Pancakes & Funny Faces

In an attempt to make breakfast time more fun (and to encourage Lily to eat more food) I decided to make pancakes shaped like animal heads.  Lily gobbles them up and isn’t too picky if all the animal pancakes look a like.  (I only can make bears, cats, mice, and dogs.  Any other animal requests end up looking like a bear, cat, mouse, or dog.)

Another satisfied customer!

The next two pictures are a few weeks old (hint: not the new haircut).  I have reading glasses now, and Lily wanted to look like her mommy.  We popped the lenses out of one of her pairs of sunglasses and did some modeling for the camera.  (And before any of you complain, I’ll post pictures of my new glasses when I post pictures of my haircut.)

 

 

 

 

 

I think Lily did a good job taking my picture.  I just wish I wasn’t making such a goofy face. 

Ice Cream Vans

So I’m used to the friendly Jeep Ice Cream Truck, driven by a poor college student, perusing the neighborhood while playing the Entertainer on it’s loud speaker.

Our neighborhood has it’s own take on Ice Cream Trucks, and quite honestly, it freaks me out.

 

You can’t tell from the picture, but the paint is actually chipping off the van.  To make it worse, there are two of them that tour our neighborhood playing the most obnoxious music ever (it has a popping and honking noise).  My favorite part is that the menu is attached with packing tape to the van.  Doesn’t this just scream, “I’m a child molester that will lure your children into the back of my van.”

Lily just thinks these vans go around playing music for fun.  We hold her up to look at them through the window, but we never let her near them.

Russian Roulette

Every time I go to get my hair cut, I feel like I’m playing Russian Roulette.  I come prepared with a picture of what I want.  I know not to talk while the hairstylist works so that she can concentrate on my hair . . . but it seems like I get a bad hair cut at least once a year!

Thursday, I went in for a haircut.  I sat in the lobby trying to predict which stylist I would get (that’s the problem with moving, you don’t have connects so you get what you get), and praying I wouldn’t get the frumpy looking lady.  But you guessed it . . . I got the frumpy lady.  Ugh.  I knew the cut would be bad, I knew she would do it wrong and I was right.

I came home and tried to style it to see if maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought . . . but it was.  She barely trimmed the back of my hair, but cut the sides.  Hello?!  I thought that maybe I was being dramatic, but then Scott commented that the haircut wasn’t that great and I should go back in and have someone fix it.  Ugh!

When I went back in on Friday, a more experienced stylist fixed my hair.  She did a great job!  Now I know who to ask for when I need my hair cut.

The Best in the NBA! (Twice?) And perhaps in a league of their own.

If you’re not interested in NBA basketball, don’t bother reading this blog post because it is forever long if you’re not interested. It is just a collection of thoughts that I’ve been waiting to share until after a Lakers championship victory. So here it is:

The L.A. Lakers repeat trip to the NBA Finals this year was a success as the Lakers captured the championship easily over the Orlando Magic after dominating them on both the offensive as well as the defensive ends of floor. The ease in which it took for them to defeat the Magic, a team which beat both the defending champion Celtics and Cavaliers (two teams that the Lakers swept in the regular season) begs the question of whether or not the Lakers are just an Andrew Bynum and a Trevor Ariza away from back-to-back championships. Last year the Boston Celtics won the title in a 4 games to 2 series in which many have credited the Celtics for blowing out the Lakers. The Celtics did win the final game by a huge margin, but aside from that, the rest of the games were very competitive and hard fought and could have gone either way. To say that the Celtics blew out the Lakers would be to ignore the previous 5 games of the series. Though I do not deny that the Celtics did play better and were the better team in the finals last year, I do have to put a asterisk beside their victory, as the Lakers competed soundly without two of their best players, Bynum and Ariza. It would not be impossible to say that by having both of them in the game, the series last year could have been much different.

Most Celtics fans, of course, will want to place an asterisk by this year’s victory for the Lakers since Kevin Garnett was out with an injury during the post season and was not able to defend his title. But I think it would not be a fair comparison since the Lakers dominated the Celtics in the regular season, even with Garnett, and also since the Celtics struggled against every playoff opponent this year and didn’t even come close to defending their championship in the finals. If the Celtics could have gotten to the finals without Garnett the way that the Lakers did last year without Bynum and Ariza, then I think they would have a case to put an asterisk by this year’s loss. As it stands, the Lakers were just one or two games and a Bynum and Ariza away from possible back-to-back championships.

As is apparent in my message here, I have obvious anti-Celtic and pro-Lakers bias, but I really don’t think the two teams compare. Especially considering the Lakers are among the youngest teams in the NBA and are getting better, whereas the Celtics are past their prime and aging quickly. Without a serious mix-up in lineups next year, I doubt the Celtics, even with Garnett, stand much of a chance against the Lakers.

Obviously, I’ve been holding onto my sentiments for a long time now, which explains my long-winded posting now. But I finally feel that I can talk because the Lakers were able to secure a victory that validates my points. Barring a serious mix-up in the Lakers personnel or possible injuries next year, I expect the Lakers to repeat again next year (or is it 3-peat?). Go Lakers!

Lily’s first movie

Now that Scott is done with his first year of grad school (Wahoo!), we wanted to do fun things together this summer.  The first thing we wanted to do was take Lily to her first movie: UP.  I thought a matinee would be a good time to go (less people for Lily to bother and she should be awake for the movie).   There were only a handful of people (most of them senior citizens).

Lily didn’t like how her seat folded in half when she sat on it.  The poor kid doesn’t weigh enough to keep the seat down, so I held her on my lap.  (I didn’t realize until after the movie that they have booster seats for kids.)  Lily was a little restless after watching so many previews, so Scott went to the concession stand and bought her some treats.  She then sat on my lap happily snacking on Reese’s Pieces.

Naturally, Lily provided comedic relief.  At one point in the movie, it was quiet and you watch the house with all the balloons float away.  Lily chose that moment to say, “House Come Back.”  “Balloons Come Back.”  We heard a few snickers in the audience and a few people repeat what Lily said.  Oh well.  She’s 2, what can you expect?

Survival of the Fittest

Scott and I had been feeling very guilty that we have never taken Lily down to Arizona to meet his grandmother.   (Lily has already met all of her other grandparents.)  We decided to risk our sanity and drive down to Arizona for Scott’s uncle’s funeral and let Lily meet her great-grandma.

But how do you survive 4-1/2 days in the car with not only your own 2 year old, but an additional 7 adults and 4 children?  (We caravanned/carpooled with Scott’s family.)  The answer is lots and lots and lots of bribery and a few stops to get the wiggles out.  I took

 

 

 

 

 

my mom’s advice and stocked up on a lot of snacks for the car trip, and then bought Lily a bunch of little presents from the local thrift and dollar stores.  Every time we got back in the car (which is normally when Lily throws a fit) I would give her a present.  She loved unwrapping all of her little presents.

Here we are with Scott’s grandma.  She’s such a sweetheart!  Lily was so excited to finally meet her “Gwamma Sanners”

 

 

    The house we rented had a swimming pool and pool table.  Lily was scared of the pool at first, but after we coaxed her in, we couldn’t get her out.  She even wanted to go off the diving board like her parents, but I was a mean Mom and wouldn’t let her.

On the way home, I had to stop and visit the local “Friendly Indians” and buy Lily a small memento from our trip.  Lily chose a hand carved turtle necklace.

We were all happy to be home again, and are still recovering from the quick trip.

Memorial Day

    I had to laugh when I came home from work on Memorial Day and was greeted by Lily running up to my car wearing this!  Apparently, Scott didn’t realize that those were her pajamas, not her day clothes.  And the helmet . . . well that’s just one of Lily’s favorite things to wear even when she isn’t riding her tricycle.

We had a nice BBQ, with way too much food.  (We originally were going to have Scott’s brother & his family over, but those plans fell through.)  We had enough food to feed at least 10 people.  The three of us barely made a dent in it.  I have to show off the lemon-raspberry cake I made from scratch.  Doesn’t it look so delicious?