Fly Away Ceremony

Hadrian's Fly Away Ceremony was his official departure from Kindergarten to Elementary School.  It was a beautiful ceremony and he is certainly ready for his new academic adventure!

Percy's Trip

Percy took his first trip without us for Spring Break this year!  He had a great time at the Grand Canyon with Liam and Oliver!  It's hard to believe our little boy was ready for such a grand adventure.

May 2015

Hadrian officially became a Star Child at his school and was very proud of his 'little one'  it even has a tail, just like him.

We celebrated Mothers Day at the Farmers market - can you tell we have a bit of an obsession over bees at the moment?

 Patrick got a bicycle built for two for his birthday.


These three are from the annual fund raiser at Percy's school.

 Above is his class performing, and below is his idea for face paining.

Hadrian got to be the dunkee in the dunk tank!

Dante has decided he does not like going on family bike rides if he has to walk/run.  But if he can sit in my basket, he's perfectly happy.

These are defenders of the castle!

And this is Trajan, playing Artemis like a guitar.  Hard to believe, but the cat doesn't seem to mind at all.

 Percy was so proud, he caught a drone, and even petted it.  Turns out, it was a worker bee after all.  Apparently he was gentle enough as he didn't get stung!

Below is a picture from our last inspection, it was so interesting to see the larva in different stages of development.

 The motorcycle started!  It didn't run for long, but having it put back together and working on this part seems like a big step in the right direction.

Summer is almost here!  This was the first night sleeping in the back yard.

 We trimmed the wings of our new chicks in hopes that they would stay in their pen.  Their response is to now walk on the fence trying to decide where the grass really is greener (or the worms longer as the chicken version may go).  So far, they're not going the wrong way, it's really just a sidewalk over there, may be quite the surprise for a passing pedestrian.

More pet pictures

I know, you're sick of looking at our (albeit cute) pets.  But these pictures have a story.

 

The kitten cam in one day soaking wet - completely drenched.  She looked so pathetic!  We followed the puddles all over our house; on the floor, up the stairs, on the carpet.  Had she fallen in the toilet? (ugg!)  Fortunetly no, once we got her wrapped in a towel and close enough to smell it was clear she had fallen in the hot tub.  Why she was up there we'll never know, but she is still always jumping up and into things! 

 

 

 

These next three are our newest chicks.  We got them as day olds, and they were so cute!  Now they're much bigger, and have graduated from sleeping in the house under the heat lamp to sleeping outside - they are chickens after all.  But they do NOT like it!  They come up to the back door at night and cheep like little babies, begging to come in.  If we neglect to go and put them in the coop (by hand) they'll curl up to sleep on the patio table.  Which is where we eat dinner most nights, so you'll understand why we object.  Just like our four year old, it frequently takes multiple repetitions of us putting them to bed and having them come right back to the back door begging to come in before they actually settle for the night.

 

And these two are just cute pictures of Trajan sleeping.  Bella and Leibnitz are by far the best cuddlers!

Easter

We had a lovely Easter celebration after Percy got home but before Hadrian left for his week in Merrill - during which, I neglected to take a single picture. But I did get a few from the egg hunt at Hadrian's school.

  All the kids had a great time!  And while the pictures just shows a grey fuzzy ball on his head, Hadrian's bunny came out great, it's really very cute and bunny-esque!

 

 

Bees!

Well we're officially Bee Keepers!  We installed two packages (3lbs about 10,000 bees each) into our hives.  They should multiply six fold in the next few months if all goes well. 

 

This first picture is the package before we installed.

The boys are all very interested in the bees.  Hadrian in particular.  He wants to be included in everything we do with them.  We'll see how interested he is once the novelty wears off :)  Percy is also interested, but much more wary. 

The cats were convinced we had brought them new flying play toys.  They must have learned their lessons though as the first day was the only time we've caught them playing with the bees non stop.

 

The bees were supposed to fly out of the box to join the queen in the frames, but it looks like this queen flew back into the box instead!  We had to smoke and shake to get them all out!  It was a bit intimidating.  But we did get a nice piece of comb that they had build in there. 

We're hoping the queen shook out and didn't fly away during all the ruckus.