The Christmas break sure went by fast. So did January.
January started out…and ended with lego building, cozy blankets and family movies.
Eli really wanted to take me to his favorite restaurant, Landmark Grill. He found this place while I was running my marathon last year and talks about it non stop.
Paul is sitting next to us trying to concentrate on his morning conference call. 🙂
It’s January and time for another year of trying to eat healthy. Ever tried chickpea cookie dough? Yeah, doesn’t taste good.
So, we stopped off at Walmart and picked up some tasty cookies and dipped in frosting.
Eli and I stopped for breakfast on our way to school. Maple frosted cinnamon roll donut with chocolate milk on the side. Balanced and complete breakfast. Good thing Paul is in charge of breakfasts.
Look at that pie! The stiff cream turned out very well. Mighty tasty! The presentation with the crust needs working on. Okay, the entire crust needs a little love. I wanted a graham cracker crust, and it turned out more like a cookie crust. I’m currently looking for a new crust recipe.
Anyway, the request for a coconut cream pie was fufilled.
I think I’m more excited for this day than Eli is about Christmas!
This is a huge production in our little household. I have been planning this since November last year when Eli said, “Nisse brought the same treats and put them in the same spot as last year!” What? How does he remember this. I had to pull up the blog post from last year to remember what I did 🙂
Throughout the year, I have been gathering ideas and shaking up the treat menu.
The name place cards was a quick fun addition.
To make it a little easier this year the plan was to have pre made treats, but Pirate O’s failed me. They didn’t have mergpijpjes and a few other cakes that I was counting on, so I was forced to try something new. Paul picked up these chocolate covered marshmallow domes. We were a little disappointed that all the chocolate dome shells were cracked, but they still looked great. It was a risk, and Eli loved them!
He thought the snowman faces were cute.
Fun black and white cookies.
The raspberry shooters were new and they turned out really tasty.
There are still the same treats as last year, because not only are they are simple, they look fun.
Hot chocolate is always a must.
Paul’s favorite cookies.
What should he eat first? Ha!
Paul enjoyed his breakfast.
Eli had fun filling up his plate.
Paul and I didn’t get any sleep last night. Anticipating the 5:30am alarm kept both of us up. But, it was worth it. Eli loved it! After breakfast he said he felt the Christmas spirit and really likes the way it feels. Nicely done, Nisse. Now for a fun month of activities to keep it going!
Eli asked several times to have dad come to the Veteran’s day assembly and have him walk with the Veterans at his school. I kept telling him with his back not fully healed, it will be too hard and not to ask him this year. Eli was persistent. So, I asked dad and of course he said he would come.
First of all. What is that last symbol? Star Trek? Yeah, that is new to me.
After the assembly, the Veterans have their walk to be honored.
And the kids shake their hands.
My father said it was a nice assembly and he was grateful Eli wanted him to come today.
Halloween landed on a school day. So a quick breakfast was planned.
Eli is pretty excited for tonight!
It’s a bit early for Paul 🙂
Unfortunately no pictures from this evening. I made chili and cornbread for dinner like every year. Paul took Eli and his friends out to trick-n-treat and then we called it a day. 🙂
Today’s luncheon is at JCW’s. We needed some place close.
Yup 🙂 Just a normal Monday.
Dad was moved from IMC to here. Ugg. The food is much better at the hospital.
After lunch we went for dessert, but needed to go someplace near by. We ended up at Great Harvest. Not happy here. Did you know they charge a credit card fee without telling you about it? Yup. They did. Not happy.
Eli is loving visiting Morfar. Okay, he loves the wheelchair and said he wants one for Christmas.
Paul lecturing the two boys on their racing up and down the hallway. Or giving Eli winning advise. I’m not sure. It’s been a long month 🙂
We play the ‘would you rather eat this or that game’ quite a bit. Eli hates tomatoes so tomatoes are frequently used in this game. Tonight Eli didn’t want to eat dinner. So, the ‘would you’ game started.
He said he would rather eat a tomato instead of dinner….
This months Monday Luncheon is taking place at IMC hospital.
We are so thankful dad is doing better. He was in good spirits even though he just got the news of having to wait about a week until he can have back surgery. Until then, he is just laying here 🙂
We went downstairs to the cafeteria for lunch. Halibut with cheese. Eli got the grilled cheese. Dessert of silk pie. Unfortunately we have been to this cafeteria many times and fortunately they have good food.
Aaron said next we are going to the University hospital to try out their cafeteria, ha!
I have been waiting for this day! Last year we didn’t get any honey from our hives because Paul wanted to leave all the honey we could for the bees to last the winter. I’m the selfish one. I want my honey! 🙂 With being such a harsh winter, it was a good call to leave them lots of food.
Paul purchased a new tool to try out. It’s like a knife that is serrated on both sides. Why serrated on both sides? I don’t know, maybe to cater to a lefty? Ha!
Working out of the back of the truck 🙂 we scraped off the wax caps from one side of the frame. If we scraped both sides, the honey would seep out before we could finish and get the frame in the extractor.
We normally borrow our neighbor’s honey extractor, but he moved 🙁 so Paul had to purchase one for us. He purchased one with a motor! NO hand cranking with this batch!
This side of the frame is still capped.
Look at that golden honey! The side we scrapped off is placed next to the side of the barrel. We waited for today to do honey because we needed a hot day to help the honey spin off the frames. The temperature was only 85′, but beating down in the garage it was extremely hot. The heat was doing it’s job! You can see the honey dripping off the bottom of the frame.
The extractor can hold four frames at a time.
As the extractor spins, the honey flies off the frames and onto the sides of the barrel, then slowly slides down to the bottom of the barrel.
This is the spun side. All the honey has been removed.
After all the honey has been extracted, time to pour it out and into a double mesh strainer. This mesh strainer is placed on top of a clean bucket.
You can see bits of wax in the top strainer and nice dark honey in the bucket. It’s working well!
All the boys tasting the honey 🙂
After the honey drains through the strainer, the fresh honey falls to the bottom of the honey bucket and the wax remains in the strainer.
Inside we drain the honey from the bucket into jars.
We are very pleased with the amount of honey we harvested from this hive.
Lots of wax to melt into candles. Candle making will be a project for this winter. I tried/made a few wax candles a few years ago and I need some practice. We had a little sparkler show with my candles!
