The Lady Beekeeper

Hello friends!  I’m in another exciting town meeting again, so what better to do than zone out and daydream until they call for a vote?!  Despite a truly horrible week last week (Patricia was sick and home from school without care for 4 days last week) we had a great time this past weekend.  We bounced at the trampoline park, went apple picking and even had a tea party.  As the icing on the cake, Patricia is finally back to her usual cheerful self today after 7 days of being a sad lady.  Oh and Julius learned to bike with his training wheels off too!  What a week!

Patricia despite her crankiness, still had her moments.  Everything she says at this age is pure gold.  I love to listen to Patricia and Julius converse during their imagination play.  Julius doesn’t just pull her along for the ride, he actually has her fully participate.  For instance yesterday we excused them from the table yesterday and they both ran over to the couches (their sleeper trains) and Julius, slightly behind, shouted, “Patricia is the train leaving?”  To which she responded, “oh no, not yet don’t worry.”  It is great to have a friend to play with and I love watching the two of them interact.

I also (usually) love her frankness.  Yesterday in the car she was wearing a baseball cap and she exclaimed, “I am the coolest!”  She was being so silly so I said, “what about me?  Am I the coolest?” She quickly responded, “No mama.  You aren’t the coolest ‘cause you don’t look like this ‘cause you don’t have your hat on.”  I then put on my really, really (un)attractive “desert sun hat” (yes you read that right, complete with wide brim, neck coverage, a lanyard and detachable veil).  I asked, “how ‘bout now?”  She quickly responded, “oh yeah, now you’re the coolest.”  Satisfaction.

Now for Julius.  He still is adorable of course.  He’s also doing great with reading; reading well above his grade level.  (Luckily his kindergarten teacher is awesome, aware of his reading skill and working to keep him engaged with harder content.)  Because of this, I tend to treat him as a big guy, and I forget that he’s really just a little guy.  The other day at cub scouts the leader called for a toast.  Before the toast, he asked the kids if anyone knew what “a toast” was.  Julius raised his hand and said, “it’s when you take bread, and you cook it again in the oven so it gets crispy”.  The adults in the back were trying really hard not to chuckle too loudly.  It was so adorable.

Okay so I don’t know if you can call my stickers adorable, but if you like them, they are yours.  I love to draw doodles, so I will probably draw some in the future.  After I explain how I made these (again reminder, I’m still not sure this is the best method) I’ll have a follow up on how I got them to stay on toddler water bottles.  Toddlers, who frequently do tape removal activities in preschool, also love to peel stickers it turns out.  Patricia’s water bottle survived several days when it was just her using it, and then on the first day back to preschool 75% of the stickers had been peeled off.  I’m not sure if she finally succumbed to the temptation, or if her friends circled the water bottle like vultures when she returned.  Let me just say that “permanent” cricut vinyl is not toddler tested.

Sublimation Stickers on Vinyl

What you’ll need:

• Sublimation printer, ink and paper
• White Permanent Vinyl
• Heat press
• heat resistant tape
• parchment paper
• My sticker sheet!  (If you so desire)

1. Using your sublimation printer, print out your design on sublimation paper (remember to mirror the image!).
2. Set your heat press to 350F and wait for it to heat.
3. Use heat resistant tape to tape sublimation paper image to vinyl, face down.
4. Cover the design in parchment paper then heat press for 30 seconds.  Make sure to do this in a well ventilated area.  Next time I’m wearing a respirator.
5. Let cool.
6. Remove tape and remove design, it will probably have stuck to the vinyl.
7. Wet the rest of the paper under the faucet and gently rub your hands over the remaining paper to remove.
8. You can then cut your stickers out (or if you used the cricut print and cut option, you can cut them with your cricut!)

Well the kids both have a couple weeks of their new classes under their belts.  Julius seems to still be enjoying class and he even made a friend in his class who is also in extended day.  (Fewf.)  We’ve been waiting for him to tell us he made a friend.  Though he told me this morning he was a bit lonely on the bus because no one sat with him.  (Trying not to let this break my heart.)  Julius has also started both gymnastics and cub scouts so we’re hoping he has a lot of fun in both.  So far so good.

Patricia is having a bit of trouble adjusting to the preschool class.  For the entire first week she refused to go into the room and would cling to us when we left.  We’d literally have to push her off us and run out the door to get her to go to preschool.  Talk about heartbreaking.  The teachers don’t seem as helpful as her last class to help distract her or motivate her to play while I’m trying desperately to leave.  To be honest the few times that leaving her in the class went smoothly was when one of her previous teachers, Ms. Jen or Ms. Sara, happened to be walking by and helped her into the classroom.  Patricia, Will and I had a discussion about going into preschool mid last week.  The last couple times she has been very brave going into the classroom and didn’t even cry when we left.  I’m very proud of her.  Now we just have to work on all the accidents she’s been having.

I loved getting new things for back to school.  New pencils and notebooks, etc.  Well kindergarteners and preschoolers don’t need pencils or notebooks… and I really hate buying new things for the sake of buying new things so I decided to revamp all their old stuff.  I resewed some seams on Patricia’s unicorn backpack (which I got from the buy nothing group), then we got an LL Bean backpack (also off the buy nothing group).  It was in perfect condition, so I just embroidered Julius’ initials on it and asked him what he wanted to decorate it with.  I bought a bunch of shark embroidery patches that I hand sewed on it.  He was quite pleased with it.  (Side note – is it so adorable watching him walk with the LL Bean backpack on.  It’s like as big as he is.)

I also repaired Julius’ lunchbox (yes this one) that he’s had forever.  This is the one thing where I asked Julius straight up if he wanted to pick out a new one, and he flat out refused.  He actually broke down crying when I suggested such a thing.  Instead I completely re-stitched all the seams on the lunchbox and once again repaired the velcro.  It is like 1″ smaller than when it started, so it’s starting to become difficult to fit an ice pack inside.  Massachusetts gives free lunches to all schoolkids though, so luckily all his lunchbox needs to hold is snacks!  I also am working on a new lunchbox for him in secret as a present.

The only picture I have of Julius backpack.

The last thing I did was redo their water bottles.  I LOVE the “funtainer” thermos waterbottles.  They are stainless steel, a great size for kids, they have a handle, and the straws are easily replaceable and even sold at Target.  Julius’ water bottle used to have the Paw Patrol pups on it, but they’ve long since scratched off.  Patricia’s had some space unicorns, that somehow had also scratched off, in far less time.  I decided to redo Julius’ with sharks, and Patricia’s with unicorns.  I didn’t have sticker paper and waterproof material so I decided to experiment with sublimation on vinyl.  I’m not yet sure I recommend this method.  I had a horrible headache for the next day afterwards, and I’m not sure if it was because of off-gassing from the vinyl.  So take all this with a grain of salt, and if you do try it, be sure to do so in a well ventilated space, potentially wearing a properly rated respirator (I usually wear one, but for some reason I didn’t this time).  I’ll post about the sticker making next week; for now I’ll show you how to get your water bottle looking as good as new!  I used 4 different methods (including steel wool, dremel polishing, and melamine foam pads)  to get Julius’ water bottle looking good again before finding the right solution.

  Upgrade a Worn Thermos Funtainer

What you’ll need:

• 12 oz Thermos Funtainer
• Waterproof Vinyl Stickers
• 220 grit sandpaper
• Dust mask/ventilator and eye protection

1. Remove the cap and bottom of the funtainer Thermos.  (Yes the bottom is removable, but you have to pull very hard to pop it off the first time.)
   

   Here’s a before image – it’s pretty gross looking.

2. Put on your mask and eye protection and sand the waterbottle, always going in the same direction around the circumference of the bottle.
3. Periodically wipe the dust off the bottle and check to see if any marks remain.  Continue until satisfied.
   

   That look pretty darn good to me!

4. Wash the entire bottle, lid and bottom inside and out with hot soapy water.
5. Dry then reassemble the bottle.
6. Apply stickers as desired.

Wow Julius’ first week at kindergarten!  And Patricia’s first week at preschool!  Will took Patricia to school on her first day and she was very (understandably) confused and sad that she wasn’t heading to preschool with Julius.  We decided to keep her at her school for another year since she is still 3 years away from Kindergarten, and we thought was technically too young for preschool but then we found out they were moving her up a class in her school.  So now she’s in preschool!  My kiddos are both so big now!

For some weirdness, Patricia is the age Julius was during the pandemic when we were drowning and watching him/plopping him in front of the tv while we worked from home.  Ah memories.  Honestly the one good thing about those times is that I got to spend a lot of time with Julius.  I took Julius in the mornings, so Will got up early and worked and I took Julius on walks or did outside play or went to the farm and picked fruit until my first meetings at 10am.  Then I’d work until late, usually stopping to put Julius to bed, but frequently just eating dinner at my desk.  (Which was pretty depressing, not going to lie.) Will was the real hero for doing the brunt of the childcare during the work day.

But alas, now we have two big kids!  It’s so bittersweet.  I am so proud watching them grow, but where have my adorable babies gone?  Honestly, I’ve never been that into babies, except my own, and I think the toddler years are my very favorite.  This is part of the reason I was so horrified she’s a preschooler now.  No more toddler?! I told Will that when Julius was Patricia’s age we treated Julius like a big kid because he looked so grown up compared to when he was a baby (our only comparison).  But now, looking back at pictures from that time he was really just a little guy!  We put a lot of pressure on that little guy.  For Patricia we have a constant side by side comparison with big brother Julius, so she’s always going to seem like our little lady.  So she gets away with a lot more than Julius did, and everything she says right now is still so darn cute.  For instance, she dropped some cheese on the floor the other day and she asked Alexa, “Lexa, can Dany eat cheese?”   (We’ve been teaching her that many things are not safe for dogs to eat.)

Well, here are my two big kiddos off to school.  I made them this back to school chalkboard, modified from one I got for three dollars at Savers.  I made it reusable so we can fill in “first” or “last” day of school.  (We’ll see if I remember.)  I love my little nuggets and I’m so proud of them both!

Patricia’s first day of Preschool!

Julius’s first day of Kindergarten!

First/Last Day of School Sign

What you’ll need:

• Chalkboard (I modified a bistro chalkboard I got at savers).
• Cricut and my pattern here
• White permanent adhesive vinyl (I used oracal, which I haven’t used before but was the cheapest at Michaels)
• Transfer paper

0. First I modified the bistro chalkboard I got by removing the hardware, chopping off the feet, and fixing up the paint to match.

Before

After

1. Make sure your chalkboard is clean and dry.
2. Load the pattern I provided above onto your cricut (note – my chalkboard is 11″x14″ so you might need to modify it to fit your chalkboard)
3. Place adhesive vinyl on regular grip 12″x24″ mat.  Cut pattern.
4. Weed the while spaces (everywhere but the dots and letters and banner.
5. Using a brayer, press a piece of transfer tape over the design, gently peel the back off the adhesive vinyl so it sticks to the transfer tape.
6. Position transfer tape with design over the chalkboard, then press down to adhere.
7. Use the brayer again to really press the vinyl onto the chalkboard.
8. Gently remove the transfer tape.

I’m writing this blog post from the lawn chair outside the little cottage rental we have on Block Island.  It’s breeze but still glorious.  It is the same place we stayed last year and it is just as lovely.  We’ve been here since Saturday and we’ve already done lots of fun things including looking at sea creatures on a creature walk at the beach, checking out the aquarium tanks at BI marine institute, kayaking on the Great Salt Pond, picnicking, beaching and of course, biking all over the place.  Did I mention my bike trailer upgrade is still going strong?

The kids have been so cute as usual.  We’ve been talking about their birthdays recently because I need about this much time to plan 2 birthdays in the same week in November.  Today Julius asked me, “how old is Patricia?”  To which I asked Patricia, “Patricia, how old do you think you are?”  Patricia’s eyes got big and she put on her mischievous grin and said very matter-of-factly, “forty-six!”  When asked how old she thought Julius was she said “six” which was far closer.

Speaking of birthdays, I should show you one of the presents I made for Will’s recent birthday.  I have a list of board game themed polos I want to make him, but it takes me a while to get the embroidery pattern right.  The latest is a d20.  You are welcome to make your own from my pattern, but as always, it is for personal use only!  If you instead want me to make you a shirt, send me a message and we can negotiate.

Subtle d20

D20 Embroidery Pattern

What you’ll need:

• polo shirt
• 1 color embroidery thread
• embroidery stabilizer (I used the “no show mesh” stabilizer, but I know everyone has their favorite)
• embroidery machine and embroidery hoop (my pattern is set up for a 2cmx2cm hoop)
• my d20 embroidery pattern here
• tiny scissors for trimming threads

1. First, download and unzip the embroidery pattern.  It is .pes which is the format brother uses and that I have tested/produced it with.  If you desire another format, just email me and I can hopefully help you out!
2. Thread your machine, hoop your shirt and stabilizer then have at it!
3. There are 2 threads you will have to trim I believe, they are very obvious!
4. That’s it!  Wear your shirt with pride!

I’m heading home from a trip to San Francisco for my dear friend Jess’ shower.  I haven’t seen her in far too long, so my other dear friend Cathy and I flew in, and did touristy things in SF (Alcatraz, Pier 39, saw sea lions, farmer’s market etc) before getting to see Jess and her friends and family on Sunday.  I flew in a day early to see some work friends in Santa Clara on Friday.  It was great fun for such a short visit!

The XYZ axis of evil (aka Cathy, Jess and I) at Jess’s shower

As for California, I did love the amount of compost containers everywhere, and the amount of to-go containers that were completely compostable.  Why can’t we have that everywhere?!  I wonder how much that cuts down on trash/pollution… trust me I’ll be researching this.  I also got to use public transit everywhere which was awesome, though I’m completely incompetent with maps and the like.  I managed not to get lost because I got to follow Cathy, a New Yorker and master of public transit, around.

Cathy and I on the boat to Alcatraz. You can see “Karl” the friendly SF fog in the background too.

Based on my weekend getting to experience California green-ness it feels appropriate to show you the give-away I made for our Earth day party.  I gave away a bunch of recycled foaming soap bottles that I jazzed up with a couple tablets of blueland soap.  I intended to give these out as consolation prizes to those who didn’t win any of the purchased prizes, but many people chose them instead of the purchased prizes.  I got all the bottles from the local buy-nothing group, and washed them and removed all the labels.  The cricut design stencil I created myself and I’ve included below.

Love the Earth Reusable Bottles

• Cricut stencil here
• Cricut Permanent Adhesive foil
• foaming soap bottles, cleaned and removed of labels (mine were from dove soap)

1. Customize the cricut stencil to the size and number of stencils desired.
2. Cut your design on adhesive foil using normal cutting tool.
3. Weed design, then attach design to clean, dry soap container.
4. Fill container with 9oz of hot water, drop in foaming tablet

Julius was so pleased with his sourdough turtle that I brought back for him that he said “I am DEFINITELLY moving to California someday”. He previously commented he was going to move there because they had ghost sharks and California rolls.

Patricia also enjoyed her sourdough bear.

Patricia chose me to hang out with this Sunday!  Julius went to his friend’s party and we asked Patricia who should hang out with her and she said “mama!”  That’s me!  Patricia never ever picks me to be the one for anything.  Will always reads to her before bed and puts her to bed.  When she’s sad she wants dada, never mama.  I guess now I know how Will felt with Julius.  Actually Patricia picked me to hang out with her on two separate occasions, including when she was sick.  When we hang out she frequently tells me “I love just only mama”.  So I guess she’s trying to butter me up, and let’s be honest it totally works.

When Patricia was sick she had some scary petechiae rash the other day so the doctors requested blood work – which meant Patricia had to have blood drawn from her arm.  This process involves 3 people (not including the patient) – one to draw the blood, one to hold her arm steady, and one to hold everything else immobile (especially her other arm).  She did a good job and I made sure to tell her many times.  Afterwards she recounted the story to Will, “I was SO brave.  I cried when the pointy thing went into me.”

Patricia’s pet name for me is Mommy Llamy.  (An adorable parity on Patricia-licia.)  She is so smiley and cheerful 90% of the time, but that other 10% of complete obstinance and disobedience is so much worse than the Julius “terrible” twos.  I told Will the other day we are so lucky we ended up with two kids because it’s so interesting to see how unique they are and yet how similar they are.  Speaking of which both Patricia and Julius frequently say “what the heck!” and Julius always says “c’mon dude” which I assumed they had gotten from somewhere else.  But the other day I was in the car, and I said, “c’mon dude” to someone doing something questionable and Will said “now we know where he gets it”.  And the worst part, I hadn’t even heard myself say it.  Glad I curbed my swearing…

The other day I talked about Julius defending Patricia and including her made up stories as part of his own tales.  Well Patricia also defends Julius.  The other day the kids were getting their after dinner treat.*  Will told Julius he could have half a cookie dough bite and Patricia responded indignant, “Why?!  He’s a big boy!!”

Okay going to drop a few more stories/Patricia-isms before I show you the silly thing we did this weekend.

Cupcapes  (cupcakes)

Teeny leenies (tortellinis)

This one cracks me up still:

Patricia (sobbing about the train going by):

I do want to ride a choochoo.

But I don’t want the choochoo in my ears.  It’s too loud

Patricia and Julius and I went to Davis Farmland by ourselves and I was a bit discombobulated chasing after both kids so at some point a sheep got a hold of my tea container and licked the top of it.  The next day Patricia reminisced:

Lambs drink their mama’s milk.

Lambs don’t drink Patricia’s mamas tea!

Last one (sorry it’s about poop):

Julius is being silly trying to spell “poopoo”.  He guessed “p-o-p-o” which we told him was pronounced “poe poe”.  He thought it was hilarious and said:

I’ve got to go po po!

Patricia wanted to be silly as well so she said:

I’ve gotta go pee pew pee boo!

She then erupted into raucous (contagious) laughter

Okay so this weekend we went to the Davis Farmland Member night.  It was super hero themed and I had big plans to make us all capes** and masks, but that didn’t happen.  But Patricia and Julius already had incredible capes from Sugar and Daddy-o from Christmas so I made us all masks instead.  As you can tell they double as adorable headbands if you prefer. 

Super Hero Masks

What you’ll need:

• Scrap Peltex 70
• felt
• matching thread
• 1/4″ elastic
• Templates here

1. Choose a template to fit your face.  You can modify the design however you want, you just want the eye holes to be in the right spot, and you want the mask part to be about an inch wider than your eyes on each side.
2. Cut out one piece of Peltex 70 and one piece of felt.    
3. Pin or clip the peltex and felt together. 
4. At the edge of the fabric starting just below the eye hole, stitch around the outside of the mask.  When you reach the opposite eye hole insert elastic, stitch and then backstitch over the spot.  Continue to stitch until you reach just above the opposite eye hole. 
5. Backstitch and remove from machine.  Fit it snugly around person’s head, using the elastic still attached to the roll.  Clip where the unfinished elastic meets the mask on the unfinished side.  Insert elastic 1/2″ into the mask and sew in place.  
6. Wear with pride

*Sidenote:  giving Patricia 2 m&ms at the end of every day she was completely dry was the only thing that has worked for us for potty training.  And trust us we’ve been at this for 8 months now.  She is not motivated by our happiness or lack of happiness.  She is not motivated by being a big girl or self pride.  She is motivated by m&ms though.  So for the last few months we started giving her 2 m&ms after dinner as a reward for her good potty behavior.  This has backfired though because Julius, who never needed bribery for potty training, started asking if he could have 2 m&ms as well since he had no accidents.  The kid never had accidents.  So we acquiesced and give him 2 m&ms when he doesn’t have accidents either.  So Patricia forgets about the m&ms sometimes, but Julius NEVER does.  He will even ask Patricia after school, “how many accidents did you have today Patricia?”  So we are going to have to keep giving them both m&ms until they go to college.

**Second footnote: I did technically make Will a cape.  I made Will a beard cape for his birthday.  The kind for shaving beards.  Julius assumed this was some kind of beard themed super hero cape so he kept referring to Will as “beard man” all night.  Later I realized it was because I told Julius I was making Will a beard cape.  Will called himself the “bearded beauty”.  I dubbed myself the “purple people pleaser”.

Well I’m going to keep this one short because it was my birthday so Will’s birthday is coming up, and I’m behind on gifts.  My birthday was nice, my mom made me a vegetarian dinner and we got to hang out at my parents’ new and improved house on the lake!  Will let me sleep in on my weekend day on too, which is pretty much the only thing I want for my birthday ever anymore.

Kiddos preparing to bake Dany’s cake.

Speaking of birthdays – Dany turned 10 this year!  She’s become Patricia’s doggy.  Patricia loves Dany and is constantly giving her hugs and snuggles.  She also refuses to let anyone else feed her or let her out to use the bathroom or hold her leash for walks.  It’s quite adorable.  Everytime we are naming family members Dany is never forgotten on Patricia’s list.  She frequently asks us “can doggies go ___”.  Where ___ is wherever we are about to head in the car.  She’s always disappointed when we can’t bring her, which is frequently.  We have been making various varieties of pupcakes for Dany for her birthday, mostly made up from whatever dog friendly ingredients we have around.  This year’s version used frozen banana we had in the freezer.

Birthday dog, birthday hugs.

Pupcake

Banana Pupcake*

Ingredients

• 1 Banana, mashed
• 1 Egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• ½ tsp baking powder**

For Frosting:

• 1 Tbsp Sour Cream
• 1 Tbsp natural peanut butter

Mix all ingredients for cake together. Grease two small ramekins with peanut oil (skimmed from the top of the natural peanut butter), then flour with whole wheat flour.  Pour half the mixture in each.  Bake for 30 min in a 350F preheated oven.  Let cool.  Once cakes are cool, remove from ramekins, slice tops off so they are level and frost.  (I piped the frosting as little flowers).  The kids wanted to try the cake so we ate the pieces we sliced off.  

*Note this recipe is like 4 times the amount of calories you should give your dog in treats on a given day (depending on your dog’s weight), so give them just an appropriate sized slice for a treat!

**Baking powder and soda are toxic to dogs in large quantities in raw form (same for humans actually).  Everything I read seemed to indicate in small quantities, when baked,  they do not cause dogs any upset stomachs.  Use your own judgement.

Transfer half the batter to the prepared ramekin.

After 30 min baking.