Little Ayden Had A Farm

We had fun playing while David did some pre-season work in the garden.  Here is some of the farm from Ayden's perspective:

Every boy needs a dog!

Helping Daddy

Rocks!!

"Come with me, Mommy."

Archy, Ayden's new obsession

Daddy working hard while we played!

Digging

It was fun to see everything from his little perspective.

~Sarah

The Secret Life Of Bees

I read The Secret Life of Bees by Kidd, Sue Monk [Hardcover] (Google Affiliate Ad) years ago and, along with enjoying the story itself, I really loved the excerpts about bee "culture" that the author sprinkled throughout. I have always been an animal lover. I have also always had a fascination with observing creatures in their natural habitat (I even went to a lecture held by Jane Goodall when I was in college). I think what has got me most excited about the prospect of bee keeping is being able to observe bee culture first hand.

The Beekeeping 101 talk we attended this morning was the perfect introduction for us. We learned some of the history of beekeeping and about the anatomy of the hive.

We discussed the different kinds of bees and the rolls they each play.
- The queen lays the eggs
- The workers...well, work
- The drones come from unfertilized eggs yet are the guys who go on to fertilize the queen.  They are blocked out of the hive at the end of each season and all die off each year.

He touched on inspecting the hives, feeding the bees, collecting the honey, tools/equipment we would need, etc.

We also learned some fun and interesting facts. Like, how a colony makes/raises their own queen. When the worker bees sense the need for a new queen, they feed a group of eggs extra doses of a substance called "royal jelly" and whichever bee emerges first becomes the new queen. He also said that if a wasp or other flying "stranger" makes it into a hive, the worker bees will kill it and throw it out immediately.  Another interesting fact is that a queen is fertilized by many drones during one "outing" early in her life and is fertilized for life.  She can lay eggs from that one fertilization over several seasons.

I know that this stuff isn't for everyone but I just find it fascinating.  How they communicate with pheromones and have a community with hierarchy, a security system, food collection/production, etc.  Pretty neat stuff if you ask me! For someone who has always loved observing people, animals and other creatures, beekeeping is sure to become a very interesting hobby for me. I am also excited to be able to spread the love by giving honey as gifts around the holidays and selling it at our local farmer's market.

I think at this point we have decided that we will wait and start a couple of hives next Spring.  We feel like that will give us the chance to spend the upcoming year researching and educating ourselves as much as possible so we will have a good chance for success right out of the gate.

Ayden did great with my parents while we were away. I called my dad when we were on our way home and he said, "He's been perfect. I wore him out and your mom put him to sleep."  We came home to find him napping peacefully on my mom while she enjoyed snuggling him.

We spent the rest of the day unpacking more boxes (we only have a few left!) and then had a delicious dinner and long overdue visit with our friends Whit, Kellen and Baby Girl. After dinner, Ayden got the crazies and was hamming it up and giggling for all of us. He didn't even fall asleep on the way home, he just jabbered away for the whole ride.

Tomorrow is going to be more of the same, unpacking and arranging of STUFF... We may try to venture to our storage unit so we can cover some of the furniture and take a bit of inventory of what exactly ended up there.

~Sarah

What's Up, Doc?

Nothing too exciting happened today...

We snuggled in bed for a while before getting up. We had breakfast. I took a shower and got ready while Ayden read his books and emptied out a couple of bathroom drawers. We had lunch and then headed into town.

Ayden napped while I got a new driver's license, changed my address for my voting registration and registered David and myself in a Beekeeping For Beginners class that is tomorrow.

On our way home we stopped in a local Five and Dime store. We looked at the fish and took home a pack of farm animal souvenirs. My dad used to take me to the exact store when I was little to look at the fish/animals, and to get candy and little trinkets. It was fun to take Ayden in and reminisce.

The horse is his favorite

One of my most memorable lessons that my dad taught me had to do with this store. He let me get a pack of those wax, juice filled bottles (YUCK!) and I opened them while we were still browsing.  We checked out and were almost home when my dad realized that we walked out without paying for them. He turned the truck around and took me in and had me politely explain what had happened, apologize and pay for the candy.  I have always valued that lesson and it has always stuck with me.  I wonder what kind of lessons will remain vivd/valuable for Ayden when he looks back on everything we teach him...

When we got home I prepped some snack food for the upcoming week and got some kale dehydrating.

YUM!
They take 12 hours to dehydrate... CRAZY!

We had a dinner that was my own creation.  I am really starting to enjoy experimenting with ingredients and have been pleased with what I have come up with so far.  We are waiting for the day when we take a taste and want to spit it out! :)

My little helper
"What's up, Doc?"

And we ended the evening with a family walk, kitchen clean up, putting Ayden to bed, and now we are going to watch a movie.

KY sunsets are beautiful!

I am soooo excited for our beekeeping class tomorrow.  Ayden is going to stay home with my folks and David and I are going to make it a fun little date.  I am hoping that the bees, though we probably won't start them until next year, will be my baby.  Or babIES I suppose!

~Sarah

Snug As A Bug

Our little mouth breather, snoozing during errands today.

During early Winter, David's mom gave Ayden a fleece one piece coveralls outfit from LL Bean.

source

We put it on Ayden a few times before our move but since we've been on the farm it has been PERFECT! There are a lot of features that I really love about this little outfit and I will share them now in no particular order.

- I like how the hood fits closely around his face without any sort of draw string.
- I like the tight cuffs at the ankles. They practically tuck themselves into his boots.
- I like how it is water resistant. It is the perfect outfit for getting to play outside on a less than sunny day.
- I like how light weight yet super warm it is.
- I like how the zipper goes down one leg, just like on footed sleepers. It is really easy to put on and take off.

Taking Mav for a walk around the farm and staying WARM!

Our new backyard!

A recent bonus, that I actually discovered while we were visiting DC, is that it is the perfect outfit for a baby wearing outing on a cool/windy/rainy day. Our first day there I carried Ayden on my back in the Ergo with both of us wearing coats and it wasn't a very comfortable experience for either of us. Ayden's coat was all bunched up, his hood kept falling off, and his ankles were showing, which I'm sure froze him to death. David also had to help me put Ayden in and take him out of the carrier, which is usually something I can do by myself.

I had been looking at purchasing or making one of these:

source

But now that I have discovered how well this outfit works, I don't think we will need it... Once he's in the Ergo in this, nothing bunches, his ears and ankles stay covered and he is snug as a bug in a rug. Problem solved!

I highly recommend this handy little outfit for every toddler out there!

~Sarah

The Five Love Languages

We were on the road by 10 am and decided to take a new route to avoid our previous snowy one. The forecast called for "scattered snow showers" which was exactly what it said before when it was more like a blizzard; so we decided it would be best to avoid it altogether. This route actually ended up being more scenic and wasn't any longer so we are glad we decided to change it up.

No snow + beautiful scenery = very pleasant 9 hour drive

Ayden did pretty well considering it was an all day trip instead of overnight. He had a couple of fussy, "Get me of of here!" moments, and he had a complete melt down when there was about an hour left in the trip. Other than that, he still did a nice job looking at his books, napping and clapping for us after every song we sang to distract him from the fact that he had to be strapped in the car for 9 hours.

During Ayden's morning nap, I read some of this book to David:

Our friends Jess and Adam read it during their premarital counseling and gave us a copy when we were down for a visit over the summer. We started reading tid bits here and there but brought it along to finish during our road trip. I read it out loud to David and we feel that it would be a great read for any couple. Anything that helps us deepen our relationship and bring each other even more happiness is a win in our book!

The premise behind it is that there are five "love languages" and so long as your partner, or other loved ones, "speak" yours regularly then you will feel emotionally satisfied (or your "love tank" will stay full). I won't go into too much more detail because I want everyone to read it for themselves but I will share what the five love languages are and what ours turned out to be.

The Five Languages are:
1) Words Of Affirmation
2) Quality Time
3) Receiving Gifts
4) Acts Of Service
5) Physical Touch

There are quizzes in the back of the book (that you can also find here online) that we took to find out where we stand. As we read the book, we both had a difficult time pinpointing what we thought ours were and finally made it to a paragraph that explained what that meant. Apparently if you have a hard time determining your own love language, your tank has either been really full or really empty for quite some time. Since David and I are both very happy in our marriage it was safe to say that we had been doing a pretty good job of filling each other's love tanks already.

After taking our quizzes, we determined that David's primary love language is Physical Touch, closely followed by Quality Time as his secondary love language. Coming in third for David was Words Of Affirmation, Acts Of Service got a few points, and Receiving Gifts didn't get any points at all. My results were interesting... I had a tie for both my primary and secondary love languages, or I am "bilingual" for both. My primary love languages are Physical Touch and Acts Of Service and my secondary languages are Words of Affirmation and Quality Time. I also did not score anything for receiving gifts. David and I both appreciate gifts and cherish gifts from each other, but gifts are not what satisfy either of us emotionally. With all four of my languages coming in so close together, David sure has his work cut out for him.  The fact that he was already keeping my tank full is pretty impressive! It is also nice that we already speak each others languages which is probably why our tanks have stayed pretty full over time.

It was neat to read through each language, and the examples provided, and pin point what was missing during "rough patches" that we have had throughout our [almost] 13 year relationship. We also got some ideas for how to prevent issues that seem to reoccur between us every now and then.

As I said before, I really think this book is a great read for any couple whether or not you are content with your relationship. Even if you don't completely buy into it, it is still a great tool to help you put things into perspective and get you thinking as a couple. No person or relationship is perfect and there is always some area that could use more effort or a little improvement.

A lot of our pre-baby ideas have changed since Ayden's arrival but one thing has stayed the same. We still fully believe that "the best gift you can give to your child is to love each other."

~Sarah

Mothers Are Strong

David's parents went home this morning so today it was time for the kids to play. And by play I mean hanging around holding and playing with babies which wasn't too different from the past two days... The dynamic is different without parents around, though, and we had some great conversation (funny that we will someday be those parents when these boys are all grown up). We made them dinner and did a small newborn photo shoot for Little Cousin while Ayden was sleeping. It was a great day and perfect end to our visit. We wanted to get a picture of the three of us with the Capitol in the background to document Ayden's first time here but we didn't get around to it.

Good at napping in new places.

As we were out and about shopping for dinner ingredients, we passed a woman who was leading a tantruming preschooler with one hand and carrying an infant carrier with the other. Even though the carseat had to be feeling pretty heavy and the tantruming child difficult to steer/pull along, she had a stoic, determined look on her face. After we passed her David said, "Mothers are so strong..." And he is right. Mothers ARE strong in so many ways. We are strong in a sense that we know how to function through the depths of extreme exhaustion. We are strong because we hold our babies each and everyday; so even when they weigh 20 pounds we have the stamina to hold and carry them for as long as they need. We are strong because we can still care for our families even when we are under the weather ourselves. Those are just a few examples for the plethora of skills that put us mothers in a league of our own. This is not to say that fathers are not strong and wonderful too. I think each parent brings something very special to the family unit that the other cannot. We just saw a mother in action today in a situation that gave a good illustration of what it is to be a mother. Strong and stoic and getting things done.

I hope our drive home tomorrow has a little less snow and the same amount of Ayden awesomeness as the drive here did.

~Sarah

Big DC Day

We had another big day of visiting and baby holding. We went to a great park and Ayden had a blast!

We walked around a lot today and Ayden fell asleep in David's arms and slept on me while we ate out for lunch. I don't think I will ever tire of how it feels when my baby sleeps on me.

After a long day, Ayden fell asleep around 6:30 and didn't wake up until we were ready to leave at 9:30. We fed him some dinner leftovers when we got to our temporary home here in DC (a house of one of David's brother's friends who is out of town) and now we are all in bed and Ayden is back to sleep. We are wondering if we will be up at 6:30 or if we will still get to sleep in until 8...

Tomorrow is our last full day in DC and we are going to do a new born photo shoot for Ayden's sweet little cousin.

~Sarah