a chocolate party for Ruby

She's an easy girl to celebrate, this Ruby Cate. She is fun to be around, a great and detailed storyteller, brave and aware all wrapped up with a sweet, sweet spirit.  I am so proud to be her aunt! This year she asked her mom for a chocolate party  to celebrate her 7th birthday and I found this theme to be quite brilliant.

Her party included a chocolate fountain, chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate hershey bars and a chocolate birthday cake. The girls attending this party seemed to very much enjoy not having their mothers around to cut them off from the chocolate fountain and really seemed to enjoy a good chocolate covered marshmallow.

I think this door handle seems to sum up nicely the deliciousness of this party. Even the Hershey Bars were customized for Ruby's chocolate party.

(These ladies are some of my favorite in the world.)

The party was at Kyle and Lisa's house and Lisa whipped up special pennants for the day. She also had candy bar costumes on hand that she has lovingly made for Josie to wear each Halloween. So here, at Ruby's Chocolate Birthday Party, we were entertained by a Chocolate Parade. They marched around the kitchen table and the living room and it was hilarious.

The party ended with a chocolate bar, just to be sure each party goer had every kind of m&m to get them back home. The whole party was a joy and Ruby is as sweet as all of the chocolate we ate. Happy Birthday Ruby Cate!

sweet peas

Oh man. We have so many sweet peas! The kids came out tonight and were sincerely helpful. Both of them could pick the peas off and put them in the bag. When we dumped the two gallons of sweet peas into this white bowl we found a few with Elsie bites out of them, but I suppose that was helpful too. Quality control.

Tonight Rory froze some of the peas after shelling them. And I made a batch of sweet pea pickles. The recipe looked awesome and it was worth a try. I'll know how those turned out in a day or two. We still have a gallon of sweet peas left in the fridge. Good thing we love them so much!

healthy hives

Saturday morning I went out and checked on my hives. And both are looking awesome. The second hive had looked a little weak just seven days earlier but they both were thriving. I brought the camera again and wanted to get pictures as close as possible. My gloves were sticky so I ended up taking my gloves off, which I find to be pretty hard core. :)

Ironically, I did not get stung (I haven't been stung once yet! And I've been out at least six or seven times.) but I did get bit on my hands by two mosquitoes. I was so annoyed. But those mosquitoes are so thick in the woods...I was grateful to have all of my bee gear on, just to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

This time I was just checking on the bees, making sure the ants had gone away, checking to see how full the frames were and guessing when I'll need to add another box. So once I decided everything looked healthy I just stood for a long time and watched the bees. I would watch one bee and follow just that one, watching it's pattern, trying to figure out what it was working on. It was so fascinating.

This week both hives are looking healthy. I can't say it loud enough: I love keeping bees. I would wish this experience on everyone.

what a weekend

During our three day weekend we attended five parties. It was pretty awesome. And just for the record, it may be a while before I can eat another brat or hot dog. I just need a bit of time and a few green salads...

This may require a post of it's own, but Ruby had a chocolate birthday party on Sunday. It was epic. And since it was during nap time, Elsie stayed with my parents and had a long, sweet slumber.

We had root beer floats with neighbors on Friday morning, and were invited to a family gathering for our neighbors across the way. I played more bean bag toss, drank more coke and ate more peanut butter rice krispie bars this weekend than I'd care to admit. But it was a great weekend.

Happy Fourth of July!

My mom and dad came this morning to celebrate The Fourth with us. First we went to our neighbor's house who had invited the neighborhood over for root beer floats at 9:30 in the morning. Ivar thought he was in heaven eating ice cream that early in the morning! Then we drove to Cannon Falls for the parade.

It was a great parade with lots of fire trucks and tractors and beauty queens. Elsie liked to wave at all of the girls in convertibles waving to her and clapped when a float played music. My mom told me that at one point she had a dill pickle in one hand, her sandwich in the other but needed to clap. So she stuck her pickle under her arm pit and clapped and said, "Yay!"

But she did not like the loud sirens or truck honks. Loud noises are scary for her, so it was nice she had a grandma nearby to take her for a quiet walk.

They came back after a while and we finished our picnic lunch and the parade.

Butt-Yah!

For months now Elsie has been saying a phrase that I have not been able to figure out. When driving in the car she'll just yell out, "Butt-Yah!" If we're at home telling Rory about our day she'll add in happily, "Butt-Yah!"

I have been so confused, similar to how I felt every time Ivar would yell, "Sockie BooBoo!" when he was this age. It clearly means something. And I have had to work so hard to crack the code. But I did it. I've finally figured out what Butt-Yah means.

It means, "park." Butt-yah is the way Elsie says that little one syllable word. I have no idea how she got there, but I'm certain I'm right. I'll ask her, "Elsie, do you want to go to the park?" "Butt-yah!" Or, "Elsie, tell daddy where we went today." "Butt-yah!" And when we're driving around and she sees any sort of jungle gym out her window she'll let us know what she sees, "Butt-yah!" It's a happy word.

My next mission is to figure out how she has gotten from park to butt-yah. I'll keep you posted.

our first wiener roast

What joy. We had a whole lot of relatives to our house tonight for a wiener roast. My whole lifetime is filled with wiener roasts at my Aunt Louie's or Grandma B's farms. But tonight we hosted our very first (of many I hope)! It makes for simple menu planning and there is no hot dog better than a skin on dog cooked on a stick over the fire. My Uncle Don is so prepared he has a battery-operated rotating stick for perfectly even marshmallows and hot dogs. He commented that his nephew got it for him and he thought it was a joke, but as it turns out this rotating roasting stick really works well.

The family gathering was to celebrate my cousins Richard and Karen and their kids who are in Minnesota for a week of vacation. The time together with everyone was awesome and left me with a heavy ache in my heart, missing my Aunt Jan and my Grandma B so, so much. The night was lovely and fun and it was just so wonderful to all be together, but the ache feels just as deep and true as those good feelings. Those two would have loved tonight. Everyone played hard, ate good food and reconnected. It was the best.

These two were particularly wonderful. Ivar and Kevin are kindred spirits. Kevin is four years older than Ivar and lives in Seattle, but the two just seem to click. You  might remember the two of them from three years ago (the last time they saw each other) when Kevin taught Ivar "Soooo big!" and then signed them up for the talent show at our family reunion:

Well they've still go it. They played up in Ivar's room for much of the night. When I went up to take their picture I said, "Kevin, go by Ivar and his trains and I'll take your picture." And the two of them were so appalled by the idea of a staged shot. Kevin said, "but I'm actually not playing trains." And Ivar added, "mom, he's playing over there and I'm over here." It was as if they were in total agreement that a staged picture would be disingenuous. So instead I had to catch them in action which wasn't hard because they were together all night long.

It was pure joy to be all together. Relatives are the best. It left me ready to plan a big family reunion with the whole clan. Maybe 2015...