We bought a new queen bee for our second beehive that hasn't been very active, in the hopes that a new queen would get them working harder. James was very excited to help Anthony find the old queen and take her out. It was like a game of seek and find!
Seabiscuit was out snacking on some grass while they worked on the hives.
We finally buckled down and decided to do something about our rooster problem. After our Easter chicks reached maturity, we ended up with 5 roosters!! The constant crowing was driving me crazy, they would start at 5 am and not quit! So we kept the quietest one and took the other 4 to the feed store. Once we got there, they said that they didn't take in roosters anymore and that they didn't want them.... so later that night after the kids were in bed they all "went to a farm far away" ;) It was unpleasant but completely worth it for some peace and quiet finally.
Rett fell asleep after a long day in the car driving to the feed store and then picking up the queen bee from the bee guy.
Here is the queen in her little cage with a few bees from her own hive. There are one or two bees inside with her and 5 or so on the outside. The cage is plugged up by a marshmallow, so once we put her in our beehive the bees will have time to get used to her while they eat through the marshmallow. Hopefully once she is free, her pheromones will have done their job and they will accept her as their queen. We just have to wait and see!
She is our first marked queen, which will make it easier to find her in the future. It is hard to see through the window in the cage, but she has a large white dot on her back.
Our old nesting boxes for the chickens to lay their eggs in were falling apart, so we decided to build a new one. We used scraps of wood from our wood pile and painted it with spray paint a friend gave me. James loved using the spray paint! We painted all of our names on the back.
It has been a busy time for me in primary since we are getting ready for our sacrament program. After one of our chapel practices, we came back to the primary room to have fun and relax. I played a game I've seen on the primary music facebook group where the kids get to take turns picking out dress up clothes for you to put on while you sing different songs. You end up wearing all of the dress up clothes all at once and they loved it!! They thought it was so funny!
We discovered a secret nest! Some of the chickens have been sneaking off to lay their eggs on our old lawn tractor. It is close to where we store the hay, so there is always a bunch of hay to sit on. They made themselves a cosy little nest, so I've started checking there every day for eggs in addition to their coop.
James' class had a "book tasting" in their school's library. The tables were decorated like a restaurant and the teachers had chef clothes on. Each table was a different genre for them to sample, they would choose a book, look at the cover, read a few pages and then write on their "menu" what they thought about it. James thought it was fun until the last few tables (there were 7 of them). By then he was done with all the reading and writing.
The boys love to play on the trampoline with Anthony. They almost never want to do it with just the two of them, daddy has to be there to make it fun.
They also have perfected fake crying and acting like they are hurt. Anthony accidentally tripped James and James immediately put his head down and started acting hurt. Anthony grabbed him and apologized over and over and tried to make him feel better. This is the face James gave me...
It is hard to see in the picture, but I was parked at Rett's preschool waiting to go in and get him. While I was sitting there, I heard this loud bang and looked up to see that a hickory nut had fallen from a tree and cracked my windshield!! I was really worried about what it would cost to fix it until I made a claim through our car insurance and found out it was completely free to replace it. Whew!
Someone brought puppies to Rett's school for the kids to cuddle. Too much cuteness!!!
Center work:
For literacy day, the PTA at James' school had a book bingo night. It was free to come and play and every time you got bingo you got to select a book of your choice from the tables of donated books. There were so many good books to choose from, I wanted them all! I was in charge of taking money for the pizza and baked goods we were selling, so I told myself I would let everyone else choose first and then take what books I wanted from the leftovers. I'm still kind of sad that I didn't end up with a few I had my eye on :)
There were a lot of leftover treats and pizza. I got to take some home, so that was awesome!
Some friends of ours, the McDonalds, who moved away years ago came back into town and stayed the night with us. We had so much fun catching up! Rett and their youngest, Colson, were born a few weeks apart and we even had our baby showers together. Jaxton, their middle child is only one month younger than James and they had a blast playing together. They stayed up past midnight playing nerf guns and catching frogs and lizards with their headlamps on in the dark.
The next morning after everyone woke up, we decided to visit the lighthouse and climb all the way to the top. It was quite the accomplishment! Rett reallllly didn't want to go, but Anthony convinced him to do it since everyone else was.
Before they left to visit more friends, we took a quick little trip to the beach. The kids could have played forever!
Jaxton is a champion animal/reptile catcher. He seriously is going to be the next Jeff Corwin! He has no fear and is so focused he finds them everywhere. He caught sight of this blue stripe garter snake while he was out exploring and he asked Anthony if it was venomous. As soon as Anthony saw it and said, "nope", he went right after it! Like a pro!
More school pics:
James cashed in some of his good behavior points at school so that he could bring a stuffed animal to class for the day. He was very happy to bring elephant and "show him everything".
This was one of my days to stay and help with James' class and they were doing an apple study that week. They had 5 or 6 different stations to rotate to with apple themed science activities, but first we all made applesauce! His teacher brought everything we needed for it, including a laminated recipe with pictures so that the kids could practice reading and following a recipe. Their favorite part was taking turns using the apple peeler/slicer/corer. It was so cool!
Helping everyone practice the technique for safely cutting food with a knife (butter knife):
After the applesauce was set up to cook in the crockpot, it was time to break up into groups for apple experiments. My station was the apple volcanoes, easily the most fun :)
Weighing and measuring the apples:
Making apple shaped helicopters and testing them out:
