Annual Honey Harvest!

This was the first year Darwin rented a honey extractor and he extracted the honey at his parent's house.  We ended up with three hives this year (because his original hive swarmed twice in a week) so we were really hoping to get more honey than we have in the past.  We still only ended up with about 4 gallons.  That okay though.  Maybe next year...we have our fingers crossed that all three hives survive the winter.

Savy enjoyed the honey drips right off the bat :)

Cuties.  At first Darwin just let the extractor go on its own.  Then he realized if he used his body to cram it against the wall to keep it from shaking uncontrollably, he could put it on a higher speed and get the honey extracted faster.

 Filtering the honey

Savy kept trying to stick her finger in it to get a taste of the delicious golden honey so I ended up taking the girls out to the garden to help me pick veggies.  Plus, the bees started finding their way in to the garage and Rori was freaking out a little bit (she still clearly remembers getting stung by a "Princess Bee" on her thumb in the springtime and doesn't like being in close proximity to Daddy's bees).

Even though we didn't get as much as we were hoping for we're still really glad to have what we got!  We've had a waiting list of people who already wanted to buy honey from us as soon as we harvested.  We're not the only ones who love this stuff!!

The bees swarmed back in May and I'm pretty sure I didn't post about it because I was going to leave that up to Darwin.  He's really busy too though so he never got around to it. Dar's dad has a really nice camera (we want one like his!) so these pictures look awesome!

Luckily both swarms stayed in the backyard and Dar's dad was around to see them.  Dar had to rush over there after work both times in order to catch the swarms before they took off somewhere else.  The first swarm too shelter in the top of the pear tree.  Dar had to carefully climb up and gently saw off the branch they were on.  I was at home with the girls so I missed it both times, but I'm glad to have the pictures!

 Awesome pictures! I love it!!


My handsome beekeeper :)


Putting the bees in their new home

Dar invited our neighbor, Jeremy, to help him out.  Jeremy is the one who introduced Dar to beekeeping a few years ago.

I guess we didn't get pictures of the second swarm.  The original hive swarmed a second time later that same week and swarmed in the apple trees that time.  Darwin said they weren't quite as easy to capture the second time because they were more spread out, but he got them!  We really hope we get a better honey harvest next year.  I'm glad Darwin has this fun little hobby :)

August Randoms

I had just a couple more pictures from August I wanted to get posted before moving on to September.  I'm definitely getting behind with my blogging again.  Oh, well.  Such is my life right now :)

I love that Savannah will sit and smile for the camera sometimes now.  She's such a little sweetheart!

Daddy and Rori went outside to play with chalk together one day.  Rori loves when Daddy goes outside to do chalk with her :)

Grandma and Grandpa went out to the West Coast for a few days to visit Aunt Andrea and Uncle Sean (and the ocean, of course!).  They know how much we love the beach too and they brought back some fun books for the girls and some yummy jam for us.  I'm so glad we captured this moment of Grandma reading to the girls inside the tent from Aunt Georgiana :)

And I think that wraps up August!

Messy girls!

The girls are usually pretty well behaved while I shower, but sometimes I come out to surprises.  One day several weeks ago, I came out and Aurora showed me her "pretty colors".

This wasn't the first time this had happened, and luckily we have washable markers so it wasn't too big of a deal.  I was just glad it wasn't on the furniture this time.  Later, as I was helping Aurora get dressed for the day I busted up laughing when I took her jammy shirt off and saw this:

She had given herself armpit hair like Daddy :) Haha!  We waited to wash it off until Daddy got home from work so he could see her masterpiece. Awesome.

Aurora's "master of all messes" came on the afternoon of August 29th during quiet time.  We'll just say that's not chocolate on her carpet. :/  Yuck!  Nasty!  Eww!

We pretty much gave up on potty training her a while ago because she is so stubborn and we were getting so frustrated, but this was the final straw and I knew we needed to be done with pull-ups for good this time.  She's definitely big enough and smart enough to do it.  This resulted in her having to go commando for an entire week before she could earn her panties back and it honestly worked miracles!  (Don't worry, we stayed home and didn't take her out in public.)  She went from not going on the toilet at all to only having about 4 accidents in the last 3 weeks! And, she's finally telling us when she needs to go!  Hallelujah!

Savannah's messes usually revolve around food and her insistence on feeding herself.  I'm okay with that.
Ranch Dressing

She paints her food on her forehead frequently.  It's kind of funny.

Mmm!

 Chocolate Pudding - delish!


She can say "cheese" now.  Love it!

Despite the sometimes frustrating messes our girls make and feeling like I'm constantly cleaning up after them, I try to remind myself that they're only little once and to enjoy this time I have to be home with them while they're so little.  My time with them is so precious and I try to soak in the small moments when we get to be silly and thoroughly enjoy each other, messes and all!

Hats

Aurora is quite the character sometimes.  She found some old party hats in the back corner of our pantry when she was hiding from me in there one day.  When Savannah saw Aurora's awesome party hat she had to have one too, of course!

I love that Aurora is getting more and more into drawing and coloring and playing with tape and scissors lately.  She is becoming quite the little artist (watch for a different post to come on that later).  That same day (after watching a particular episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse), Aurora decided it would be even more fun to make our own crowns.  So we did :)

Rori decorating her crown

I drew the triangles, but she has gotten TONS better at coloring and staying in the lines in the last couple months.

Beautiful finished product!

I love that these girls seem to get more and more fun every single day!

Front Runner to SLC

On August 23rd we were planning to go to the Ogden Temple open house with my cousins via UTA Front Runner.  We found out the night before that we wouldn't be going [which was totally okay, Martha! ;)].  We had told Aurora a few days earlier that we would be riding on a train with "cousins" and she was SO EXCITED!  We didn't want to disappoint her, so we went with Plan B.  We still got up early and caught the train at the same time we would have if we were headed all the way up to Ogden.  The ride to Ogden is 2 hours from where we live, and only 1 hour up to Salt Lake City so Plan B seemed a little more doable on our own without cousins there to help entertain our girls--plus we didn't have to wear Sunday clothes, which was a lot more comfortable for some of us.  I think I was just as excited as the girls to finally be taking them for a ride on Front Runner--we've been wanting to do it for a while now and finally did it!
Watching out the window waiting for the train to take off

 Happy and excited to be on a TRAIN!

Me and Miss Rori :)

Daddy and Sweet Savannah-Wannah

Once we started moving, their noses were glued to the window for a little while :)

 The newness wore off after a while and then the girls discovered they didn't have to stay put in their seats--they thought is was pretty cool to not be sitting with Mom and Dad the whole time.  They still stayed close though.
Savy peeking at us through the seats


When we got to SLC we got off Front Runner and transferred to Trax which took us to Temple Square.  The first thing we did was check out one of the visitor's centers.  Aurora LOVES Angel Moroni! :)


The girls love water too ;)

Rori touching the temple!
She loved seeing the beautiful brides all around the temple grounds--we saw several!!

Playing in the reflection pool--we tried our best to keep our kidlets out of it :)


Our family at the temple
(It was a pretty chilly morning so I totally took advantage of the opportunity to wear a fall outfit--don't judge.  I love this time of year and I'm SO excited for the change of the seasons!  I may or may not have asked Darwin on Saturday if we can decorate for Halloween already. ;) Don't worry.  We didn't.)

East of the Temple is a really cool water fountain.  This is a reflection of the fountain coming off the Church Office Building

Rori sitting by the fountain


The girls wouldn't cooperate for a better family photo with the temple in the background, so we just got our traditional selfie :)

It was about lunch time at this point, so we booked it over to City Creek and got some Chick-fil-A for the girls to have a little lunch really fast.  We caught Trax back to Front Runner and ended up waiting about 20+ minutes for the train to come because our timing was a little off with looking at the train schedules to get back home.  We could have spent a little more time at temple square, or not rushed our lunch so quickly, but it's all good!
Rori thought Front Runner was pretty cool :)  We sat on the 2nd level both ways.  It was fun to be up high and watch the scenery and the cities go by

It was nap time and both girls were pretty tuckered out by the time we were headed back home.  We did our best to keep them subdued until we got back to our car.

Grumpy face ;)

At least Daddy was still smiling!

This picture isn't very good because it is really zoomed in and the train was moving pretty fast, but if you look closely you can see the Jordan River Temple in the front ground (on the right) and the Oquirrh Mountain Temple in the back ground (on the left) in one shot!  At one point we could see 3 temples from where we were sitting on Front Runner--Jordan River, Oquirrh Mountain, and Draper all at the same time!  How cool!

It was so nice to take a family day and some-what spontaneous trip up to Salt Lake with our girls.  They were a little cranky on the way back, but it was so much fun and a wonderful day that ended with a beautiful sunset and the sky on fire!

Happy Labor Day, and Happy Birthday, Bean! We love you!

All caught up! Seriously.

I've been posting like a maniac this weekend trying to get all caught up on my blogging while I had a little bit of time to do so, and I did it!  Make sure you check out all our fun posts from this summer!  Thanks for sticking with us and not giving up on me with getting so far behind. :)