lately...

sometimes i wish my pictures were prettier (or that i had a better camera) or that i wrote about or know about more interesting and beautiful things. i've come to realize that i am a little boring. maybe i wasn't before, or maybe i always was and just pretended that i wasn't.

whatever. my kid's ridiculously cute and awesome, so i can forget about all that other stuff.

here is what she's been up to (cuz i know you have missed seeing pictures of her):


if you can't already tell, she is practically making out with this tootsie pop. this was her junk treat on our way out to utah from minnesota.


proof that my kid is asian. she loves rice A LOT. btw, the new thai place in provo that is in the old location of thai chili gardens charges extra for their rice. i know, right?! redonkulous! who ever heard of getting a thai dish without rice? i tried to tell the new waitress that she was wrong without actually telling her, but she didn't get it and refused to ask the owner. guess who is not going back...


one of izzy's new things is to get me to say "ewwwww!" whenever she sticks her finger in her nose. she was just itching the other night, and i said it to an immense amount of giggling. i think i just gave her a good reason to pick her nose all the time. darn it!


uh yeah, this is not izzy. it is the wasps' nest that has been hanging out on our balcony for weeks now. the pesky bugs have been persistent and hardy, or they have sent reinforcements to come back to this thing. it has taken us a couple of weeks to take them all out. this is just a small part of the bug murdering that has occurred at our home. doesn't it look gross? i hate cellular-looking things. i don't know why, but they give me the heebie-jeebies.

bad egg. bad! (you too, peanut!)

some of you already know this, but izzy we recently tested izzy for specific allergies. we got her blood test info back last week, and she is highly allergic to eggs and peanuts. poor kid. all this time, she has been eating foods made with eggs or with trace amounts of peanuts and having skin issues (hives and rashes). what stinks is that there are tons of things made with eggs or processed on equipment that has had eggs on it and vice versa with peanuts.


(how i envision an egg now--scary, with an intense look on his shell)


(a nut with a smile and a cane. i want to kick that cane out from under him for making my child sick.)

needless to say, we label read A LOT now. i also make it a point to grill waiters/waitresses wherever we go out to eat to make sure we don't order anything that izzy cannot have. i'm probably endlessly annoying, but i always tell them how i much appreciate their checking for me.

recently, i made a vegan sponge cake to use in my trifle dessert for a friend's dinner-get-together so izzy could partake. i got the recipe from some lady's blog here. it was sooooo good. i think i might use this recipe for izzy's birthday cake next year or for some other dessert. i might even use lemons instead of limes.


if you've not ever had a trifle, you better go have one. it's best with the delicious summer fruits that are still in abundance.

all in all, i am grateful her allergy is not any worse than it could be. it does make things a tiny bit more difficult, but izzy eats 10x healthier than most kids now because of it.