrate big on Saint Patrick's Day for multiple reasons. Today is not only a day to celebrate the Irish heritage but to celebrate the births of our BPAC matriarch and PG! PG turned three today and has been with the BPAC since its formation. He was only 5 months when he first appeared in the 2008 baby parade. And then tomorrow is K's birthday who has also been with the BPAC since its inception in 08. She is the head of artistic designs. Tomorrow is our big St Patty's day party for our family and the first official BPAC meeting of the 2011 season.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day
Happy Birthdays
And Happy First Official BPAC Meeting!

Keep on Parading!

A Very Happy Birthday!!

March is full of birthdays in our family and today marks our first March birthday!! Happy Birthday to A!! A has been with the BPAC for 3 years now and is our head of international affiliates. Last year at the Baby Parade she pulled one of our award winning floats! Happy Birthday!!!!


And since it is Ocean City Baby Parade History Month here is your fact for the day!

The Baby Parade has often reflected what is going on in the country and the world. For example: after the great depression many of the children's floats and costumes echoed the economic concerns or the bicentennial year of 1976 when a definite patriotic theme was felt.

Happy March!

March is Ocean City Baby Parade History Month!

The BPAC is officially naming March the "Official Ocean City Baby Parade History Month." All throughout March we will be giving you little tidbits about the greatest and longest running baby parade in the United States. This year will be the 102nd Baby Parade in Ocean City.

Today's Fun Fact: August of 1909 Ocean City held its first Baby Parade. At that time it was a modest affair with children marching down the boardwalk wearing paper hats and waving flags. In earlier years prizes were awarded to the cutest, fattest, and prettiest babies.

Our first official BPAC 2011 staff meeting has been set for March 18, 2011. Stay tuned for details about our theme!!!

Keep on Parading!

February Birthdays!!!!!

Here at the BPAC we have some February Birthdays to celebrate!!!! On the 15th J had a very special birthday. Today its a day to celebrate another year of JV and his construction abilities. And tomorrow we celebrate MDs birthday who is mother to three of our baby parade participants this year.

The baby parade is getting closer and after our official first meeting of the BPAC 2011 crew we will announce our official Baby Parade 2011 Theme!!! It's going to be a great year!

Happy Birthday to everyone and stay tuned for the mid-March announcement of our theme!!!!

Keep on Parading!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Yesterday B.P. turned 2!!!! B.P has been in the baby parade the past two soon to be three years. We had a very nice party at the matriarchs house with all of the babies that are in the parade this year!

Happy Birthday B.P.!!!!!!!!!!

A New Baby!!

Yesterday, January 26, 2011, a new baby was welcomed into our family. Little J.T. was born yesterday morning and is now the 14th cousin in the family! Congrats to his family and especially to his big sister!

Less Than 200 Days

The Elder Five Cousins at a BPAC Meeting
K, Jeff D, E, N and A

We are officially less than 200 days away from the Ocean City Baby Parade. 198 days to be exact. We have a pretty solid theme picked out, however, we don't want to reveal too much too soon. 7 Babies (perhaps 9) are going to be in this parade. As for right now we are anxiously awaiting the birth of a 14th cousin!!!!!! This will be the 9th under the age of four!!!!

We had a meeting in January and although a few key BPAC members were not present, we shared some ideas and furthered our plans for our yet to be announced theme!
Keep On Parading!

BPAC CLOSING

The BPAC offices will be closed tomorrow Wednesday January 12, 2011 due to weather. Please continue to check for updates and event postponement.

Thanks!
The BPAC team

News! News! News!

How do we get 7 babies on one float??

Yes. 7 Babies! That is the new number. But the questions remain: How do we keep 7 babies on one float? Do we need more than one float? What is our theme? What comical role will JV play? Which baby will fall asleep this year? and what will Jeff D do next?

Its gone from 1 baby to three to now SEVEN! Can you believe it. We welcome A, L, and Little J to the BPAC family!

Were working and thinking hard to figure out our next theme for Baby Parade 2011! Its gotta be big
because we have a big crew this year!

Keep on Parading
xoxo k&n

Birthday Wishes!

M & JV

Happy Birthday to M!!!! M is one of the heads of BPAC and the mother of one of our amazing babies in the parade! Happy Birthday!!!