Lloyd Family

... it's birthday time for Ezra! He turned 1 on the 16th and had a fabulous day! He got all the attention, songs sung to him, his own cake with an amazing "hot" candle on it, paper to rip as he opened gifts- what more can a guy ask for?

My sister-in-law Emmalee tagged me on her blog. Here's the deal: 1. Go to your documents/pictures 2. Go to your 6th file 3. Go to your 6th picture 4. Blog about it 5. Tag 6 other people to do the same This represents one of those times when your kid says to you, "Can I take a picture of...?" Hanna, age 8, wanted to capture how cute all of her Barbies looked in their house. Looks like she found room for everyone, with the attic to spare! (Although, since this picture was taken she's gotten a few more.) Kory made this doll house for Hanna for Christmas a couple of years ago, out of wood pieces we had leftover from building our kitchen cabinets once upon a time. So, anyone who reads this can feel free to consider themselves "tagged" if they have a blog and want to participate!

Our chick has fledged! After a long process of two weeks incubation and three weeks as a nestling, Comet and Snowflakes only offspring left the nest for the first time this morning. I don't know how he felt, but to see him on the floor of the cage, the nest looked awfully far away! But after a few hours moving around on the "ground" the chick managed to hop/fly from perch to perch until he was back in the nest! Whew! Isn't he cute? (If you can ignore the magnified droppings in the photo.) I say "he," but we won't know until at least three more weeks. At that point he will have gone through his first molt and his black beak will have turned red if he's a he, orange if he's a she. All this I know by virtue of the internet, for which I am continually grateful.

This past weekend we participated in our homeschool group activity "Around the World in 80 Minutes." It is kind of like a science fair, only with geography. Our family chose to learn about and present Germany. The kids had a blast, since they were with their friends. I'd like to think they learned something, too. I know I did! Most of the displays included food from the country, so we sampled Egyptian pita bread, beans and rice from several countries, candy from Mexico, cookies from Germany, key lime pie from Florida, papaya and pineapple from the Pacific Islands, australian honey candy and more! Our guest speaker was a young man who had just returned from serving a mission in Kiribati, one of the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific Ocean. (He pointed out that the correct pronunciaion of the island sounds like "kitty-bis." His talk definitely made me grateful for a lot of the things I take for granted, like clean water to drink and not having to eat ants in all of my...

Our family has been hit by a double dose of colds and flu for the last couple weeks and we're finally starting to feel normal again. Hence, almost nothing very noteworthy has happened to blog about. However, we have a countdown to spring going, and it looks like only 10 more days! Do you think the weather will obey the calendar? Probably not, but here's hoping!