Lloyd Family

W e've been working on it since May, and our new bathroom/laundry room is finally finished. Truly, we still do need to put up hooks for all the kids' towels, but we are fully using it and loving it! A couple of before pictures to provide perspective. Many of our photos were lost when our computer crashed this summer, but we have some from when we started the project. Uneven cement floor, lath & plaster walls, archaic electric and plumbing.  Variety of insulation, including hay! We had to demo the entire room including ceiling! That light you see above was the actual fixture. N ow the after pictures! I took a cross-stitch my mom made decades ago and re-framed it to match! T his last picture shows two of my favorite parts of the room. The crown molding really taxed our brains to cut correctly, but it was worth the effort! Kory found this door header in the basement. I am sure it was original to the house (1918.) I stripped and refini...

K ory's birthday was the day after Zac's and the day before Sara's. He got a new fishing pole, which he is super excited about! I didn't think he would want a blog posting all about him, so I piggybacked it here onto Sara's. ;) E ven though Sara shared a family celebration with Zac, we also let her have her own special day on her actual birthday. She chose Cookie Crisp cereal for breakfast, Mac-a-Ramen for lunch, and Sticky Chicken with dill pickle chips for dinner. H er "cake" was a giant cinnamon roll. I'd never made one of those before, so the whole thing was an experiment, but it turned out excellent! And we got to eat leftovers for breakfast the next morning! Cute card made by Ezra! T his year Sara decided she was ready to get her ears pierced. She has been considering it for at least a year, now. Grandma and Grandpa Jensen paid for it as their gift, and the Friday after Sara's birthday Grandma, Hanna, Sara and I took a girls'...

I had my birthday while camping in the mountains so we have no photos. Ha! O n to Zachary's! It was a Sunday, which my kids always hate. So he got to do fun birthday stuff, like watch a couple movies he picked, the day before. For breakfast on his b-day I made Peach Bars. Lunch/dinner (we eat right after church) was pizza. I had picked up a Cowboy Pizza from Papa Murphy's, then made a homemade pepperoni with stuffed crust. W e had local family over for a combined Zac/Sara celebration. Originally I'd wanted Zane to be part of their big days but he was going to be at scout camp all week. So I arranged a combined party for Sunday, and then Zane had to leave earlier and missed the whole thing anyway! Oh well, I saved a piece of cake in the freezer for him. And that cake. . . S trawberry (doctored up cake mix) with fresh strawberry frosting (Zac and I were in LOVE with it) and fresh strawberries on top. My favorite cake in months! Z achary is eleven years old, a boy ...

I t's been a fun spring for the kids; they have gotten to go fishing several times and Zane has kept our pellet gun busy shooting pigeons. We have a whole flock of them living here, it seems, and we can't keep their "stuff" off our cars! When Zane shot the first one Ezra said, "I wish it had antlers!" W e attended Free Fishing Day at the Hagerman Fish Hatchery. It was a zoo, but each of the eligible kids caught a good fish. They're still in the freezer. . . These big fish had sharp teeth; Kory was bitten hard enough to bleed several times.  Zane was unimpressed by his fish, which was  good one by regular standards, but small compared to some of the whales we saw there.

J oziah is now 4 years old! He had a fun birthday, celebrating with the extended Lloyd family at our biennial reunion. Truthfully, we let him open most of his presents a couple days before his birthday, just so we wouldn't have to take it all up camping and risk losing small pieces. He didn't mind opening presents early, but it did cause some confusion about what day his "real birthday" was. F or his birthday treats I made red velvet cupcakes with marshmallow cream frosting. W e sure love our Joziah. He is sweet, fun, and cuddly. I don't feel like he's getting older so fast and that he should still be a baby. It's more like he's been a part of our family forever. Which I guess he has ;)