Ready or Not...

Ahhh, spring,

Summer and winter stretch into months of hot and cold. But spring sneaks up on us, then poof! it's gone.

Babies are like that.  They sneak up on you before you're ready to let go of your own childhood, then, poof - they're gone.

I remember lying on the delivery table with my first child.  Up until this point, I thought it would be 'fun' having kids.  After a particularly difficult contraction, I looked up at my doctor and insisted, 'I don't want to do this anymore.' 

"Ready or not," he said.                                  ~ Janene Wolsey Baadsgaard

"Raising a teenager is like nailing Jell-O to the wall" ~ Unknown

"If a mother's place is in the home, why am I always in the car" ~Unknown

"Mommy brain: when your grey matter turns into grey hair..." ~ Ian Nelson

"My second favorite household chore is ironing.  My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint"  ~ Erma Bombeck

"Working mothers are guinea pigs in a scientific experiment to show that sleep is not necessary to human life." ~ Unknown

"To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in it's perfect power."

 ~ Maya Angelou

"There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep" 

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have a great day, it's almost Friday!

So That's How She Does It!

Your Doing Great!

When I was a new mom, I sure would have liked to know I was doing a good job. 

When we were first married we took our 3 week old son packed everything we owned in a tiny little Toyota Celica, and U-haul that we hitched to the back and headed from Indiana to Utah leaving behind all members of my family. 

I remember how isolated I felt, and that someone was surely going to stop us, what in the world did I know about taking care of a baby, I barely knew how to scramble an egg. 

Last year that baby that we traveled across the states with 25 years ago,  took his own little family, packed everything they owned up and headed from Utah to Georgia, taking my 18 month old grandson with him, and my soon to be born grand daughter.  I knew they were excited about the new adventure but I also knew that hard times would come for that little mama sitting next to him.

So this is for my daughter in law... your doing great!  Happy Mothers Day!  See you in 37 days, but who's counting!

Together... we can do anything... even a haunted house

I know two posts in one day but this is so funny I couldn't wait.

My mom and I have to be the biggest chickens and would never go through a haunted house.  But thanks to Ellen I can see how we would react if we ever did. 

So funny, make sure you go pee before you watch this or you just might have an accident.

Making memories of any kind with our mom's is so important, even if it is going through a haunted house. 

Mom, I'm game if you are, see ya in October?

Motherhood An Eternal Partnership

In honor of Mother's Day this coming Sunday, I decided to blog something everyday this week about mom's, I have a great one, and consider myself blessed. 

 I owe a debt I cannot possibly repay to my mom.  Thank you to all the mom's out there who work your butts off, taking care of your babies.  You are making the world a better place because of what you do!

How wonderful to know that God is with us, and helping us along the way!

Busy Bee's

It has been a week since we got the bee's and it's time to open the boxes and make sure our queens are out of their  little box and that the hives look healthy.

He first added some rope that he will burn to make the smoke

The smoke makes them a bit more docile it masks the alarm pheromones that are released by the guard bees

He will remove the box they came in last week, and replace with  frames

They had already started to add some outer comb

We have a little feeder that we are adding sugar water just to make sure they have enough food while getting acclimated.  It gives the bee's a little jump start.

Sean removing the hive (super) they came in

brushing the bee's off carefully 

replacing the box with the extra frames

The queens box, can now be removed she has been excepted by the hive

I tried to get a picture of the queen, we saw her but she was quickly covered by the bees

She is darker than all the rest of the bees and has a longer body, every time we saw her I was just not quick enough with the camera, before the rest of the bees climbed on top of her to protect her.

The bee's look great and had already started to make us some honey. I was surprised that they were as calm as they were.  Last year I stayed as far away as possible, this year I was right next to Sean, did not have a veil on, and the bee's just ignored me.  Sean just uses latex gloves on his hands, he did feel a small prick on his thumb but the stinger did not go through the glove.

He has also learned  the hard way to put rubber bands around the bottom of his pant legs. 

 In order for me to get any closer I will need to buy a jacket and veil, but I felt pretty brave if I do say so myself. 

Bee's Have Arrived

I wanted to post all my bee pictures for a couple days now, but between my son's knee surgery, and my husband having to get a tooth pulled, and then deciding on a whim to paint my family room, I got a bit distracted.
Happy to report son is feeling better, husband is living on Carnation Instant Breakfast's for a couple more days till his mouth heals, but not in pain any more.  My family room still needs the trim work done but should be finished this week.

Our bee's arrived on Saturday, Sean was pretty excited to get our bee's going again.  We made a couple improvements on their hives and hopefully have learned some lessons.

This is what the bee's are delivered in.

We ordered Carnolian Bee's it's the second most popular bee for bee keepers after the Italian bee's.

The Carnolian Bee's are known to be great defenders of their hives and yet a bit nicer to their bee keepers.

Removing the can, that has been feeding the bee's during the transportation.

Each hive come with it's own queen she is in her own cage that has a small plug in it, when you remove the plug you replace it with another plug that is food by the time the bee's eat through it they have bonded with the queen.

The queen is placed inside the hive first, Sean just attaches it with a rubber band which we will later remove.

Sean adds a protein patty that also has some antibiotics.

The rest of the box containing the bee's slips right into the box.

The bee's were quickly flying off to find pollen it's an awesome sound to hear.

Looking forward to all that honey.