Getting Ready for Violet

This past week Violet reached the point in pregnancy that we lost Luke.  This significance has made me extra emotional and worried about my youngest daughter, and unfortunately, until Violet is safe and breathing in my arms, my anxiety is in a constant battle between worry and faith.  Fortunately, Violet is fairly predictable in her movements and seems to be on the same schedule as her older sisters.  She wakes up a little bit after Lucy and Emma each morning and gives me plenty of reassuring wiggles, kicks and squirms and also moves around whenever the girls are exhibiting lots of energy.  She has already shown me that she shares a love of all music from the movie Frozen, just like her older sisters, and will move around like crazy whenever "Let it Go" is being sung by Lucy and Emma.

Lucy and Emma are very loving towards Violet, and most stickers that they receive or pictures that they draw are given promptly to their baby sister.  My belly has become like a bulletin board of Big Sister Love.  Violet is also right at their lip level, and so receives multiple kisses throughout the day.  Lucy and Emma have been with me to every doctor appointment for Violet, and have been really well behaved and patient.  Will's work schedule has made it difficult for him to come to all of my appointments for Violet like he did for Lucy and Emma, but he has made it to a couple, thanks to snow days and school breaks.  In the bottom picture below the girls helped me be brave for a blood test for Violet.  I have a serious phobia of needles, so it was good for me to have the girls there to keep me distracted and to show them an example of me being brave.

I am having epic swelling with this pregnancy, and as a result my feet ache like crazy.  Will is good at many things, but foot rubs are not one of them.  I don't know if he is trying to do a horrible job on purpose so that I stop asking him for a foot massage, or if he just doesn't realize the strength in his own hands.  Either way, his foot massages feel like he is trying to break every bone in my foot.  In the below picture Lucy is giving Will a lesson on proper foot massage using doll house strollers for assistance.

In the beginning of this pregnancy with Violet I could only stomach Wendy's Junior Bacon Burgers (hold the cheese) and because we don't eat fast food in our family, I had to wait until Will was home to covertly go through the drive-thru kid-free and sit alone in the parking lot while devouring the heavenly food.  Sometimes Will would even pick it up for me on his way home from work if he was coming home after the girls were in bed.  Fortunately this phase was over by Christmas time.  I also had a short stint of craving meatballs, but that soon ended when the heartburn made consuming meatballs too uncomfortable.  A spin off from the meatball craving was several months of searching for a certain flavor of Italian Wedding Soup which involved me calling every day a list of about ten different Italian restaurants in the area to see what their soup of the day was.  I found a restaurant about a half hour from our house which made a delicious Italian Wedding soup once a week and then finally found a Coney Island right by our house that served it every. single. day.  After several weeks of having Will bring home pints at a time of the yummy soup it seemed I had finally satisfied that craving.  I've moved on to Philly cheesesteak sandwiches from a local sandwich shop (which ironically doesn't give me heartburn), as well as marshmallows in hot chocolate and s'mores, with the hot chocolate and s'mores merely providing a vehicle in which to eat the marshmallows.  Rice crispies and milk with fresh fruit have been a good snack no matter the time of day throughout most of my pregnancy and my latest craving is for fruit smoothies.  Here are the girls below helping me to make s'mores for an afternoon snack.  It is frustrating sometimes that I have to share my cravings or worse, delay them, because either they aren't healthy or it's just too expensive to have to purchase or make them for the girls too.  This is a newer problem for me, as when I was pregnant with Emma, Lucy was still taking naps and young enough to not notice if my breath smelled like, say, chocolate or bacon.  

Speaking of naps.  Most days Emma does not take naps, so I have had to get creative in how I manage to get rest time in for myself.  Let's just say resting is pretty much nonexistent unless the TV is involved.  This has been the most physically exhausting and challenging pregnancy yet and either I am feeling my age, my body has done this four times now and is worn out, or it is a trifecta of age, worn out body, and taking care of two kids under the age of five.  It is probably all of the above.  It also doesn't help that with Will's full work schedule and evening college classes that I am lacking the level of support he used to provide during my last three pregnancies as well.  Something has to give, and fortunately we are able to afford someone to come in and clean the house, and have also had to lessen our standards on healthy eating.

I have high hopes of getting back in the kitchen on a more serious level once our life has adjusted to little Violet's arrival, but in the meantime have utilized various weekends to make some meals in bulk and stash them in the freezer for our transition.  Stuffed Green Pepper soup, pumpkin pies, chicken pot pies, Italian meatballs, beef chimichangas and a variety of muffins are currently chilling in our downstairs freezer.  I do miss all of the pancakes and waffles I used to have the energy to make for breakfast, as well as the various desserts I used to make as nothing quite compares to my own baked goods.  In the meantime, eating baking chocolate chips straight from the bag and an occasional grocery store baked good has had to suffice.

Violet is arriving into a family well-versed in little girls and as a result, needs very little in the form of material possessions to make her debut.  I still want to make things special just for her though, and made a french memory board to hang in her bedroom just like I did when I was pregnant with Lucy and Emma.  The girls helped me pick out the fabric and buttons which also made this project special for their baby sister.

This past week we moved Emma out of the nursery and into Lucy's room.  Here is Will below setting up the crib for Violet.  I can't tell you how excited I was the day we prepared Violet's room - it made her arrival very real and definitely ignited the nesting hormones in me.

Below is Violet's room, ready to go.  We kept the same paint color and decor as Emma had, with lacey butterfly valance curtains and varying shades of purple butterflies on the walls.  This was definitely a perk of having another baby the same gender as her older sister.  Not that I don't mind decorating, but I loved Emma's room and am happy to be able to continue to use it!

Perhaps my favorite perk of having another girl though, is the fact that I get to relive the memories I have attached to all of the adorable baby clothes from Lucy and Emma.  I have so much sentimental attachment to their outgrown clothes that I feel very blessed to be able to see another child grow up wearing them.  Seriously, this is my favorite perk of all.  I kept with our tradition of buying Violet a brand new outfit to come home from the hospital in, and Lucy and Emma helped me pick it out.  Unfortunately, the three of us couldn't narrow it down, so we bought three outfits with the added security of at least one outfit being able to handle any sort of weather early May in Michigan might bring.

It is amazing all of the clothes we have passed down from Lucy and Emma, and my nesting hormones were in overdrive as I sorted, washed and folded all of the tiny little outfits.  I cannot wait until Violet adds her own personality to the memories I have attached to these sweet little outfits.

Last on our list of things to get done before Violet's arrival was to find a car seat combination that would fit in our five person car.  One would think that a five person car should obviously fit five people.  The truth is that most five person cars fit only two car seats max and it took some very creative detective work for us to be able to find a solution to having three kids in car seats in one back seat.  Lucy is big enough now to sit in a booster seat which is good, as they are generally smaller than full car seats.  The problem then became that the other two car seats were so tight together that she couldn't reach her hands between the car seats to get to the buckle.  Our uncle gave us the money saving tip of getting seat belt extenders from the dealership, which solved that problem.  Next, we got two car seats that are the thinnest models made, and they fit without an inch to spare.  I'm relieved that we don't have to go buy a new car to fit our kids safely into a vehicle, however I really feel like these car seat companies need to get it together and do a better job making streamlined car seats!

When Will took the old car seats out of the car to put the new combo in, we realized with some shock that our car was absolutely filthy.  Our car was so dirty that removing one car seat and setting it on the driveway let loose what had to of been at least a full box of stale cheerios, cheesy bunny crackers, raisins, broken crayons and God knows what else.  After making statements like, "Who lives like this?!?" and "Have our kids eaten any of the snacks we have given them?" it occurred to us that the last time we really vacuumed out the car was right before Emma was born!  I guess the only incentive we have to clean out the car is bringing home a precious, vulnerable newborn.  Either way, our car is now shiny and clean, Violet's car seat is snugly in place and we are looking forward to bringing our third daughter home with us!

Everything is ready for our sweet Violet short of buying a box of newborn diapers and packing a bag for the hospital.  I have been compiling a list on my phone of all of the things I am excited about doing again in the newborn phase with Violet to help outweigh my negative, fear-ridden thoughts with positive, happy thoughts.  Many well-meaning people keep pointing out that she will be here before I know it, and a month will go by so fast, but unless you have lost a baby, there is no way for me to describe enough for you to understand what it is like to be the only person on the planet who can ultimately tell if Violet is okay in my belly or not.  It is nerve wracking and this last month of pregnancy takes as long as the first eight months in my opinion.  Once you experience tragedy, you know all too well that you are NOT immune to it.  For me, there is no denying that something bad could happen, and I feel like I have already tempted fate too many times by having two healthy baby girls on earth.  How can I expect fate to let me have a third?  Because of this, I feel like each subsequent pregnancy after losing Luke has gotten harder, not easier, as I try to convince myself that the other shoe doesn't have to drop.  Luke, Lucy, Emma and Violet are definitely the greatest learning experiences I have ever had in patience, faith and ultimately letting go.  I am so very blessed and grateful to have my three girls on earth and I am praying to God every moment of the day and night to keep Violet safe so that she arrives healthy into my awaiting arms.  Violet, you are loved so much and we cannot wait until we can cover you in kisses, feel your warmth as we hold you in our arms, whisper in your ear sweet baby talk, drink in the fresh, newborn scent of you and gaze upon your beautiful face.

March Matinees

Our creative juices were definitely flowing in March, perhaps inspired by the smell of spring in the air, the sound of birds chirping in the trees and the sun shining a little bit longer.  Also inspiring was the Maple Syrup class we took this past month.  The flowing sap is a sure sign that spring is on it's way in Michigan!

Next winter we are hoping to try our hand at tapping some of our own trees.  In the meantime we have been inspired by the class as well as friends of ours who are tapping their own backyard trees.  More creative inspiration was to be had at two different theater performances we attended.  At the beginning of the month we went to a play in downtown Detroit based off of the popular children's book Going on a Bear Hunt.  We read it so many times in the weeks leading up to the play that Lucy and Emma can recite the entire book by memory.  The play was really well done, however Emma was not happy about the life-size bear at the end!

I found some really great journal sketch books for kids at our local craft store this past month and have been inspired to make journals with the girls.  Every time we do something the girls deem out of the ordinary, we write about it and color pictures of it in our journal.  It provided the perfect place for our play tickets and we are all super excited about this ongoing project.  I keep the journals in a safe place between entries so that they are viewed as something special and I ensure a more structured approach to them.  Here they are below proudly displaying their journal entries from the performance we went to at our local community theater called Playing By Air.  Another great show, with nothing scary this time.  Emma would have preferred the lights to have been on in the theater for the show, but was still entertained by the juggling, dancing and music.

This past month was full of library fun, and the girls attended their regular weekly Science Story Time, as well as a Fancy Nancy party that they got dressed up for and a special workshop called "For the Birds" where they made various things for the birds from popcorn, grape and apple strings to bagels, grease and seeds as well as cheerios on pipe cleaner bent into hearts.  A more appropriate name for the workshop would have been "For the Squirrels" as that is who benefited from the treats once they were hung up in our yard.

The girls costumes arrived for their dance class this past month as well.  They are super excited that the outfits came with matching bear ballerinas.  One of the many reasons I love the studio they are taking their dance class at, is that their end of year performance will be just for the parents in their regular classroom, instead of on a stage with an audience full of strangers.  At this age, I think this will make for a much more comfortable experience.

We stayed healthy almost the entire month of March, and were able to spend time with family and friends.  In the top left picture Lucy and Emma are making an Aunt Jane sandwich.  In the bottom left picture, the girls are having a tea party with their cousin Ellen and another friend.

Last month we bought a birthday present for a friend that Lucy wanted so badly for herself.  She spent the next month saving up her money and finally was able to buy it.  Emma also saved up some money and the two of them bought the much coveted Barbie Hair Dye Kit as well as a Barbie outfit, respectively.  They were very proud to bring their little purses to the store and pay the cashier for their hard earned toys.  They had even more fun dying their Barbies hair when we got home.

At the beginning of March I started getting antsy about taking down all of the winter art projects and paper snowflakes we had hanging around the house.  I bided my time, and we added some green St. Patrick's day crafts to the winter mix.  On St. Patrick's Day we made and decorated cupcakes.

On March 21, we celebrated the first day of spring by removing all traces of winter crafts and making a beautiful spring collage to decorate our now bare walls and windows.

We also made a family spring craft project that took several evenings but was well worth the multiple steps.  I had found an egg carton flower wreath on Pinterest that looked like something the entire family could participate in with our various skill levels.  First we cut up the egg cartons into flower and leaf shapes.

Then we took several evenings to paint the flowers and leaves in various colors.  One night was reds, purples and pinks, another night reds and oranges, and another night green.

The wreath turned out great, and it was such a nice experience to show the girls the various steps that need to go into a more elaborate project, especially since all ages of the family were able to add their own talents to it.  

After reviewing all of the pictures from this past month, it is amazing to me that we had the time and energy to do anything else!  I think I viewed March as my last hurrah before I become too pregnant to do anything but put my swollen feet up and count down the days until Violet is here.  By the end of March I definitely started slowing down.  Below are pictures of the girls making their own fun while I rested on the couch - one is of Emma who thought it was hilarious when she made a "Balloon Butt" on Lucy.  Will also tackled various home improvement projects around the house, including the task of unclogging our shower drain with what Will thinks was a build up of his body lint.  As much as I find this explanation of the clog hilarious, once the clog was out, it did look like that was what was clogging it!  Lucy was fascinated by the treasure that came up from the drain but I think Emma was a bit disgusted, based on her expression in the below bottom right hand picture.  The left inset picture is of a recipe for Valentine's Day that I finally made in March with the sole motivation of getting the random and strange ingredients off of my counter and for Will to stop teasing me for buying the strange and random ingredients in the first place.

For as much time and money as I spent on the "healthy" Valentine's Gummi Hearts, they really weren't that good and I had a lot of extra white filling which was made from grass fed gelatin and coconut milk.  I poured the left over white stuff into silicone gingerbread molds from Christmas and the entertainment value it provided when I fed them to the chickens almost made the trouble worth it.  Pinterest - sometimes the projects are a success, and sometimes they are an utter fail.  Thankfully my chickens joints should be feeling good after they ingested all those tiny gelatin gingerbread men.  Run, run as fast as you can little gingerbread men!

I only have two pictures of Charlie this month, to prove to Will that my kids rank higher than our outdoor cat.  The below left hand inset picture I texted to my cousin who made me the Blessed Mother Statue that Charlie loves to hide behind.  My cousin texted back that Charlie is attending his own version of "Catechism."  The bigger picture below is of Lucy calling for Charlie from an open window, and him appearing from nowhere.  It is very helpful that he comes when he is called, as we prefer to have him locked safe in our garage each night.

Oops, looks like there are actually three Charlie pictures.  But it shouldn't count against me if Lucy is holding him, right?  Right.  In the below picture the girls are enjoying Spring time in Michigan.  In the top left picture the girls are "patching pot holes" in our driveway.  In the top right hand picture Lucy is showing me a patch of grass that she found by our asparagus bed that we haven't seen since early December.  By her levels of excitement, you would have thought she had found buried treasure.  In the below right hand picture Emma is splashing in a puddle next to a snowbank that is taller than her.  Ahh, now that is Pure Michigan.

We are still adjusting to proper social decorum when outside.  It has been months since we were able to play outside in durations long enough to get on each other's nerves.  In the months that have been spent mostly inside, the girls have taken their sisterly fighting to new and more heightened levels of screams and retaliation.  This is an adjustment now that we are outside and the neighbors can hear us.  After an afternoon of fighting and screaming I had enough and went inside and locked the door.  Here they are below, crying at the top of their lungs to come in.  Don't worry, I let them in - eventually.  Once they publicly hugged each other and stopped screaming.  God bless our neighbors and the coming warm months.

 In fact, God bless me.  The other day I was sitting on the floor helping Emma with something when Will took it upon himself to pluck two white hairs off the top of my head, with no warning to me.  Lucy capitalized on this, took the two white hairs from Will, put them up to her face and said, "Look mom!  Cat whiskers!"  I think I will name the whiskers Lucy and Emma.

The white hairs have definitely come at a price, however my girls make it up to me in snuggles, hugs, kisses and laughter.

I will end this post with pictures of the happy side of our family and a reminder to myself that in about a month I will have another set of chubby cheeks to kiss and snuggle as the ups and downs of life with THREE little girls continues to fill our house and heart with shrieks of joy, pain and everything in between!

A Year in the Learning of a Beekeeper

Learning a new skill helps keep life from getting stale.  Since we bought our little piece of paradise in the middle of suburbia, it has been our goal to learn everything we can to create our own suburban farm oasis.  We love to see how much we can produce on our average sized lot while still being in close proximity to work, shopping and community life.  Between the two of us however, we really have no first hand knowledge of farming - suburban, urban or rural for that matter.  The obvious first step after purchasing our house was to plant a garden and learn everything there is to know about gardening.  The following year we deer-proofed the garden and added chickens, while learning everything there is to know about chickens.  Bees were the logical next step, and are actually more practical than chickens on a suburban lot.  Once you make the initial investment, which even with buying almost all of our equipment second hand was still pretty costly, the bees pretty much take care of themselves.  Here is my best attempt at showcasing my first year as a beekeeper.

I spent the winter before we "adopted" 20,000 bees with my nose buried in any and every bee book I could get my hands on.  I talked with as many seasoned beekeepers that I could find, and Will spent time combing Craigslist for used bee equipment.  We also utilized Craigslist to sell our own items like extra furniture, toys and books to help fund our new bee hobby.  By mid-February I was knowledgeable enough to place an order for the variety and amount of bees I needed and Will was finishing up refurbishing the used bee boxes that he had scrounged up as well as building tops and bottoms to our hives.

Ironically, I was more anxious about lighting the fire inside the smoker used when handling the bees than handling the bees themselves.  Once the weather warmed up enough in late March and early April, I could be found lighting pine needles on fire with matches.  Apparently white pine needles fueled with punk wood (slightly damp, small pieces of wood found on forest floors) and newspaper make the perfect smoke combination that isn't so thick that you can't see the bees but also smokes long enough to complete your tasks without having to relight your smoker.  After feeling fairly confident with lighting the smoker it was time to pick up our bees.  In the above picture, Lucy is standing next to two, three pound packages of bees that we purchased from a farm about an hour from our house.  Things got very real as we loaded up 20,000 buzzing bees for an hour ride home.  The buzzing was louder than I had anticipated and definitely sent my previously confident self into a tailspin of doubt.  The beekeeper we purchased the bees from assured us that if in the unlikely event the bees escaped, they would immediately cling to the windows instead of attacking my family of four strapped into the car.  Either way, it was a relief when we arrived back home with the bees still tucked safely in their cages.

When we got home the girls helped me prepare the hives with a spray solution of sugar and water, as well as a mason jar feeder with more sugar water to supplement the bees until the first flowers started blooming.

Then it was time to install the bees.  I was surprised by how the bees didn't fly around once their cage was opened, but instead crawled all over me, the cage and the hive.  I couldn't move myself or any of my equipment without crushing multiple bees at once.  The first package I installed was quite a challenge and I'm afraid to say many a bee did not make it into the hive.  For the second package of bees I made sure to shake the container really hard, directly into the hive to knock all of those crawling bees into the right spot, instead of assuming they would just fly into their new home.  As you can see below, Emma was not happy with being gated off from me and all of the fun.  Sadly, it took one bee sting later in the summer for her to get over her hurt feelings of not being able to be by my side while beekeeping.

After a couple of days I refilled each hive's jar of sugar water and checked to see if the queen had eaten the sugar plug out of the special little cage she was in.  Apparently her loyal subjects, the worker bees, need to get accustomed to her scent before they are willing to work for her so you have to keep the queen caged in the hive until the workers have accepted her as their queen and the danger of them eating the queen instead has passed.  All seemed good, but the sugar plug was still in place.  It was then up to me to get the tiny sugar plug out and release the queen into her new home.  This was a bit nerve wracking, because if I didn't do things just right, the queen could fly away never to be seen again and I'd have to order a new one, losing valuable time and inviting possible anarchy within the colony without a bee leader to give them focus.  Fortunately, all went off without a hitch and I got both queens safely installed into their new homes.

Over the next couple of weeks I continued to check on the hives and eventually was confident that the queens were laying eggs and the worker bees were finding enough nectar that they no longer needed the supplemental sugar water.

I found it fascinating to see the progress these hard working bees had made each time I went into their hives.  With my smoker going, I talked to the bees in a calm voice so that they would get used to me working in their home.  They never seemed angry and just ignored me and continued about their business.  I was very surprised how calm they were.  

By the first week of July it was time for me to start adding hive boxes above the growing colonies.  The trick is to make their hive seem roomy enough that they view it as a long term home, but not too roomy that they feel insecure.  I'm sure I will get better at this skill as time goes on.

Towards the end of July, I received this frantic text from Will when I was out to lunch with a friend.  Will was texting me on both sides of the below conversation - from his phone and from our iPad.  He even called the restaurant I was at, as I didn't hear my phone ring.

I wish I would have been there when it happened, but according to Will and the girls, it was like a scene from a cartoon as a loud, humming black funnel cloud twisted up and out of the hive and gathered into a soccer ball sized swarm as they ever so slowly worked their way to the top of a tree in our front yard.  Apparently I had not added hive boxes on to one of the hives fast enough and they had decided to split for more roomy digs.  Typically when this happens, the original queen leaves with about half of the colony.  The remaining half of the colony stays in the original home with a new queen that the old queen had laid several weeks before.  I learned many valuable lessons with this transgression which helped ease the pain of losing half of my hive.  When I got home, we tried placing the old queen cages in empty hive boxes around the yard to try and entice the swarm to pick their new home with us.  The scent from the queen cages is supposed to help them feel at home, but unfortunately, after spending the night in our tree, they left the next morning to locations unknown to us.  From this, I learned to watch for new queens being laid.  They are fairly easy to spot, as their cell is much bigger than worker bee cells.  I successfully spotted this happening in the other hive and even was able to split the hive myself and create a third hive.

At this point in the summer, I still hadn't been stung.  Unless we stood within a five foot radius of the hive boxes, we couldn't tell that we had over 20,000 bees living on our property.  I did see increased numbers of bees pollinating our garden and drinking from our chickens' water, however our day to day life was not affected.  I knew my luck wouldn't last forever though, and that bee stings were a normal and expected part of the job description of bee keeper. I had my first near sting encounter as I was working in the hive and felt something slowly crawling up my leg inside my bee suit.  There was nothing I could do but brace myself for the inevitable sting as I couldn't leave my bee hives wide open while I unzipped myself from my bee suit.  After my tasks were finished, I slowly took my bee suit off and found the below bee crawling around inside my suit.  It never stung me!  Whew!  That was definitely a close call for both of us, as when honey bees sting, they die.

By the end of summer it was time to figure out how to harvest the honey.  Earlier that summer I had read in the local paper that the nature center by our house was given a honey extractor by the Women's Garden Club.  I called up the nature center and asked if they would be willing to let me borrow it.  They told me sure - it was still in the box and they had no idea what to do with it.  This saved me several hundred dollars.  The girls and I went over there to pick it up, while assuring them (more for my conscious than theirs) that we would return it as good as new.  They didn't seem worried and kept saying that they were just glad it was getting used.

To keep honey raw, and thus maintain all of the beneficial enzymes in the liquid gold, it is best to harvest the honey on as hot a day as possible in the fall so that it flows smoothly and efficiently without having to heat it up.  September 11th dawned hot and sunny and after looking at the extended weather forecast, I decided it was now or never.  There were several complications to this timing, including it being a weekday with no one to watch the girls as well as me being in the throes of morning sickness (more like all day and night sickness) with the first trimester of my pregnancy with Violet.  The girls were so good while I worked in the hives and Lucy even took it upon herself to video me and take pictures of the event through the open dining room window where her and Emma were instructed to stay so that I could hear them if they needed anything.  It was hotter than anything I've ever experienced in that bee suit, and the boxes with full frames of honey were nearly impossible for me to lift.  I estimate that each box weighed about eighty pounds.  The below pictures were taken by Lucy.  The one on the right was what I looked like once I took the bee suit off.

Besides saying constant prayers that the girls would be okay while I was tied up in the hives and asking God to keep me from throwing up inside my completely enclosed bee suit, I also had the added anxiety of feeling several bees crawling around inside my suit.  My bees that were so docile all summer were not happy with me taking their hard earned honey.  They were so angry that they even stung a passing neighbor as well as me, three times.  I made it through the process however, and was very proud of myself and my daughters.  Little did I know the baby about the size of a honey bee growing inside of me was also a daughter!  I can proudly say that all three of my daughters were very supportive of their mama that day.  I safely stored the full honey frames in a covered box until the following weekend when Will could help me with the extraction process.

The extraction process went very smoothly, and it was amazing for us to see the golden honey dripping from the frames.  We harvested a total of 22 pounds which barely filled half of a five gallon bucket.  It was just enough honey to pass out tiny honey bear jars to our friends and family and supply us with enough honey to get through the year.

The bees continued to work diligently into the fall.  One evening in October I found the below bee with full pollen baskets on her legs, resting on the screen on Emma's bedroom window.  I was so focused on not dropping my phone while taking a picture out of a second story window that I failed to notice Will photo bombing the picture!

By December the bees were in full hibernation mode.  Bees are very clean insects, and will not go to the bathroom or allow dead bees to foul up their hive.  On days above freezing, they will take turns using the bathroom outside the hive as well as dragging dead bees out and dropping them in the snow.  Below you can see the dead bees piling up on the hive's front porch and yard.  As sad as it is to see piles of dead bees, it was a good sign to me that the hive was still healthy and strong.

 As the winter progressed, we received so much snow that the hives were completely buried.  We dug them out several times, but at this point, saw no life coming from the hives.  At the beginning of March I ordered three, three pound packages of bees to replace my colonies with and got Will to clean out all of the dead bees from the hives so that as the weather warms up their decomposing wouldn't taint the remaining honey.  It was pretty disturbing to see the piles and piles of dead bees and to know just how hard they had worked to stay alive through one of the roughest winters our area has ever seen.

Our cat decided he liked the flavor of dead bees, and we decided that the deceased bees deserved some respect so we scooped them up and laid them to rest on our compost pile, where they will continue to benefit the entire life cycle of our suburban farm.  We are thankful for all that the bees did for us this past year, from pollinating our garden to teaching us about the intricacies of nature and providing us with delicious golden honey.  I am about to come full circle with my bees, as the new colonies are set to arrive on Violet's due date.  The timing should be very interesting, and so I am also grateful to a husband who is willing to step in as assistant beekeeper and handle the bees if I am otherwise occupied giving birth!  I am excited to see what my second year of bee keeping brings!

Emma's Last Month Being Two!

Emma has embarked on her last month as a two year old!  In my mind, she is already three and so I am not too sentimental about my baby turning a year older.  Maybe Violet's impending birth is helping me accept my middle daughter's age progression, or maybe Emma is just already acting like a three year old and the calendar is finally catching up.  I am more emotional about the fact that she will no longer be the baby in the house, and that is causing me to tear up far more than her age.  How will Emma fare with the transition and how will I?  She is definitely still a mama's girl but also has a really big heart when it comes to her baby sister.  Violet's arrival shall be interesting to say the least and for now I am just trying to enjoy every moment I have left of Emma as the baby of the family.

In anticipation of our new baby, we are still diligently working on Emma's sleep habits.  After seven nights (not in a row) of sleeping in her own bed through the night, we took her out for ice cream.  She was super proud of her achievement and has since received two more prizes of Barbie outfits.

Emma wants curly hair like Lucy, and has lately enjoyed wearing the curlers from their pretend beauty shop around the house all day.  Sadly, she has hair like me, and the curls last about ten minutes once the rollers are taken out.  She also loves to wear "decorations" which include multiple hair accessories at one time, tutus, bracelets, rings and necklaces.  She truly believes that variety is the spice of life and our current battle with her is trying to convince her that she can't wear two different pairs of shoes at the same time - for example a boot on one foot and a tennis shoe on the other.  I'd let her find out the hard way, but that didn't work the last time we tried that approach when she ran around barefoot in the snow.

We continue to put her energy to good use and she is now a pro at vacuuming after meals.  In the bottom left picture she was wearing a skirt that was a little too big and it fell down while she was vacuuming.

 She loves helping in the kitchen too and the sampling of ingredients that comes with cooking.

She has been doing a great job at the All By Myself Story Time.  The other day on the way home from the library, I asked Emma if she did a good job listening to the teacher.  She told me, "Yup, I listened a little, picked my nose a little, and listened some more."  Here she is below doing a good job on the listening part at story time.

Our little girl has definitely embraced the trials and tribulations of being three already.  We are working on her getting ready in the morning on her own as well as making her bed, and listening to directions the FIRST time they are told to her.  For some reason she currently translates any type of direction into crazy running back and forth while gleefully screaming.  She operates best when given choices and will flat out rebel if she is told to do something without options.  She requires adequate warning to make a smooth transition and rarely takes naps, much to my dismay.  She is full of energy and loves to harass her sister.  She drives us crazy and melts our hearts sometimes within the same five minutes.  As the sun rises on her third year of life, we are looking forward to watching her little personality continue to develop and hoping that the kisses, hugs and cuddles that she is famous for will never be outgrown.  We love our almost three year old!