Wow, since April?!?!

I cannot believe I haven’t written since April!!! Life with a new baby has obviously been going fast!

So, what has been going on in the little farm world?

Well, we got more bees… split a hive… then had one of the hives abscond…. this is not so good! Apparently the hive was weak and a mouse needed a house… and the bees “moved” rather frustrating, but that is how it goes sometimes….

We have taken honey off the hive in the back… they have been busy bees as usual! It looks like we will be taking another super off as well soon!

Our chickens are growing and we are anxiously awaiting our first eggs….we miss those yummy backyard eggs! We currently have 8 chickens, 1 Crested Cream Legbar, 1 Speckled Sussex, (those 2 seem to be our escape artists.. we are thinking we may need to rename them Thelma and Louise!), 1 Black Copper Marans, 1 Silver Laced Wyndotte, 1 Light Brahma, 1 Black Astrolorp, and 2 Buff Orpingtons…. They keep us busy!

The garden this year isn’t as big… I knew with our new bundle I just wouldn’t have as much time, but the fruit around here are doing well!

This Post has been linked to:  Be sure to check out all the great posts!!

 

We have some new girls!

Well, to start we had a rough winter here…. We lost 3 out of 4 hives… 😦 only our backyard hive survived… We have replaced 2, and will be splitting our backyard hive.
And for more exciting news… At the end of the summer last year we gave our flock to our friends. Our ground needed a break… But now we have a new flock! We have missed our eggs! Pictures will be coming soon! And, hopefully a much longer post! Life with a new baby means more cuddling, and less writing 🙂

Yikes!!!

Well, it is with much sadness, and yet no surprise to us… we lost our 2 new hives we placed this year… both of these hives were from packages that we didn’t get till June. Those poor bees didn’t stand a chance… The numbers for both hives were lower than our other 2 hives and we weren’t sure how they would make out…They were at a disadvantage from the very beginning…
We did a quick peek at them over the weekend since it was a warm day, we wanted to make sure they had enough food to last, low and behold they were in the cluster…dead… The bee man thinks they froze… they had honey around them, right next to the cluster, but they were dead. We think with the weather being as brutal as it was this winter, ( we had quite a bit of below freezing, single to negative digit kind of temps), it really didn’t surprise us… During the “polar vortex” we commented that we would be surprised if the hives would make it through…
So, we start over with them this year…. Our other hives are still alive at this point, the one in the back was full of activity over the weekend with the warm temps. We are hoping to split the 2 hives we have left and maybe get a package as well….
The bee season will be starting before we know it, and we really can’t wait to start again!
Ahhh….. beekeeping is never dull!

A new member of the hive…

We have been a *bit* preoccupied lately…. and this is the wonderful reason why…

Yes! We have our blessing in our arms now! He is a wonderful addition to our family! He was born during a snowstorm (with a dad from Wisconsin, is this a surprise??)- I had told the bee man that since this is our first winter baby, we were bound to have him during a snowstorm…Sure enough, we watched the forecast before our induction, first it was a dusting, then a couple of inches, then 10 inches!!! As soon as he was born I asked whether it was still snowing… it was…
He and I are doing well, and everyone is in love with this little guy! He is now 4 weeks old and is such a sweet guy!
Here are the stats: 7lb, 4 oz, and 19 1/2 inches long! And oh my look at the hair!!! 🙂 🙂

Baby bee

A little baby update :)

Well, we are at 35, almost 36 weeks!!! Soon our baby bee will be coming to the outside….everyone is very excited, I think we are asked every day when he is coming! I am excited to see how enthusiastic all the kids are for this little one to arrive 🙂 I will try to keep things posted on here as we approach launch time 🙂

He is looking very good on the sonograms, so that is encouraging for us 🙂

So, how is the school year going???

I figure since we are now past our midway point of the year….I would follow up with how our year has been progressing!

We started a new way of scheduling our school- commonly called “Sabbath Schooling”. Different families do this different ways, we decided to adopt the 6 week on, 1 week off- this means we have 6 “terms” of 6 weeks each, which comes out to 180 Days- the required minimum days for PA homeschooling requirements. Chances are by the end of the year we will have above this amount, once you add in field trips and other things like that. That week in between terms allows me to catch up on what needs done around here, and schedule appointments, that kind of thing 🙂

Since our little guy on the way is the first baby to be born during a school year, we started in July this year….I know, so early! But, the beauty of this is that we will be taking our long break when he gets here….we are going to be able to take a full 2 months off! It will give us a little time before he comes and plenty of time after he comes…During this time I fully anticipate to do some fun schooling, lots of snuggle up reading time, art projects, things like that 🙂

 

So, the nuts and bolts….do we love what we are doing this year??? All I can say is a resounding YES YES YES!!!!!! Everyone has enjoyed the way this schedule is working! At the end of 6 weeks, we close the books, forget about them for a week and then start fresh again. It has helped me tremendously in making goals. I know at the end of 6 weeks I need to have x amount of work done in each subject in order to start fresh the next term. Meeting this little goals have helped me in reaching my end goal. I have the kids finish each book, we don’t skip things…when you first open a textbook and see the amount of work- it gets a little daunting! This has helped me and the kids to look at it sizeable “chunks”. For instance, we know that in order for Munchkin to finish her science book- we need to complete 2 chapters each term, this has helped put all the work in perspective…finish this, then go to that…so to speak.

What about curriculum ??? Well, overall we have enjoyed all our choices. We have made some changes to some areas, the Inventor needed a different science- he was a bit bored- great science, but learning about only flying things gets to be a bit boring…so we changed it up and switched to a more overall science. Doodle got a new math- we had put together a math for him, but he was bored and needed more of a challenge- we switched him to Saxon- it is now his favorite subject! So, overall, small changes, nothing that surprised us 🙂 For me this has been so encouraging!! I feel for the first time since starting homeschooling Munchkin in kindergarten, (she is now in 5th grade), I feel we have found our groove!!! Yeah! Success!!!

I am also loving my planner by Homeschool Creations- if you are a homeschooler and looking for a great planner- CHECK THEM OUT!!!

What will it Bee????

This is going to be a fun post…..We have been sooo incredibly busy with everything in life that writing hasn’t happened…at all….sorry!

We are finally going to announce on here, (although many of you already know!), the gender of our precious baby bee!

Let’s do this with pictures…they are more fun anyhow!

Since this is baby number 6, (um…wow, 6, I still can’t get over that!), we wanted to do something special for this little one and decided to do a “What will it Bee???” gender reveal party….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate cake for a boy, Yellow cake for a girl….we were really trying to go all in with this honeybee theme!

And the verdict is……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yup! It’s a BOY!!!! This makes boy number 5…..there was some devastation of those who were hoping girl, thankfully she had her best friend there to sympathize…. The timinator is still in a bit of denial of another little brother…he insists we have another and to make it a girl…but, they are all  happy now!

His name is Isaiah Duane….We wrote how we chose his name on our facebook page, and I have copied it here….

I really wanted to get on here and explain our name for our baby boy….it has a special meaning for us…. His name is Isaiah Duane…..Isaiah means “Yahweh is Salvation”, and Duane means “song”. So put together it means Yahweh is salvation song. Why does this have meaning for us? When we first found out we were pregnant we began bleeding the same day. After going to the doctor we weren’t given much hope, given paperwork for blood work, and a sonogram paper…with the doctor not very certain that this little one would make it. I have a history of miscarriage- 2 confirmed, and 2 possible…..this combined with the amount of bleeding and not being able to find out why, except that my progesterone level (needed for sustaining a pregnancy) was not high enough for pregnancy…..it was a very shaky beginning, and honestly I was guarding my heart (although it was already in love with our baby) by not being excited, so afraid we would get terrible news at some point. We were put on progesterone supplements a couple of times a day to hopefully bring the levels up to sustain, and we went for follow up blood work and sonograms. After the first trimester passed, I asked my doctor if we were in the clear….at this point he felt he could say yes! I got my new OB packet before walking out the door (they didn’t give it to me to begin with since they didn’t want us to have something to remind us of grief if our little one went “home”).

  I knew from the beginning we were going to have a boy (we do have a track record here!), and we felt we could really be serious about names….we knew if it was a boy his middle name would be Duane after my grandfather (we have put a family name in each or our boy’s names….a way to pass down a part of our families). Our oldest son really liked the name Jonah for a boy….we agreed but it didn’t quite set right….

Isaiah was a name we had considered for each of our sons, but it never quite felt right for any of them…. When we found out for certain that we were having a son, we both felt Isaiah fit him perfectly….it will be a great story to share with him as he grows. Our heavenly father has truly been our sustainer through all of this, and we don’t know what the future will hold for our son, the rest of the pregnancy or beyond, but Yahweh is Salvation, how fitting it is for this little one…and all our children as we pray for each to KNOW salvation, but what a picture of God’s grace with our little Isaiah!

Little Isaiah does have what is called a 2-vessel cord and a higher than normal amount of amniotic fluid, which could bring complications down the road- but as of now he is looking great! We are now 27 weeks along in our pregnancy, he is moving and kicking…he seems to like his daddy’s voice and music 🙂 The kids are having so much fun feeling him tumble…our 4 year old keeps hoping that he will come out soon!

We always pick out a verse(s) for each of our children….Here is his verse(s): Isaiah 40:28-31 (KJV)

²⁸ Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.²⁹ He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.³⁰ Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:³¹ But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

Next time I will have to write about all our house projects going on and hopefully soon to be finished before his arrival!

Special thanks to Auntie Liz for taking photos of the reveal for us!!!