Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Christmas Traditions

I've been wanting to start a christmas tradition with Maryn for a couple years now, and Meeshmellow offered to help make it happen this year.








Everyday we get to open a little present! We can only fit about 10 at a time across the mantle, but it's been a hit so far! Thanks Meeshmellow!

Monday, December 13, 2010

A new interest

Some one has been getting interested in dressing up lately...

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

A misunderstanding

This was M's first year trick-or-treating.... and we kept it small, only a few houses of people we knew.

M played Tinkerbell (or Stinkerbell as we call her) very well.. .fickle, demanding and cute.
This is her look of : "HEY! There's CANDY in here! MOM! CANDY in this thing!"
We did have a couple of issues though..
First.. you aren't supposed to eat all the candy as you get it. According to M, it is better to shove it all in your mouth than allow it to touch the bottom of the pail. The only thing that slowed her down was those pesky wrappers.
Second... you aren't supposed to go IN the houses after the people answer.
 "GEEZ WOMAN...You mean I have to eat all this candy OUTSIDE? whatever...next thing you'll tell me is that I have to take these wings off before I go to bed...."

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

After finding my long lost, beloved calculator, I sent this email to BZ..

"fell asleep with work stuff on the bed... woke up with the calculator smooshed into my face... had to take M to school before the key marks on my face went away"

His response?

"Can I post that on facebook?"

And he did... I can't even remember how many people asked me about it this weekend.

Monday, November 1, 2010

What's in a name?

This weekend the hubby, our friend Josh and I stopped by the coffee shop. The gals working there at the time had never seen me come in with anyone, so they had never met the hubby. In taking our order, the conversation went like this:

Them "Your usual, Anne?"
Me: "Yep"
Them "And.. Mr. Anne? What would you like?"

The hubby got a kick out of it.... I'm going to start referring to him as my arm candy from now on.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

A word from our sponsers

This garage sale find brought to you by Feminism Weekly.




Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Spare Minutes

I've found myself with a few spare minutes... er HOURS in the airport so I thought I'd use the time wisely and start updating a few things. But of course, with limited resources (dirty laundry, leftover corn nuts, laptop) I am limited to writing about recent events.
I'll start with our recent trip to Salt Lake City...
We (Brian, M, Brian's dad and I) jumped on up to SLC to attend a conference and were lucky enough to get to see some family. Our cousin Michelle of outdoor stove fame, her husband and daughter wisked us away on our last night in town and took us up to Red Butte Gardens. As we drove out to the gardens we could see a thunderstorm gathering, but Michelle had packed a great picnic and after days of fast food and buffets we weren't willing to give it up.
We gathered up some tables with umbrellas and ate while it rained around us. The rain turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it kept us all close, eating and talking and then cleared up to a beautiful rainbow just as we were finishing.




Afterward we walked around the gardens. The Herb Garden:












M had a great time with Johanna and her boyfriend. The Children's Garden was great - it included giant lizards, a snake made out of a twisty tunnel of vines and of course all kinds of plants to touch and smell. It was truly beautiful after the little bit of rain.
 

 Cousin Michelle, being the awesomely cool cousin she's always been, brought Miss M a couple of treats. These included a couple a painted wooden fish. Let me narrate some photos for you to give a sense of one of the current favorite conversations:
Miss M: "Mama. MAMA. Pish Kiss."
I am supposed to kiss the fish. The "Pish" kissing does not commence fast enough.
Miss M: "PISH KISSSSSSS"
The end of the conversation varies, but it is usually something like this... 
Your pish kisses are substandard. If this is the best you can do, I'm outta here.
We were happy to see family that we'd like to see more of, happy to spend time with Papa Z and happy to be on our way home!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Not sure what this means....

Today my students gave presentations on thier research projects. It is usually a good day in class because the projects are interesting and spark a lot of discussion. One of the projects was about the use of high fructose corn syrup. This picture was used in the presentation:
nataliedee.com
nataliedee.com
The picture was sited as coming from babble.com, but I instantly knew that was wrong. I knew that was wrong because I know it's a Natalie Dee cartoon. Of course I do. It's from 2006. I mean hellooooo... who wouldn't know that? Oh... right.. most.other.people.
So I'm not sure what this means.... but evidently I'm a better referece checker due to my religious daily viewing of online cartoons. Uh, go me?

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Hair Update

Ok, so it's been awhile.. but I'm going to try to catch up on a few things that have happened in the last few...er, months? Geez... we are behind!
Well, I'm doing this a little backward because I'm starting with this morning. Something happened that inspired me to announce it to the blogosphere.








Let me make it a little more clear in case you didn't see it at first glance:


This was one epic case of bed hair.... it was a sight to be held. From past data, we can see that the situation is only getting worse. I'm thinking she's destined to be a hair model for that Hair Battle Spectacular t.v. show...






Now that I have you distracted with the 8th wonder of the world...I'll work on my other posts!

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Bribery.... Lloyd House Style

I'm sure every parent has those moments when they find themselves saying or doing something they said they would never do. 

Tonight I started laughing in the middle of saying .."Now Maryn, after you eat ONE bite of ice cream, you can have a piece of candy."

That's right. I was attempting to get my daughter
to eat ICE CREAM*... by BRIBING her with CANDY*
Half way through the sentence I realized how ridiculous I sounded. 
BZ started laughing at the same time and said "Wouldn't it be wonderful if she learned how bribery worked from this?! That would be awesome!"

Truth be told... we've been working on this bribery thing for a while, just trying to get her to understand the cause and effect, and that by doing something we want, she'll get something she wants. 
It's been a bust until tonight, when a little light went off.
It's almost like you could see her thinking..
"A bite of ice cream for a piece of candy... doesn't seem so bad."
Followed shortly by "Yeah... I've got them trained... finally."

So, a real banner night in the Lloyd house, if do I say so myself. 

*ice cream = nonfat frozen yogurt
*candy = chocolate chips

Monday, April 19, 2010

The Cutest Thing (So Far)

I was pushing M in her swing yesterday when she pointed to a knot in the tree...
 and said "belly button?...Tree belly button?"

Sunday, March 14, 2010

A new discovery!

















 ....that's right... Ranch Dressing. Or as Miss M calls it: "Sauce".
Until recently, our only success had been to "dip, dip!" stuff in the Sauce, then lick it off.
But tonight there was a more! After making Sauce soup out of some lettuce she was willing to actually eat the greens without spitting them out. That soon became cramming the leaves in her mouth
... then.... a little choking. 
When I saw her gagging I told her to spit the lettuce out, which she is normally really good about. This time she just looked up at me, shook her head "no" and then swallowed the mouthful.
I am totally not above putting Sauce on everything.
Peas....with Sauce...
Carrots....with Sauce...
Chips.... Con Salsa!




Tuesday, February 23, 2010

California Style Snow Day

I've been reading about all the snow on the east coast and being snowed in and yada yada. It seems pretty hard to deal with and a lot of trouble.
I'd like to show what a California snow day looks like.
First, you plan to leave the house at 8am, but because you can't find mittens or snow boot for everyone, and then there is the need for coffee, you really leave at like 9.
(Not one of us actually had mittens, snowboots AND a hat, at best each had two out of three. I ended up wearing gardening galoshes, BZ was wearing gardening gloves instead of mittens. M was the best prepared. )
Anyways, you drive a little bit under blue skies and then get to the snow park. No, east-coasters, we can't just go into our backyards, we have special places for snow. This is California.
Then you walk a few minutes and ta-da! You are ready for snow type activities. M had never seen snow before, and I think only one of our dogs had, so it was pretty thrilling for most of our group.
Our snow type activities included:
1)Throwing Snow balls.
 

2) "Dog Skiing"

3) Sliding down the snow on our jackets, because, YES, it was so warm that we had to take our jackets off, and NO, we don't own a sled,  this is California. We own gardening galoshes, not sleds. Uhum.. this activity was not recorded. Let me distract you with:



After a good hour of icy fun, we decided to head home. We stopped for lunch on the way, and made it back for nap time. 
Snow Day in California Recap: Coffee, Drive, Fun, Mild Sunburn, Lunch, Drive, Nap. The end.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The Three Mustketeers... or Chickens. Whatever.

We're happy to announce that Mo has moved up in the world... she is now allowed outside by the other Chix and can roam without fear. She is still bald on the top, but at least she seems part of the flock.

 
She's also started pulling her weight! 

(From left to right: Wyandotte, Leghorn, Polish)

Her eggs are a very pale tan and a little smaller than the others. Three chickens, three different colors and sizes; it's funny how that works out.  The Chix have been a lot of fun lately, especially for Miss M who loves to give them treats. It's a good thing they're laying well because someone..I'm not naming any names (MO AND DOTTY!) have gotten into the garden in the last couple of days and partially decimated the lettuce and onions. I threatened with yells of "You're just fattening yourselves up to be dinner!", but they just kicked dirt in my general direction. Until I turned the hose on them. That taught them....for like 10 minutes. Whatever. EGGS.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Going down with me.

Mom. I know I asked for the madelein pan for my birthday, and that you just joined a new gym. Those things don't matter right now.


If I'm going to pack on the pounds, you're going down with me. See you tomorrow morning, cookies in hand.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Lunar New Year Already?!

So it's the lunar new year this weekend and it's my inspiration to actually post something about our New Year's weekend at the cabin.
I'll start by saying there was no gas running at the cabin so we were sans hot water. That did not stop us from having a killer time. We brought our big outdoor stove to boil water for baths and food and overall it worked pretty well. Everyone got a warm bath each day, which, thinking about it.... is cleaner that we get when we have running hot water at the cabin. Interesting.

B&A were gracious enough to make two dinners, abalone and nabe, which are both among my favorites. Only Brad can look pirate-y while cooking nabe.


















We bundled up M every morning and took her to Armstrong Grove.

Alicia and I were able to get a little video of M walking on the trail. We had just taught her how to put her hands in her pockets and she was walking in a funny, very determined way, hamming it up like usual.


After a long day of general rambunctiousness, M was ready to snuggle and be entertained.

It was another great New Year's weekend at the cabin, a tradition we always look forward to!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

New and Improved!

A quick little note - now you can post a comment without registering and passwords and whatnot.
Happy New Year!