Three Kids

Almost everyone tells me that three kids were their hardest. So far, two was mine. Three has been much easier because the two oldest can play together. Kilynn is constantly hovering over Ezra and you will never find a time when she doesn't want to hold him. This was true when Margie was a baby as well, but it was more worrisome then because she was too young to control herself and treated Margie like a rag doll. This time around, I trust her a lot more and she can help out every now and then by holding Ezra when I need to get something done.

 Margie on the other hand didn't seem to notice that Ezra existed until a couple weeks ago. All of a sudden she has decided to fight for Ezra any time Kilynn has him. If I lay Ezra down she is immediately in his face and loving him to pieces. Luckily she doesn't love him to pieces quite as literally as Kilynn loved her to pieces when she was a baby.

I think this picture says it all:

"Mama Save Me! She's got me again!"

Making Eye Contact

Ezra is usually good in the car, but long trips are a little tricky with a baby this age. He's not yet all that interested in toys, and things get boring for the little guy. Several weeks ago we went to a family reunion which required about 6 hours of driving each way. Ezra was perfectly happy the whole time as long as he could have me sitting in the backseat next to him making eye contact. I took a few too many pictures in order to entertain myself, but he was just sooo cute. Enjoy!

Blueberries!

A friend from church invited us out to their place near the small town of Alsea to help get rid of some blueberries! They were perfect berries and so plentiful! It was fun picking.

They have a beautiful yard and the girls had fun wandering around and trying out all the swings hanging from their trees.

There was this gorgeous sunset:

The only downside to spending our evening out here picking blueberries, was that we missed the much anticipated fireworks that were happening that night in Philomath following the rodeo. Kilynn had been looking forward to them for a while, so hurried to Philomath right before dark in order to catch the show. On the way home Kilynn was all quiet in the backseat and then would suddenly burst out giggling. I asked her, "What are you laughing at?"
     "Oh just something I was thinking about in my head."
     "What were you thinking about?"
     "Fireworks!"
Needless to say it was very sad when we got home and found out that the fireworks were already over. We were told that they didn't even wait until dark and just set them off against the pink sunset as soon as the rodeo was over.

We picked just shy of 40 lbs. Mmmm!

Philomath Frolic and Rodeo

Last weekend was the annual Philomath Frolic and Rodeo. Thursday night was Family night and everyone could get in for free. We had never gone before on this night because we figured it would be too crowded and crazy, but it turned out that we got a big section of stands to ourselves. Probably due to the fact that we were sitting in a section that the sun was still beating down on. We had to endure that for the first part of the rodeo, but the rest was just fine.

Kilynn was beside herself with excitement to go because it was "Tough Enough to Wear Pink Night." As soon as we told her, she ran into her bedroom and started pulling out pink clothes. She was disappointed in Daddy for not owning any pink and was disappointed again when we got to the rodeo to see that not many people were "tough enough to wear pink."

Finley Wildlife Refuge

A couple weeks ago I took the kids to a wildlife refuge where we walked along a trail to a marsh area. Kilynn was in heaven with so many different kinds of wildflowers. It seems to be her goal whenever we go anywhere, to see how many different kinds of flowers she can collect. I should have taken a picture of her stash at the end.

Picture taken in front of an abandoned house. I had to take pictures in front of the white picket fence.

Everywhere we looked there were rabbits. We saw at least a dozen of them. The girls had fun seeing how close they could get to them and then chasing them. If you look closely at the next picture you can see one disappearing into the bushes.

Watching and hoping that the rabbit will reappear.

Our hike ended at this beautiful place. We ate our picnic lunch and got to watch some Blue Heron out on the water.

Our Artist

Kilynn is a very creative girl. She is an artist who works in many mediums. The following are just a few examples that happened to be in my most recent pictures that I just uploaded.

As Kilynn waited for everyone to sit down to dinner, our salad took on new life.

Last year we read a book from the library about making houses for fairies out of things found in nature. Ever since then, she builds fairy houses or fairy gardens wherever we go.

Kilynn and Kiley working hard on a fairy house

Kilynn has always loved to collect flowers, leaves, rocks and petals while on our walks. These treasures are usually passed on to me to hold for her, but lately my hands have been quite full with a baby. Therefore, I started having her carry a basket on our walks to put her things in. When we get home, she likes to dump them out and create something with them. She will often use her treasures to work on her fairy houses, but a couple days ago she made a doll by using one of those balls that grow on Oak Trees for the head, moss for the hair and rose petals for the dress. She laid it out how she wanted it and then directed me on hot gluing it together. Yesterday she decided to decorate our apple tree with Rose petals, Petunias, Cosmos, Dandelions, and Morning Glory. It was beautiful!

That's the other thing she is always doing. Kilynn loves to decorate. Recently she "decorated" the bathroom for me and was very proud of herself. She dumped out everything in two drawers and carefully arranged the contense artfully throughout the bathroom. Headbands hung from the doorknob, the faucets and the light switch. The toilet seat was beautifully lined with flower and bow hairclips, and even the floor was adorned in creatively arranged shampoo bottles and toothpaste tubes. I'm sorry I don't have a picture, but unfortunately it had to be quickly undecorated when visitors showed up at the house so that the bathroom could be functional.

I love this girl and I love how quick she is to notice and appreciate beauty in simple things around her.

Spring Honey Harvest!

Bees are the greatest thing! The more I learn about them the more I think that next to humans, they are the greatest creatures on Earth. They are so sophisticated and complex, AND they make HONEY!
We are starting our third year keeping bees. This first picture was a picture taken last year. I often find Joseph sitting there watching his pet bees. Kilynn counts them as pets, and lately she has been counting her pets as family. There are about 60,000 bees in a healthy hive and we have two of them, so we have a very large family!

We harvested our first honey off the hive last fall and got two gallons. A couple weekends ago, Joseph took eight full frames of Spring honey out of the hive so that we could harvest it and do a taste test to see if it would taste different from the Fall honey. We were able to get two more gallons!

It's amazing to me that the bees can make honey as well as the wax to put over the cells to seal it. Last year Joseph made candles out of the wax. I did not help him because he accidentally burned the wax, the smell of which caused pregnant me to throw up over and over until he finished the project. We will try it again this year.

Frame of capped honey

We use an electric knife that heats so that the wax comes off easily. 

Joseph makes this look easy. It does not look as pretty when I do it.

Next, the frames go into the honey extractor. The frames go in three at a time, get spun around, the honey flips out of the frames and goes down into the barrel. 

Kilynn had the camera from here on out. There were a lot of interesting pictures I had to syphon through, but the whole process was documented pretty well.

I'm not sure what I was doing here, but I thought it was kind of a funny picture. It looks like I'm longing for a taste, but I'm probably trying to smell the honey. To me it had a distinct floral smell! Go figure.

After we have finished spinning all the frames in the extractor, we open up the valve at the bottom and let the honey flow into a strainer over a bucket. The bucket has a valve just like the extractor in the bottom of it.

The strainer catches any pieces of wax, bee parts, etc. 

Open the valve at the bottom of the bucket, and Presto! We have beautiful honey!

Think of all the work the bees put into this honey! One bee produces only about 1/16 of a teaspoon of honey in it's lifetime. We got four of these half gallon jars full.