BEES!!!

Luke's brother Jeremy and his wife Crystal decided that they would try their hands at beekeeping this year. They originally started with just two hives, but it just kind of grew and grew, and right now he actually has 7 hives, but only 5 are populated and functioning at the moment. It seems as though the other two hives up and left for someplace else.

It doesn't seem like too hard of a process, and Luke and I are considering it for out at the land. I love honey, but it's really expensive, so we don't ever buy it. We just need to get the land cleared out some before we could even dream of putting ANYTHING on it.

These pictures are early pictures of the first two hives inspections. Some of the other hives he has now are top bar hives that have windows in them, but we haven't been over recently to get any new pictures, so this is what we have for now.


Jeremy and the bees (a bit later when he braved it without the bee suit)

Close up of bees on the hive.

A bee on Jeremy's finger.

Jeremy in the bee suit checking a hive.

Disassembling the top of the hive to check the queen's status.

A bee on the camcorder I was operating!!

Smoking the bees.

The bee suit.

Easter 2009

Better late than never!

For Easter we coloured eggs for the first time since being parents. The girls enjoyed it, although Lilly did crack a couple, but she is rough and tumble like that.

On Easter morning the girls woke up to find Easter baskets with some candy and plastic eggs. We spent the early afternoon at my dad's house, where they got another Easter basket, and we played outside blowing bubbles. We later headed up to Luke's parents and had a nice Easter dinner, and also an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. All of the girls found at least one egg, and overall seemed like they enjoyed finding them, so maybe it will end up being a yearly thing now.

Mother's Day

I like to do something a little crafty for Mother's Day since I have kids and all, and they are too little to understand the holiday. For my mom, we hand made a card that the girls drew on. For Nana in West Virginia, they painted Dora pictures on the computer and we emailed them (they love colouring with Luke's pen tablet). For Great-Grandma Perkins, they water coloured some Dora pictures, and for me and Luke's side of the family, we pot little clay flower pots that they decorated with stickers and permanent marker, than we put some pretty flowers in them.

We spend the day with Luke's family, and our nieces made quite a few of the items on the dinner list (the oldest two are 9 and 7, so they can cook). We had a good meal and hung out for a bit and called it a day.

I got a handmade card from the nieces, a shirt and matching recycled plastic bag from Luke's mom, and Luke bought me a canning book that I had wanted.

New Baby Checkup

So...I had a doctor's appointment the beginning of May. Since we were heading into the second trimester, Dr. Laing said the risk of miscarriage decreases a lot (which we already knew), but that meant I could be off pelvic rest and continue as a normal pregnancy. The ultrasound at 7 weeks showed a little bit of blood behind the placenta, so I asked if another ultrasound would be done soon so check up on. She didn't seem to concerned, and said we will just wait until the normal 18 week ultrasound to see if it is still there, and if it is, it may present a risk for preterm labor, but other than that, we look good.

I still need to get my bloodwork done, but my next appointment isn't until June 11th, when we will be 16 weeks, and then an ultrasound soon after! We are starting to get anxious to know what we are having. I need to know whether to start buying boy and packing up the girl, or unpacking all the girl stuff. With our track record though, we probably won't find out. Lexi never showed herself, and with Lilly, the tech thought girl, but wouldn't place a bet on it. I guess our kids are just shy!

Nick's Birthday Party

My cousin Nick turned 15 on May 4th and the girls ate all of his cake when we went to his party. He is totally into the group of high school people that are all about the vintage look and music of the 70's. Some kind of new age hippie thing (my brother is the same way) He got lots of posters and t-shirts of all the cool rock bands of the day, and the highlight was Judas Priest tickets!

The girls always have a blast when we go over there for party, I hate to think of the next time we go over there and they aren't having a birthday party...I think Lexi may expect cake everytime we go there since everyone's birthday is all in a row!

Lilly's 2nd Birthday

On May 3rd, we had Lilly's birthday party (her birthday is the 2nd), and the 3rd was also my dad's birthday. We did the exact same thing as Lexi's, meat and cheese platters, and fruit and veggie trays. We wanted to do cute invitations with pictures like we did with Alexis, but Lilly is just such a stinker, she won't sit still for a decent picture. We ended up hand writing invitations and gave them a week before the party, and 2 days before the party we got to OK pictures of her to make into wallets to give out.

Well, hardly anyone on my extended side showed up. A week in advance isn't really advance for them, so we only had Luke's side, my dad, and my Aunt and Uncle with their boys. Lilly didn't care though, it's not like she notices things like that. She received some cute outfits that she will ruin with one wear, and a few noise makers. (Thanks for the drum machine Mama and Papa Cowgar!...) All and all it was a good day.

Her pictures are up on the photo blog, along with pictures of Jayden, my Aunt's cousin. We did his photo shoot on the 2nd for a Mother's Day surprise.


Here's Lilly giving dad his birthday present, a new Star Trek Enterprise model from the new movie.

My dad with his granddaughters.

The cake!

Lilly blowing out her candle.

Aunt Taresa helping with presents.

Tearing the paper.

Lilly and her new Lightning McQueen.

Papa Cowgar and Claire.

The new drumset from Mama and Papa Cowgar. (It's LOUD!)

Just A Quick Note....

I've decided that I really need to keep up with this blog better. It's not like I don't have the time, I am just lazy on my part, and need Luke to get the pictures hosted so I can post them. So...the least I could do would be to post, and I can always add the pictures later...when Luke transfers them over..so this is my starting attempt at getting the blog up to date and waiting on pictures!!