While Mom Was Sleeping

I feel the need to share some video footage I discovered which was taken this past Memorial Day. Early that morning, crazy Brian took all four kids outside with him to extract the first honey from our beehive. I missed most of the excitement because they let me sleep in, but I helped out later with processing the honey and wax. We learned a lot that day and the first honeycomb you see in the video was actually brood comb--where the queen lays eggs. We have since learned to distinguish between honeycomb and brood comb, we think. Brian would like me to add that we have had no bee stings at our house--ever.

The Color of Ketchup

I have enjoyed having my two babies at home every morning when their older siblings are at school. Dress-up, Barbies, books, and tea parties are an important part of each day. Bridget and Harmony were playing together so well today that I wanted to capture some precious moments on video. I was glad I had the camera turned on for this debate over the color of ketchup.

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My Summer Project

My summer project was producing a stop-motion animation video with the kids in our Primary. I really enjoyed working with the kids, but it was a much BIGGER project than I anticipated. I have new appreciation for all types of animation.

Entomology

We have all become entomologists. It wasn't really planned this way, but our home and school insect studies converged in the past month and we have all developed a greater appreciation for our six-legged friends. To begin with, we sent for the caterpillars to go with the butterfly pavilion Grandma Chamberlain gave us for Christmas. The caterpillars arrived, ate constantly, and formed chrysalids. We pinned the chrysalids in the butterfly habitat just a few hours before eight Painted Lady butterflies emerged.
We observed the butterflies for about a week. It was fascinating to see them roll out their long proboscises (tongues)! They almost look like another leg.

We eventually let the butterflies go, but we had one little friend who wanted to stick around.















At school, Ariel and Grant have been learning about insects. Ariel will be in a second grade musical production called "Bugz" at the end of the month, and Grant walks around singing about the parts of an insect all the time. Pictured below is a dragonfly that Ariel produced for a class assignment. I have to include it in this post because it fits the theme.
Now for the grand finale! We have bees! This box arrived a few days ago and waited until Brian came home to open it.

It turns out that he didn't really need the mask because the bees weren't moving much. A few crawled on his gloves & he kept saying how cute they were. Ugh.

They were slow to come out of the box and really wanted to stick together. Eventually, we got all 10,000 of them (minus a few casualties) into the hive where we hope they will thrive : ). So far, they are really busy doing something. Maybe they will share some honey with us some day. Hopefully they will survive well in the Vegas heat.

I hope this post doesn't bug anybody. We just wanted to keep you posted on all our latest bzzzness.

Happy Birthday, Bridget!

Bridget celebrated her 4th birthday yesterday with a princess tea party and ruled the entire day. She said, "Dad is the king, Mom is the queen, I'm a princess, Grant is my prince, Harmony is the little princess, and Ariel is the maid."