Fast forward

Well, a lot has changed since my last post.  I am now a busy mother of three!  My little girl is now 10 months old and she has filled our hearts to the top!  Her big brothers have been so wonderful & loving towards her.  It's been nice having a little pink in the laundry.

This past Fall & Winter held lots of excitement for us.  My husband returned home from his deployment from the Middle East & was Finally able to hold his daughter!  She was 3.5 months old when he made it home.  I'll always remember he first time he held & kissed her.  The boys and I were so completely happy to have him home.  He had planned a trip for us- Disney World.  The boys had SO MUCH FUN!  They still talk about it almost everyday!  Even little G rode quite a few rides!  Having their daddy home for Christmas was a blessing.  We also extracted our first sizable amount of honey from our hive.  That was fun & delicious.  I'll have to make another post on that.

Before all the bags were unpacked, we started to make progress on our house... starting from scratch, no utilities, just the land.  My husband & I decided to be our own contractor.  We also decided not to get a mortgage.  So for us, that meant the process would be slower and we'd be doing quite a bit of the work ourselves.  We are still under construction, but thankfully the house is dried in now. It has been kind of crazy & hectic... a whirlwind of excitement & totally worth it!

Nesting Interrupted

At one point, I thought the whole concept of an expectant mother's urge to "nest" or prepare for the coming of her baby was made up and kind of silly... until I felt that urge myself.  With my first son, I remember finding myself scrubbing the inside of the washing machine with a small brush to get it nice and clean.  I had also stayed up late at night to keep up with washing everything I thought the baby might come in contact with.  With my second son, I found myself scrubbing the inside & outside of the refrigerator, and obsessively cleaning cabinets that would store baby's things.  Now, with my daughter on the way, that nesting urge had been interrupted by our cross-country road-trip to spend a few last weeks with my husband before his deployment.  The trip was so totally worth it, I'd do it again in a heartbeat, even though I had to drive alone 8 months pregnant, with our two & three year olds across the country.  Every day since we've been back home, I find myself trying to play catch-up to nest and prepare, especially knowing I'll be flying solo for about 6 more months after she arrives.  It's such an instinctive urge as a mother.  I admit, there's been quite a few days that I've left more important things alone to focus on washing the window blinds and curtains, washing all her clothes, even spending a little too much time at the grocery store trying to stock up on things we'll need.
On another note, our chickens' nesting and roosting had also been interrupted while we were away.  Raccoons found them and started making a daily meal out of the chickens and their eggs.  So now, the chickens are roosting and laying in different places.  Not a good thing.  One of our Plymouth Rock hens went broody for about two weeks.  This is pretty unusual for this breed.  Our bees, however, seem to have had no interruptions.  The hive was almost completely full of built comb and filled with yummy honey.  They were working on capping the honey.  I plan on adding two more surplus supers to the hive before spring is over.