Family Outing

It being a holiday weekend and all we decided to get out of the house and spend some quality time together as a family. So we took the kids out to eat at Applebees... they were surprisingly well behaved and it was actually quite enjoyable.


Then we all went bowling together. Corbin enjoyed it a lot more this time and was pretty excited when he was able to knock over some pins. He even held the ball the correct way (you make your hand like you are shooting Spiderman's webbing :) and would barely drop it down the lane. Approximately 5 minutes later it would strike a few of the pins after having ricocheted off the bumpers numerous times on the way down. He was cute.


Makelle was adorable. We let her use the little bowling ramp and she was so proud of herself whenever she would push the ball off the ramp. I am pretty sure she thought that was the extent of the game we were playing because she would clap for herself every time she pushed it off and then run to get another ball without ever taking note of where the ball was going, let alone how many pins she got. One-year-olds are great.


After we were done Caleb let the kids go play in the arcade room for a little while. Corbin played the kiddie games and got rewarded with some tickets that he spent on little toys.


Makelle quickly discovered the dancing game and couldn't have been happier. Oh boy what are we gonna do with this one?

Garden Club

My parents let us plant a couple of rows of vegetables in their garden this year and I brought the kids up to help me work this week.

Makelle liked playing in the dirt, pulling all the twine out of its roll, and pretending to comb her hair with a dirty, chewed up--likely lice infected--comb that she found in the weeds of the abandoned lot next door.



Corbin helped count out and drop seeds, water and place little starter plants. He also roamed around with his sister and rode his bike for a little while.



I love hanging out with these two all day. They are so great!



(Corbin took these last two photos while playing with the camera... not bad.)

Cootie Bug

Corbin loves playing games. We usually play together while Makelle takes a nap, but sometimes the whole family will sit down and play a thrilling round of Candy Land or Go Fish together.

Last night it was Cootie Bug, which happens to be Makelle's favorite game ever. You would think that she would like playing with the little bug pieces, but no... she LOVES rolling the dice.

I even tried to pacify her between turns with a random dice from our game closet, but no, it has to be that little red one. She freaks out every time she gets a turn to roll, she is so excited. It is fun to watch.

May 24th... Seriously?!

He did it!

Yesterday was our 5th anniversary! To celebrate we went up to the Union Station and wandered around the runner's expo and then split a sandwich at Jimmy John's, which was delicious.

My parents took our kids for the night, but not to give us a chance to spend time together, rather because we had to wake up at 4:30 am and drive up to Eden, so Caleb could run the Ogden Half Marathon this morning.


He ended up with a final time of 01:55:45.3, which unfortunately is better than the time Melinda got 2 years ago. Nice job!

We need some Miracle Grow!

Poor Makelle consists of 50% Lloyd genes, which equates to having NO hair. Yesterday I gave Corbin a haircut and jokingly asked if I should cut Makelle's hair too. To which he said I couldn't, because she doesn't have any. Then he questioned why she had boy hair.

So today I took a pea sized amount of gel, which ended up being a greater volume than the amount of hair I used it on, and gave Makelle her first ponytail. Look closely, you may need to blow it up, and then zoom in, but there are two tiny little pigtails on top of her head. Slowly but surely, we are getting there :)


Sidebar... we were in the car this morning and the sunlight hit Corbin's legs and made his tiny little leg hairs more noticeable. All the sudden he shouts out, "Look Mom, I am getting leg hairs! That means I am growing up and I am going to be like a Daddy, not a Mommy!" He was so excited to discover his manhood. For some reason it made me laugh.

Little Stinker

I guess that is what I get for not draining the bathtub right away... apparently she was not ready to get out :)

Happy 28th Caleb!

Friday was Caleb's birthday. We all woke up and ate french toast together before he had to head off to work. I got to go downtown and meet Caleb for lunch. It was fun to eat a meal together in the middle of the day and have an actual conversation without interruptions from the kids every 30 seconds. Then when he got home he quickly opened his presents before we had to head out the door for our soccer game.



At the game Caleb got his favorite gift, the perfect game winning goal. It being my first outdoor soccer game ever, I really can't do it justice with my unskilled description, but he tells me it was the best shot he has ever made. It basically curved around the defenders and bent back into the corner of the goal in a nearly impossible manner. Good job babe!

Then on Saturday we went and saw Iron Man 2 with his brother, which was really good. I think we both enjoyed the movie and given that we had an extra kid over the weekend it was nice to spend some time alone together and relax. On our way home we were able to stop and visit our new nephew at the hospital, which was of course a great experience. Babies really are the most precious blessings.

On Sunday the kids gave me a cute card and chocolates with my Mother's Day present. And at church Corbin got to go up on the stand and sing a couple of songs for Mothers. Though it is such a small and simple thing, it is still so fun watching him grow up and conquer new things and accomplish more and more without us being right there helping him all along the way.

Then after church we went up to my parents' house for a Mother's Day/Birthday dinner. We had Caleb's traditional almond poppy seed cake with Rainbow Chip frosting. I let the kids put the candles into the cake for him and Makelle instantly discovered that candles make good frosting spoons.




We had a great weekend full of fun and celebration!

Slumber Party!

Corbin's little cousin Rachel got a new baby brother on Friday, so they got to spend the weekend playing together while Aunt Tori was in the hospital with baby Wesley. This included his first slumber party, which he was VERY excited about.


Night #1 they all got bedded down together in the kids room and fell asleep pretty quickly. It was cute laying in bed Saturday morning and listening to them get up together and laugh and play. (Where normally he heads straight for our room at 7 am on a Saturday looking for some attention :)

Day #2 they got bedded down and an hour later Rachel had to move into our bedroom floor because there was a little too much laughter and playing going on and we had church the next day, so they needed some sleep.


It was fun for Corbin to have a friend come to Primary with him. He got to introduce her to his teacher and such. They were good little buddies. By the end of the visit they were almost too good of buddies because you could see them start to pick on each other just because they could. But overall it was a fun weekend at our house having a constant companion for Corbin and Makelle.

Wisdom Teeth

I had my wisdom teeth removed on Thursday.

I opted to not pay the extra $150 to get put under and was quite proud to come home feeling pretty good, all things considered. My appointment went 40 minutes over and the oral surgeon and I were both covered in sweat by the time it was all said and done, because those suckers would NOT come out. He said something about mine being one of the toughest extractions he had ever done... lucky me.

But all in all I was thinking it wasn't that painful, mostly just disgusting that he wanted me to eat 2 hours after wards while my mouth was still dripping blood. Eww. But anyway, I managed.


Then the next morning came and HOLY CRAP! (No, there is no gaze left in there and that is not all poor lighting and shadows on my face, it really was slightly bruised.) My mouth had swollen to 10 times its normal size and despite being told I should be able to manage soft foods like pasta the second day, I couldn't force my teeth together using every ounce of might I possessed (which admittedly wasn't much at that point)--4 days later, who knew you could get sick of pudding, mashed potatoes and milkshakes?

And oh the headache! Apparently having small bones ripped from their sockets in your jaw using nothing but large dental tools and brute force, followed by insane swelling causes massive amounts of pressure to build up in your skull and cause a splitting headache, even while on prescription painkillers. Day 2 was bad.

But what made it all worse was that the kids decided to come down with colds the same day I had them removed so I had sick kids to deal with on top of everything. Luckily my parents live close and were able to help out. Then it was the weekend and Caleb got to wait on three patients all weekend, taking care of us, I think he may have been glad to see the workweek arrive for once :)

Anyway, today is day 4 and I finally managed to get something non-liquid down (yay for mac and cheese--this experience has not been good on my eating habits) so I think I am finally on the mend. All and all... it sucks. (Which you can't do, or you may end up with a dry socket :)

Randomness...

Crazy cute girl manages to get her hands on an oreo and attempts to shove the whole thing in her mouth all at once, then looks at you like, "What Mom?". Can't help but take a picture of that.


She seriously pillages through the laundry basket and brings me articles of clothing throughout the day and repeatedly hands them to you until you put them on her. By the end of the day she often looks something like this:


The kids are starting to really miss Daddy and on the rare occasion he gets home before their bedtime they crave his attention and insist he reads them their bedtime books. Precious moment for Mom.

Bee's Game

On Friday we went to the SUU Alumni night at the Bee's home opener game. It was surprisingly fun to run into old friends and hang out together as a family watching the game. They had a nice picnic set up on the balcony for everyone from SUU and we all got seats together.


Luckily we ended up on the end of the alumni section and more in the start of the loud student section, because Corbin insisted on chanting, "Go Bees, Go Bees!" nearly the entire time. And thoroughly enjoyed 'The Wave' and other super-fan, student-lead cheers.


Cute moment: Thor came over to say hi to Corbin and I wish I'd had a video camera, but try to picture him offering Corbin a high five and then right as Bean put his hand up he switched to give him knuckles at the last second and Corbin would try to correct, just as he switched back, repeatedly.


Makelle would absolutely NOT sit still, but that ended up being okay because there were a bunch of young college girls on the row in front of us that seemed to like playing with her more than watching baseball anyway.


It was actually a good game to watch... ended up tied and going into 10 innings, where we lost to a killer home run hit from the other team. Then since it was their home opener they had a fireworks show after wards. Corbin was actually a little scared at first, but I told him to toughen up and he then decided to enjoy it, just like that. Makelle would alternate between starting in awe and burying her head in Caleb's shoulder.

It was the first time we have done anything on a weeknight with Caleb in months, so I think we all really needed and enjoyed the time together. Thanks alumni office!

You know your a Mormon Mom when...

...you have your child pose for a picture and blog about his first time giving the prayer in Primary.

We snuck in to listen to him and were able to hear him say the whole thing on his own (I did have to help him remember to wrap things up after the second round of thanks for Makelly-Belly). His entire prayer was one of gratitude thanking Heavenly Father for his mom and dad and sister and Primary and church and everyone in the whole world and Sister Gale and Jesus, among other things.

He has such a sweet little spirit, I just love that kid. Also, every week (or maybe once a month, I don't know) they tell the kids that if they did something to try and be like Jesus that week they can put a "warm fuzzy" in the jar. I got to see Corbin raise his little hand and put a warm fuzzy in for eating all his green beans.

Cute that he was so proud of himself for that, because I really did fight with him for nearly an hour to get him to finish his required three bites. I am glad he recognizes the significance of accomplishing that and obeying in the end, despite how clearly difficult it was for him.

Easter Sunday

This morning Corbin woke up and wandered groggily into the living room, then immediately turns and runs into our room exclaiming loudly that the Easter Bunny had hid the eggs and we needed to come quickly.










We had a fun morning watching the kids find Easter eggs and eat their treats and then we made our traditional Conference morning breakfast of strawberry and whip cream topped pancakes. Yummy!


After wards we tried desperately, to no avail, to get the sugar-induced, hyperactive kids to sit still and listen to conference. -- Let's just say, they did really well yesterday at being reverent and listening for key words from the speakers while playing Bingo.

But then, today for some odd reason they just wanted to play with their goodies. I think sometimes Corbin is so good that I start to expect it, rather than praise it as exemplary behavior. They are both such well behaved kids, I sometimes need to remind myself how young they are, and adjust my expectations accordingly.

Easter Party

Between conference sessions today we had an indoor BBQ with the Lloyds. After lunch Grandma and Grandpa spoiled the kids with some Easter presents. Makelle definitely liked her little sunglasses far more than one would have guessed.

Dyeing Eggs