Category: Eli

And he is 5!

I planned two parties for Eli. One for his friends and one for family.

I was pretty confident I would be fine, because they were just 5 year olds, right? They can’t be too critical of my party throwing skills.

I needed something for them to do and not a lot of work for me, so we rented a bouncy house!

Of course we had to get in and try it out before the guests arrived!

Eli wanted a PJ Masks cake. So I made it even easier and went to Sam’s club and had them make the cake.

We brought out the popcorn maker and made movie theatre style popcorn. Yeah, can’t go back to popping popcorn in the microwave!

I made chocolate covered marshmallows and dipped them in sprinkles. You can’t go wrong with sprinkles and 5 year olds.

A note for next time: I made these last night. I dipped the marshmallows in the chocolate, sprinkled them, and put them marshmallow side down in a tupperware. I sealed the lid and put them in the fridge. An hour before the party, I took them out and put the sticks in. Pinterest was great on giving me the idea, but where to put them after? I poked holes in a paper cup 🙂 I think it worked quite well.

We also brought out the giant connect 4 game. All the 5 year olds didn’t get the rules of the game, but they had fun. The older kids thought it was the coolest thing to have a life size game!

For the beverage, I set out a 2.5 gallon of water and let them have at it. They drained it! I guess bouncing took a lot out of them.

The bouncy house was a huge win! I would definitely do this again.

Every kid bounced for the entire 2 hours!

Look at that wet hair. He played hard! The party was a success! He had a fantastic birthday!

Extracting honey from large frames

Our neighbor has several hives and invited us over to watch him extract his honey.

A few of his hives.

Our hives have little frames, his hives have large frames. About 3 times bigger than ours. He starts with cutting the capped wax off the frames.

He put the frames in…

Then turns the hand crank as fast as he can. You can see the honey fly off the frames and to the sides of the bucket.

After turning a few frames, there was a few inches of honey in the bottom of the bucket.

The bucket was then drained into a ….

Lots of honey. And he still had several boxes to do!

The honey drips from the …to the bucket below. The honey will then be transferred to jars and into the cupboard.

We had to taste the honey and it was very tasty!

A day in our life- Monday

We start the day out running the lake.

My little coxswain to keep me moving.

He stopped for a rest 🙂

Then we stopped to play on the playground.

We end with feeding the ducks.

Feisty fellas.

Brutal run. This next marathon is going to kill me.

We drive to moms house to pick up mom and Aaron and head out for lunch. We go to the prison 🙂 a lot. Every once in a while we try something new. Today we went to Hires Big H. They have one of the best veggie burgers in the valley.

After lunch we go out and find a new dessert place to try. Today we tried Cinnaholic gourmet cinnamon rolls.

We tried the cookie monster. It was a warm cinnamon roll, with vanilla icing, topped with cookie dough crumbles and drizzled with chocolate.

Look at Eli’s face. It was delicious! This is one of the best desserts we have had. I will definitely be back.

On our drive back, it hit 104′

After lunch we head outside to play. Either playing in water or the sandbox. Since it was over 100′, Eli chose to play in the water.

That sums up every Monday. 🙂

Water for the bees and installing a queen excluder

It took forever to warm up and now it’s 100′ The bees are getting hot.

We went to the big hive to set up a watering system for them.

The horses always come over to say hello.

Eli called himself farmer Eli.

For the water jar, Paul poked holes in a mason jar lid.

This is boardman feeder. The jar is placed upside down in the feeder.

When the jar is filled with water and tipped upside down, water doesn’t come out. The bees walk up through the feeder and drinks from the jar.

Paul also put in a queen excluder. This screen keeps the queen bee down below and allows all the other bees to move up to the upper boxes.

Why?? To keep the brood out of the honey we collect.

The first two boxes will be brood and honey for the bees to eat. Above the queen excluder will be honey for us.

The queen excluder on top of box two.

Paul slid in the feeder so the bees can access the water from inside the hive.

Pretty cute!

Before we left, we had to feed the horses their treats.

He is so cute!

Love you little pea!

Breakfast is back

Started out the day with a 6 mile run. I need to make room for some calories. It’s Monday so that means lunch and a treat.

Today we are pretty excited for lunch. The prison brought back breakfast! We haven’t been here for several months due to not having breakfast.

I know it’s crazy, but we like coming here. The food is good and reasonably priced….ok, it’s cheap. 🙂 But it’s really good.

See how thick those pancakes are?

Aaron is so tired of my pictures. I don’t care. One day he will thank me for documenting all our trips to the prison for lunch.

Mmm….

We can’t forget about tater tots and fry sauce.

Eli loved them.

After lunch we went to Pleasant Grove and stopped in at Sweetopia to pick up a little dessert.

They were good, but nothing special.

Another fun Monday lunch with Aaron and Mormor!

Crazy weather

What is crazy about Utah, is it seems to hail a lot lately. I posted HERE with hail the size of a quarter that left hail damage on my car.

It hailed so much, it looked like snow. Another funny thing about this storm, my parents live 6 miles away, and they didn’t get rain or hail. They had sunny blue skies!

Feeding the bees

Paul checked on the bees a few days ago and the bees drank the bags dry so he had to put a few more bags in the hive.

Due to the bees eating so much, we decided to remove the bags and install a bee feeder.

We filled the bottom part of the feeder with sugar water.

Snap on the top to the bottom. The bees walk down those tubes to the water, eat and walk back up.

Out to the pasture we went.

Like all great parents do, we brought our 4 year old to the hive. You know, to heighten the danger-factor. So I dressed him up in the bee gear.

He of course is not afraid of bees. He doesn’t understand they sting and he doesn’t understand what a sting is.

We opened the hive, removed a row of frames and installed the bee feeder.

The bees are busy!

We have to feed the bees for a few more weeks until the flowers around them bloom and start to produce pollen and nectar.

Only a few minutes of the feeder being in the hive, several bees found it so I think the feeder will be a success.

Bring your son to work day

I had to go into work today. One of my managers needed the day off and I have my area manager busy at another store. Instead of leaving Eli with my parents, I brought him to work with me. I’m glad I brought him because we were able to have lunch together.

Eli loves coming to work with me because he gets to make his own sandwich. He really loves the gloves!

All the choices!

After lunch he helped me clean up. He thinks this is fun, my employees think this is work!

I love spending time with my little boy. I’m so blessed to have him close by me everyday!