Not a Cornfield

Part of a land-art project in 2006, an industrial brownfield site was transformed into a cornfield. Since then the 32 acres just north of downtown have been planted with wildflowers by Farmlab and is now the Los Angeles State Historic Park. Sandwiched between our trip to the aquarium, a shody nap and an afternoon playdate, I drove our gang of 3 downtown to check it out. It was pretty cool.

Easter Egg Tyrant

I couldn't wait to dye Easter Eggs with Addie but when it came down to it I really wanted to dye the eggs and for her to just admire my skills. Bad Mama. I should have just stripped her down to her diaper and let her stick her hand in the glass of dye, and then toss the tie-dyed egg into the sand to dry, which is how she wanted to do it. Who cares if the egg cracked? Who cares if her arms would resemble the hulk for 2 days? Next year I'll remember that this is about exploring Addie's inner egg artist and not about my trying to be Sarah M. Stewart.

Do we love the desert or what?

Oh sweet desert, how I love thee. 

When Steven, a co-worker of Cap's, invited us (at our suggestion of course) to his pad in the desert, how could we say no?! Instead of wallowing in LA real estate self pity like we do, three years ago he decided to get himself 5 acres of land in Yucca Valley a few miles down the road from Joshua Tree National Park.  

Addie loved wandering around his land exploring - you guessed it - rocks, picking wildflowers and feeding lettuce to the resident African tortoise named Adam. Addie got to chase bugs and poke at ants. She learned to say "See you tomorrow sun!" and her own twist, "See you tomorrow beetle!"


After Miss A hit the sack, out came the blender! This is high desert and cold enough to get curled up in blankets outside and drink margaritas under the stars. How perfect is that! 

I love the desert and the huge open sky. I gotta get me some of that.

Check out more pictures of Adam the Tortoise, kite flying, hot tubbing, bubble blowing, drinking, egg dying and lots lots more!

Happy Easter!

The Easter Bunny luckily found us all the way out in Yucca Valley for our third desert excursion this month. Both the bunny and Addie managed to navigate around the prickly cacti.

Addie's tongue is protruding in a very slack-jawed yokel manner in 100% of our Easter Egg Hunting photos which I'm hoping is because of congestion coupled with the 2 new teeth I saw.

Betty Crocker

I insisted Cap take a photo of me cooking on a recent sunny Saturday morning since it's almost unheard of. I was so inspired by Jamie's delicious cottage cheese pancakes I had to bust out my awesome pink kitchenaid mixer for the task. I even recruited a little pigtailed helper. Cap pointed out after we saw the photo that Addie, hand casually poised in cast-off position, is secretly discarding raisins behind her.

"Oh, but Mama! The raisin must have just slipped from my little porcelain doll hands!"

Tennis Sniffers

Cap and I escaped to Palm Springs this weekend leaving Miss A in the care of super duper (great) Aunt Karen. Once a year my tennis fanaticism oozes out and I have to go see the Pacific Life Open Tennis Tournament in Indian Wells, CA. This weekend is also the anniversary of Addie's first ear infection. I remember this because we were in Palm Springs this time last year pretending that having a kid didn't change anything and we could still enjoy 14 hours of tennis a day. Ha! Poor Addie was so sick and we just didn't catch on until we came back to LA and saw the doctor. This year, we left her at home to party with Aunt Karen while we drank Corona and cheered Murray, Robredo, Nalbandian, and Gonzales. Cap and I could see ourselves in a few years with Addie chasing down her favorite tennis stars to autograph one of those giant fuzzy tennis balls. Brings tears to my eyes.

This photo cracks me up because it looks like we are smelling some serious stink. Good ole desert tennis stink.

Heaven forbid, you should have to look at a post with our smarmy mugs alone so here's a pic from the prior weekend. Addie is enjoying her first strawberry of the season in the hammock at Aunt Karen's casa.

She Likes It!

Remember Mickey and his Life cereal? Meet Addie and her hummous. She is right in the middle of the "I" in saying "I like it!" Addie loves dipping. She's a double, triple, quadruple dipper though so be warned.

Family Treasures

This Addie-sized rocking chair was given to Cap when he was a baby by his grandma. It lives at Janne's house along with the embroidered Capulet pillow showing off Cap's blonde locks. Like Father like daughter.

Come On Addie!

I think this might have been where Addie learned to say, "Come On!" That's Pop Pop in the tiger's hat and Cap on a hike in Sabino Canyon. We decided not to travel with a stroller which meant going for a desert hike was more like a slow stroll stopping every few feet to explore a rock, another rock, some sand, and more rocks. Addie loves her rocks.

Thanks to frequent readings of Dr. Seuss' Hop on Pop, Addie also knows when Pat is about the sit on a cactus: "No Pat No! Don't Sit on That!" When we get to this page she says "Ouch!" Addie was really good about not grabbing cacti, instead pointing and saying, "No Touching."


After our hike, Addie received a little surprise. Elmo! Michigan Elmo as we call it. But oh, as if Elmo was not enough. Monkey Pants too! Addie sat down on the pavement and immediately tried to put on her pants. When that didn't work, why not make them into a spiffy hat.

Thanks Pop Pop and Nana!

Work in Progress

Turd in the Pool has a new look.

I'm still not satisfied with the column widths but that might take more tech-savvy then I can muster. You should have seen me trying to figure out how to load photos from flickr.

GranJanne Two Dogs

We got back last night from a long weekend in Tucson visiting GranJanne, Pop Pop and celebrating Nana's 60th Birthday. We talked a lot about visiting Cap's Mom whom Addie hasn't seen in almost a year. Whenever we said "GranJanne," Addie would say, "Two Dogs." GranJanne Two Dogs.  Chum and Shug were sweethearts but Addie quickly learned to emphatically point and say, "Away!"  

She decided that ordering others around is quite fun and quickly added another new phrase: "Come on." 

"Come on, Mama. Come on Dada," she'd demand trying to rouse us from our beds to open the door so she could go visit the dogs. 

I've decided to milk our trip over a few blog posts so stay tuned for more pics and tales from the desert. We had such a wonderful time, we didn't want to come back.  Hugs to all.