September in a nutshell...

Lauren and Andrew doing a duet on the piano.

Andrew on the first day of school.

Lauren reading a big book in the reading center.


Lauren building with blocks.

Lauren playing jingle bells in music class.

Lauren "Picasso" Trott is painting in the background.

Playing in a tunnel.

September Highlights...

- My sweet brother and sister-in-love gave Aaron and I a weekend away in the Hill Country. They watched Lauren and Andrew all weekend. We went to the same Bed and Breakfast we went to on our honeymoon. It was awesome. We caught up on lots of rest and had such a refreshing time!

-Andrew got a haircut!

-The kids started school and mom started work (just one day a week).

We have had a good September to spite a stomach bug and Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease both kids caught. We are looking forward to fall and cooler weather!!!

Checkin' on the Bees

This weekend, we had some good friends come into town. In addition to good conversation and good coffee, we had a good time checking on the bees. Here are a few pics of what we found when we checked on them.

Another busy day at the bee hive.

They have made some progress with honey in the past few weeks. The rain we had last weekend likely provided a little bit of nectar for them.

Here's the other side of that frame. Not much, but it's a start.

Here's a close-up of the capped honey.

Here's a look as we're putting it back in. The bees were calm today!

Here's a frame without full foundation... They essentially need to make all the comb from scratch instead of using the template we provide. Notice that there a little starter strip at the top, but rest of the comb is all them.

Here's a vew of the honey super (behind) and the top brood hive body (foreground). Notice the honey in the two frames that are closest to the camera. :)

Andrew's First birthday

Andrew turned one! He had a "Tiger Party". AS you can tell he enjoyed his cupcake and wanted more! He is officially walking and running. He has no fear. He loves sticks and rocks and all things "boy". He says "dadda", "mama", "lala" ( lauren), "milk", night night, bye-bye, and all done. His favorite thing to do right now is mow the carpet with his new bubble lawn mower and engineer a way to open the child proof locks with Gran-D's walking cane..... he keeps us on our toes, but his laugh is worth every minute of it!!!

Tiger Boy Turns One!

On June 16th our tiger boy turned 1! We celebrated at the pool with friends and fun jungle cupcakes! As you can see A enjoyed every last crumb! He continues to amaze us with his adventurous spirit and contagious laugh! We can't wait to see all that God has in store for this little guy!

Visit to Granny O and Big Grandaddy's House

Lauren and Andrew had a blast visiting their great-grandparents! Lauren played dress up with Granny O and Andrew explored and tried to climb into everything. We all enjoyed Granny O's yummy cooking!!

More Bees

Yesterday, we performed the three-week check on the bee hive. Things are looking good. We added a second hive body, so we now have a two-story hive. You can see the queen in the bottom left-hand corner of the second frame that we inspect. She has a white dot on her to aid in identification.

Busy Bees!

Aaron has a new hobby. He and our neighbor Steven are now bee keepers! Steven started talking about it with Aaron last year. After several months of building the hive in spare moments here and there, they are off and running. Steven provides the brains behind the operation, but they both really enjoy learning more as they get farther into it. It has been a fun way to get to know our neighbors better, too! The world of bees is actually pretty amazing. God has designed some pretty cool creatures.

Here are several videos showing our progress over the last few weeks.

We installed the bees on April 30th. The method they used is called a 24 hour install because they leave the package of bees in the have for a day and then take the (hopefully empty) package out the next day.

Day 1 of the 24 hour bee installation




Day 2 of the 24 hour bee installation




Week 1 Hive Inspection
We need to make sure that the queen is out of her cage, has been accepted by the rest of the hive, and is busy doing her thing.




Rogue Comb Removal
The bees made a bunch of comb in a bad location because of the location of the queen cage. As painful as it was, we had to remove a bunch of the bees' hard work.




Week 2 Hive Inspection
Things are looking good! There are a bunch of baby bees in the making as well as honey and pollen.