Picture Post

The Ward Campout

The girls don't even know that they slept through 2 ambulances, an emergency vehicle, a firetruck, and best of all, the life flight helicopter!  It was an eventful ward campout, and those involved are doing well now.

A Day in the Life of Ruby

{Lucy just picks and eats all the wild strawberries}

More Ruby...

Date night swap

Cloud Dough!

Anne sleeps just like Grandpa T.

Sister Jenkins and Sister Sidenstriker

Not great pictures, but the bees are beginning to make comb!

Everyone, look!

As Requested

I've had a few requests for some news, so here's something to keep everyone happy for a bit.

First of all, a little bragging--for you Grandma. 

 Anne has really loved kindergarten this year and it has been so fun to see how much she's been learning.   

Her school has an awards assembly each marking period, and each time she has gotten an award.  I though I'd share this one with you because she got an award for excellent work habits (like usual) and then she was also chosen as a Young Ambassador and got a T-shirt.  She was thrilled!  She "displayed outstanding school citizenship."  It is a very serious thing to keep all the rules, you know.  :)

While Anne is away, the little sisters play.  They cooked up some delicious food for me.

Our new favorite place to visit is Longwood Gardens. 

There are some really beautiful sites, and all kinds of different gardens. 

 Here's Ruby in the boxwoods.

As requested, here's my belly. 

It really should be documented I guess. 

This is 23 or 24 weeks along.

And the bees.  We got the bees in the hive and they seemed to take to it well.  This swarm happened to swarm on the first really warm day.  It was up in the mid 80's that day, but we were worried it may have been too soon because the temperatures dropped again and it rained--there was even frost--for over a week. The bees just stayed clustered in a ball trying to keep alive, but there were many, many casualties.  We even tried to insulate the hive a little for them. (bees like their hives to be pretty warm---around 85 degrees if I'm remembering correctly) Randy has kept some sugar water in there for them because they weren't able to go out foraging with all the rain and cold--and they obviously didn't bring along any stores of honey with them.

Well, we were horrified at how small their little cluster had become, and the number of dead bees on the bottom of the hive, but Randy (the one who's read all the books) said they like things clean and orderly and that when they had a chance they would take care of it.  

So, I've been curious.

With Randy out of town this week, I've been going out to check the bees--mostly just to see if they're more active and still organized (a good sign that the queen is still alive and "bossing" them around).  Boy, were they busy!  I was transfixed just watching them at the opening to the hive.  There were a lot of them going in and out, but I couldn't make out much order in how they climb all over each other.  Then I started looking at the ground around their hole.  It was littered with dead bees.  As I looked, I noticed two bees wrestling in the grass and wondered what in the world they were doing.  As I watched another two bees fell from the hole to the grass and "wrestled."  Then I realized that only one bee was wrestling.  The other was dead.  They were bringing the dead bees out --I'm really not an expert on bees-- but it seemed like they had hooked on to the dead bees somehow and were then trying to use the grass to free themselves from the dead bee.  It was totally fascinating.  Also as I watched I noticed other bees flying to their hole loaded up with pollen.  Yahoo!!  I think they are going to survive!

Quick, let's catch up!

Well, when I don't post for a long time I feel like I have to play catch up.  So much has happened.

The dying of the eggs:

The Hunt:

The Bunnies:

The hunter and the hunted:

This was a few weekends ago.  We started the front flower bed project.  It still looks just about the same.  With only weekends to work it was very sad and annoying when we were ALL put out of commission last weekend with a nasty GI tract something.  Maybe this weekend we'll have a chance to work out here again.

Wonderful Brother Mayes came with his tiller and tilled things up for us!

Here are the men, gabbing.

This is what is left of Ruby's black eye.  She had a run-in with the floor and the stool on Sunday.  It was amazing to watch how fast it turned purple and puffy, poor thing.

I really need to find out what these bushes are called.  This is ours and it is amazing (especially from the other side).  It is totally covered in beautiful blooms!

And now, what you've all been waiting for:

THE BEES!

Here's a video Randy took of the swarm he collected on Monday evening.

This is Randy transferring them from the box to the hive!

Here's the next beekeeper.

Well, I'm off to tend the bees!

The Scoop:

First of all, our big news is: 

 It's a BOY!!!

The rest of our news is about what we learned at our "high risk pregnancy consultation."

When I first visited the midwives, they took a blood sample to run the usual tests.  My blood showed that I have an antibody for anti-E.   They then requested a blood sample from Randy.  The perinatologist explained that on our blood cells we all have "labels."  One is your blood type A, O, or B.  One is your Rh factor:  + or - .  Another of those is the anti E or A or D or C etc., you get the picture.  Well I have e, e on my blood cells.  Randy has E, e on his.  It's not a problem unless blood mixes.  I'm anti-E, you see. Then my body would make an antibody to kill the foreign E, e labeled ones and have that antibody around just in case it sees any more E, e's.  And that's what happened, apparently. The doctor's best guess is that Lucy inherited E, e from Randy and that when she was born there was some contamination.  It is possible the other girls are e, e like me and that is why we didn't hear about this sooner (?).

Was that as clear as mud?

Anyway, right now the #'s of antibodies in my blood is at the lowest level.  They will monitor the levels in my blood regularly to see if they increase--which would be an indication that this baby may have E, e and my body is mounting an attack on his blood.  If my antibodies continue to increase they will monitor the baby with regular ultrasounds and check for signs of anaemia in the baby.  If the baby develops problems, they can give him blood transfusions through the umbilical cord (Crazy, huh?!) until he's born.  Once he's born my blood can't attack his anymore and all will be back to normal.

Any questions?

just some picture updates

It finally snowed a little again.  Randy makes the best snowmen and the girls love it!

It would've taken me forever to find a picture in our files of Randy's siblings sitting on their snow chairs.  But just imagine one side by side with this one.  They made their own foot rests.  So comfy.

This is what they do when we dry things, especially banana chips, in the dryer.  They can hardly wait for them to come out!

Lucy learned a song!  I might have fixed it...

Good News!

In case you haven't heard, 

 WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!

#4 is due to arrive August 16th.

We're SO excited!!

Box

I believe that children don't need expensive toys (not that that stopped Santa from bringing the train set). Lucy had grown out of her carseat and I came home last Monday with a new one.  After the seat was out of the box the girls at once saw a zoo cage in it.  I cut some bars in one side and they asked for windows in the other.  They spent the rest of the day and much of this last week playing with it.

It finally snowed last night and the girls were soooo excited to get out in it (Ruby kept repeating, "I'm so excited").  It wasn't until I tried to open the door I realized this was not the typical snow that we were all envisioning.  No, it had a layer of freezing rain on top.  Now, they have been begging to go sledding, but we still don't have a sled (as we have no snow...).  But did I let that get in our way?  No.  I got the box out and I believe Anne enjoyed this even more than if she had been on a real sled.