Lloyd Family

Zac came to me looking like this and said, "I'm the King of Stickers. Take a picture of me and put it on the blog!" So I did. Who doesn't love stickers?

It is just silly how long it's taken me to blog about Halloween! These pictures were taken almost a month ago, just before our homeschool group's Fall Carnival. The kids went on to wear the same costumes on Halloween, so I figured these pictures would do just fine. So we have a princess, skeleton, shadow ninja, princess and cow. One exception, though, was Zane. You can see his costume included a skeleton chest. It actually came with "blood" that he could pump through the chest piece with the aid of a rubber "heart." Gross, right? Anyway, when we got around to pumping in the blood on Halloween night, we found that there was a major leak and "blood" spilled all over the carpet (whose idea was it to put carpet in the kitchen, anyway?) The costume was thus unwearable, and we almost had a crisis, but Zane was resourceful enough to dig through the dress-up box and turn out as a very good-looking pirate! Now on to the REAL holidays!!!

...Sara picked up a sea shell today and, putting it to her ear, said, "Mom! I can hear the canal!"

So the Lloyd birthday season is over until March. Zane turned 8, which was a very exciting birthday for him! He had a huge list of requirements (wishes?), including a suit and a scripture Quad. He didn't get everything he wanted (such as a pocketknife), but he did pretty good. I made him the sailboat cake he asked for, and it turned out pretty good! Sadly, on the day of his birthday Zane came down with a high fever and finished the day by vomiting. But he was all better the next day (weird) and ready to enjoy the presents he'd forced himself to open the day before.

On August 21st we got together with Kory's brother Ross and his family fo r a little campout. We met in Hagler Canyon, which was beautiful and grassy, with just enough dirt to please the kids (a lot). In the evening, when it was dark, deer literally came right through our campground and one even seemed to bump into a tent and get spooked! Our time was spent cooking over the fire, hiking, shooting b.b. guns and bows and arrows, and visiting. It was very fun! So much fun that by the time we left for home, Sara had fallen down a hill and skinned her chin, Zac had gotten hit on the forehead with a b.b. gun barrel, and Ezra had fallen off a picnic table and banged his head. We felt lucky to be going home in one piece (well, 7 pieces, right?) Still, we're looking forward to next year. Maybe we can get some more of the Lloyd family branches to join us!

Our family is mad for cookie dough! (Well, Kory prefers it cooked.) Even though I grew up sampling regular cookie dough, and had no resulting harm, I still like my kids to avoid raw eggs. We searched the internet for a good eggless cookie dough just-to-eat recipe and found a simple one we all love. We call it Zane's Cookie Dough since he was the one to copy the recipe by hand off the internet. Try it! Zane's Cookie Dough 4 Tbsp butter, softened 1/3 cup brown sugar 1/3 cup white sugar 1/8 tsp vanilla 1 cup flour 4 Tbsp water chocolate chips Cream butter and sugar, then mix in all other ingredients. We like to eat it with baby spoons so it lasts longer!

Recently, in his calling as Young Men's Pres., Kory took a group of leaders and youth and hiked to the top of Cache Peak- the highest peak in southern Idaho (10,339 ft). The excursion took about 11 hours, including travel time. It sounded like everyone had a great hike! Here Kory is, about 500 ft below the peak, looking at Independence Lakes. Also, if you want to see what the summit looks like, but don't want to actually climb up there yourself, here's a shot. There is some wooden totem-like object on the top, and one of Kory's young men fastened a wire to it to make the summit just a couple feet taller.