Hot Bodies

Beehive bodies. What did you think I was talking about?

It's that time of year when a young man's fancy turns to molten wax and gum rosin.

Mark has been building beehive components in the basement for the past month or so. It's noisy business and now our cellar is a fun maze of hive bodies and honey supers. With a nice fresh lumber scent.This year, instead of painting the woodenware, Mark is uber psyched about this wax dipping process which is supposed to be far superior in water and rot protection as well as less mess, less labor, more appeal for the bees :)

So! What this entails is bringing like a hundred plus pounds of wax, paraffin in this case, mixed with gum rosin to a simmer in your homemade propane fired dipping setup. (Rooster is optional.) Maintaining a temperature high enough to get the job done but below the flash point of both the ingredients, you submerge a box and let it cook for 12 minutes. And viola!

Ya, they look pretty much exactly the same afterward, but the water, it beads off like magic! And such a fresh piney turpentiney scent while they cook. A two-headed Babymomster. It even warmed up enough for the bees to come out for a cleansing flight. Bee poop everywhere!The new uncapping machine. We'll get to see it in action sometime in July, I reckon. I took a photo because it will never look this shiny again.Some wax blocks after coming out of the (also new, but no longer shiny) wax melting/cleaning tank.

It went through multiple "washings" which filled the cellar with a lovely warm honey toasty waxy scent.
Airplane ride!
And a visit to Lily's 3rd grade Valentine's Day party. Daddy didn't make it back from work in time to babysit so Leo came along and played Cupid.
And Lily won 1st place for best Valentine box. (I got 1st place for only one hot glue gun blister from its construction. But then I had to relinquish my title since I cussed when it happened.)Finally, no photo, but imagine a beautiful vase of roses from Mark delivered to me this morning for Valentine's Day. Even though I almost didn't answer the door for the flower guy.
Didn't he know I was doing the old Race For A Shower While The Baby's Sleeping thing?

Happy Valentine's Day to all and to all a good night.

Is That Normal?

This poor neglected blog :( (My poor neglected pre-baby clothes...and hobbies, and brain, and etc etc etc)

But! There's a baby to show for it and he's cute. So. There it is.

Four months later and still settling in, I think we're getting our confidence back that we actually know how to care for an infant. 'Cause, you know, we've done this a couple 3 times before, you'd think it would be a piece of cake, or cheese, or whatever.

But we're a little goofy when it comes to our kids, maybe, and Mark was forever asking:

"Is that normal?"

And in my crazy, crazy, sleep-deprived, isolated, hormone-fluxed state, he'd get me wondering, too: Is that normal?

And of course it all is. With the baby, I mean. The crying, the sleeping, the pooping, the sneezing. It's all good.

Mama on the other hand? The crying, the sleeping, the pooping, the sneezing. Well, that's another zubject :)

So this is a baby step back to the blog and the like. I even uploaded photos! Ta-da!

I think we all know how this turned out:He cried the entire first half at the Super Bowl party. We went home to watch the Steelers finish losing.

Lil' Ayyyngel, on the beloved bee quilt:

Thanks, Patti!

Daddy couldn't wait to try this:

I think The Boy likes it!

Hopefully more soon, but I have a 3rd grade Valentine's Day party to go shower for! xoxo