The Girls Have Arrived!

Our package of bees arrived yesterday! It had been delayed a week due to poor weather.

I have heard that there are upwards of 10,000 bees in a package.


I am so proud of Mike. If he didn't do it I really don't know if I could have done it on my own. He didn't act nervous, he just went to work.


I played a very small roll in getting them to there new home. I helped hold the queen box while he tried to pull the cork out. Which by the way....is no small task due to the fact that the queen bee has hundreds of attendants. Thank goodness for bee suits!

Here Mike is with our finished product: all the bees in their home! The white posts are for a fence we are going to build around them so they are protected from the crazy wind we get here.



I am so thankful I have Michael! We make a good team. We are now officially keepers of bees.

As a side note..another attack happened with the rooster this morning. This time I was all by myself when it occurred. I went out to feed and the rooster totally chased me all the way from the horses to our fence. The whole time I had a rope and was trying to fight him off. It was horrible! I don't know why I can't defend myself against him.

I came in and told Mike and he came to my aid. However, Mike is not always going to be there and I NEED to know how to handle the rooster myself. How dumb to be scared of a rooster!!

Potty Trained!

My little sweet baby girl is potty trained!!!! We attempted a few weeks back because I ran out of diapers and surprisingly it has worked!

Cassie has Bella trained already, I told myself, so I thought I would try too! The first week was full of accidents but she never once had an accident during the night or when she woke up! It feels so strange to have that out of the way.

Morgan is a joy and she surprises me everyday with little sweet things that she does. I am so proud of her and look forward to more milestones with her.

Starting Seeds Indoors

I am taking gardening to a whole new level! In my quest to be frugal and prepared it makes perfect sense to try my hand at starting my own seeds indoors.

As usual, I stress myself out by thinking I have to follow everything by the book, that's why it has taken me so long to finally just "Do It"!! have been wanting to get started for a few weeks now and have finally found the motivation to get going. I am so excited to see if this will really work!

I'm starting lettuce, bell peppers, tomatoes, Shasta Daisy's and delphiniums. I am doing pretty plants too this year. We will be getting our bees next weekend and I want to pretty up the place for them.

If this works I will be so pleased! If anyone is interested here is a list of supplies and a rough cost:

- seed starter tray from Walmart ($12)
- fluorescent shop lights at Home Depot ($20)
- seed warmer from IFA ($19)
- Dowel to hold the light up from Home Depot ($2.50)
- seeds, already had
- shelving rack already had(if anyone is interested I found a great website that shows you how to build one if you don't have a shelving rack handy)

Rough total is around $55. I expect I will save way more than that by not having to buy plants at nursery's or Walmart for $4 to $5 bucks a pot! Not to mention, I won't have this start up cost next year!

Garden, T-ball, Friends & Funnies

GARDEN
So this year we finally get to focus on beautifying the outside! I can’t tell you how hard it is to try and be patient with the process when you can visualize in your minds eye the potential beauty that could be, with time and lots of money.

I think this will be a great teacher for me…gardening. I can’t have what I want when I want it. I have to wait for the time and season and just be patient with the process.


So here I am planting our newest additions...six more semi-dwarf fruit trees. I can't express how bad I want these trees to produce and be pretty. There seems to be so much to learn with having them, and I don't mind that. I just want to do it right!

The year we left Fernly Janie and her mom came to my house that spring with pruning sheers and we went to work on my trees. They came to help me because I didn't know what to do or where to start. For some reason that was so exciting for me. I marvelled at the cycle of the seasons and the new baby buds that were coming out. So this picture of our tree budding this year brought back all those feelings of marvel and excitement again. Am I a gardening geek now or what?! I think I have caught the bug!

These little beds are for the strawberries. I plan on planting 100! (I want an overabundance problem.)

Here are my three raised beds all ready to go this year. Last year I only did one and had great success with the tomatoes. Hopefully, the Lord will bless my garden and I can have it again this year!

T-BAll
Michael got both boys signed up for T-ball this year. They are on the same team so that should be fun. This was the night before their first practice. Mike had brought home goodies for all the kids and was practicing with them.

It will be fun to see how the boys do in this activity. Carson seems to have a passion for it and Cole needs a little more practice, but we hope to help the boys discover where their interests are and have the pursue them.

Cole was excited with this outfit Mike got for him and his first mitt. They both did great practicing.

Morgan was not to be left out of all the fun. Mike made her night by bringing her home some new Dora P.J.'s. I can't express this enough...I love having my little girl in the house. She brings such a sweetness that makes me lover her all the more.

FRIENDS
This is our little friend Bria. She came to play with her little brother yesterday so her parents could go to conference.

Payton and Carson talking about who knows what. It was really cute to watch them pal around out back.


FUNNIES
Cole lost another tooth! It had been driving him crazy for a few days because it was so loose. I was not able to pull it out and to our surprise all it took was getting punched in the mouth by Carson to pop that little bugger out! Usually when he gets punched by his brother it is not meet with such enthusiasm but he was very proud of Carson for doing him such a great service. (Cole didn't ask him to do it... a fight broke out which escalated and Carson resorted to violence and ba boom tooth problem solved!)

Here was a note I found on the boys door that Cole had written.
"He man woman haters club. If I spelled this wrong that is the language that we use. Are boys club." The words in green that are harder to read say "Tooth fairy is the only one who can come in."

These kinds of things are priceless. I love my kids!