Spring Break

Eli's spring break was last week, so we went to Utah.  We drove all the way from Aberdeen to my brother's house in Logan in one day.  It was looong!  Eli doesn't recommend it. :-)

We originally were going to Utah because Eli said he wanted to see the prophet in person.  We thought it would be great to take him to a session of general conference.  Unfortunately, Josh's sister told us right before we got our tickets that you had to be eight or older to attend (most likely for reverence reasons, I guess).  We had no idea of the age restriction, but the LDS website confirmed what she said.  We decided to get the tickets for Josh and me and my parents.  After going to the session, I wish we wouldn't have known.  There were obviously kids there who weren't eight or older, and Eli is usually really reverent in church anyway.  I guess ignorance is bliss.

We did end up taking Eli to the tabernacle on Temple Square for the Sunday morning session.  He seemed to enjoy it.  My brother and his wife, who live in Salt Lake, then took Eli to their house for the afternoon session while Josh and I went with my parents to the conference center.  It was a great experience!  Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so there are no pictures.  In fact, we didn't take any pictures the whole time we were in Salt Lake.  I think we were just so busy with general conference and visiting various family members that we didn't think about it.  We had a wonderful time though.

The Monday after conference, we traveled down to St. George to visit my family for the week.  We enjoyed some beautiful, sunny, warm weather.  I'm much more conscious of the weather now that I live in Aberdeen.  Can you tell by my blog posts? :-)  Right now the temperature is in the low 50s, and I'm wearing my warm slippers and a fleece jacket over a long-sleeved shirt.  Just a week ago I was wearing capris and flip flops, and the temperature was in the 80s.  I sorely miss my shorts/capris and flip flops.  I rarely get to wear them anymore, even in the summer, so I cherish the times when I get to. 

Eli gets spoiled by everyone when he goes to St. George, so he loves it!  Josh and I enjoy it too, of course, but Josh's visit was spoiled by either something he ate or a bug he picked up along the way.  He wasn't feeling too well for a couple of days.  I was so shocked that Eli and I didn't get sick.  We are usually the ones sick, and Josh doesn't get anything.  We lucked out this time.  Despite Josh getting sick, however, we had a great time picnicking and hiking in Zion National Park, going to the St. George children's museum, swimming at the rec center, playing kickball, and visiting Mountain Meadows and Pine Valley.  Here are some pics of the fun-filled week.

Eli got a fun little ball catching game from his Aunt Megan while he was up in Salt Lake, and here he is playing it in St. George with his Aunt Monica.

Here we are at Zion's at a little river before we went into the park.

We hiked the Observation Point via East Rim Trail hike.  It's near Weeping Rock.  It was a little strenuous, but the view was beautiful.

Eli with Aunt Monica

Here is Eli with Uncle Kendall.  This was at the children's museum.  They had a political/voting booth area.

This was the auto area of the museum.

This was Eli's favorite at the museum.  He could have stayed here all day. 

Experimenting with bubbles at the museum

Eli and Aunt Monica swimming

I get a kick out of this picture.  Poor Josh wasn't feeling well enough to go swimming.

Eli loves climbing!  Here he is at the rock climbing wall at the rec center.  He knows how to climb up that thing pretty well, and he does better than most kids his age.

This was at Zion's, but as you can see from above, it might be what he'll be doing when he gets older.  Scary!

This is at Mountain Meadows.

This was in Pine Valley.

Six Years Old!

My little boy keeps growing up.  Eli turned six a couple of days ago.  For past birthdays, we've just celebrated with family, but this year we threw him a birthday party where he invited his friends as well.  Wow!  It takes a lot of energy to plan, prepare, and put on a birthday party!  I'm glad I haven't been doing this every year.  I told him he can have another one in six more years. :-)

Eli wanted his birthday party to be lego-themed, so I've had nothing but legos on my brain for the past two weeks.  At least the kids had a blast.  They played lego games, built with legos, ate lego-shaped cake, etc.  And now Eli's stash of building/construction sets is quite large (at least in my opinion for one little boy).

Lego decorated snacks and birthday banner

I had this going a little differently in my mind, but it still turned out okay.

Josh and Eli helped decorate for the party.

Emmet from The Lego Movie.  Do you like our 12 year old TV?

In this game they had to pass the lego sculpture around and add a piece to it.  Music was playing while they did it, and when the music stopped, whoever was holding the lego sculpture was out.  You can see the lego toss game in the background against the wall.  That was another game that they played, trying to toss the lego piece into the lego head decorated jars or the bigger colored baskets.

The kids loved this one!  They had to suck through a straw to pick up the lego pieces and move them across the room.

Once the legos were on the other side, they had to see which team built the tallest tower.

This was the favor bag.  You can't really see in this picture, but the yellow buttermints had lego head faces drawn on them.  They also got to take home their own lego creations from another game in which they each had a bag of legos to build something.  Prizes were given to the most creative and best looking creations.

We had his birthday party this past Saturday, and his actual birthday was on Tuesday.  Tuesday was low-key in comparison to Saturday, but I did have a little bit of leftover unfrosted cake that I had put in the freezer.  I turned it into a miniature ice cream cake so that he had at least something on his actual birthday.  I think that's another reason why I don't like to do friend birthday parties.  They usually have to be held on Saturday in order for the kids to be able to come.  I like to do the celebrating on the actual birthday, so parties bother me a little.  I know, I'm weird.  I'm sure Eli didn't care one bit.  He had tons of fun!

This is the small cake he had on his actual birthday.

They gave him a birthday crown and sticker at school.

Here's a quick little birthday anecdote.  We were eating dinner, and Eli commented that now that he's six, he knows everything.  I laughed and said, "No, you don't."  He said, "Yes, I do, except I don't know what you're thinking."  Picking a random multiplication equation, I said, "You don't know what five times six is."  He was quiet for about 10 seconds.  Then he said, "thirty."  I stared at him.  Really?  I didn't think he knew that.  Both Josh and I had a good laugh over it, and Eli still thinks he knows everything. :-)