Not Once....

Twice!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

I tried to take some spring pictures of the little bear cubs.

"Daniel look over here!
James, look over here!
Daniel!
James!
Both of you, look over here!"
This is the best I got.

Right after this, he fell off the curb.

"Uh Mom, there are bees over here."

"Daniel! Wait! Mom's going to make me take more pictures"
They are both taking advantage of my larger, slower state.

May I Present...

Before

After

I know you are thinking we are pretty good with Photoshop, but I'm here to tell you, that was all done by manual labor.

• Cut down 5 large dead trees (made a bonfire)
  
• Pulled out 789634587719 smaller trees (made more bonfires)
  
• Transplanted vinca from backyard to front yard
• Doubled the size of the usable yard area
• Recovered from five stints of poison ivy
  
• Rented a backhoe...disaster
  
• Built a 50x4x4 ft granite wall
• Leveled the dirt and planted seed
  

So please, do us a favor and enlarge the "after" picture. Just to flatter us. We are super proud of it.

A Huge Checkmark

Do you remember the chair I found on the side of the road waiting to get picked up by the garbage man? Well I stripped her down...

...and then dressed her back up.

Phew, that was a lot of work.

PS- I guess it is not totally done. I'm still looking for something to put on the front of the arms.

Marine Week

The Marines rolled/marched/flew into town this week.

Is there anything he can't do?
10 minutes before this picture was taken he was,
working with LabVIEW under fluorescent lights.
Now, he is warrior.
Rambo in disguise
.
.
.
sort of.

Busy Bees

This week I'm teaching my kids about honey bees. I thought I'd make it real, so we made our own "honey".

First, they had to make the honeycomb.
They had to find wax (cupcake liners) hidden throughout the yard and bring them back to build the hive.

Then, I planted "flowers" full of sweet "nectar" throughout the yard.
They had to use their antennae to smell and find the nectar.

Once they found the nectar, they had to use their special bee tongues to suck it up...

Then take it back to the hive and regurgitate it into the combs.
Did you know that when you eat honey you are really eating bee spit?
Yum.

Then they ate their honey.

I love This Time of Year