Wow, it's been a while since I've posted, but in my defense, March and April we were very busy. In March we started getting our garden ready, we planted seeds for tomatoes, peppers, onions, lavender, spearmint and dill. Unfortunately, only the herbs and a few onion sprouts came up. We created boxes for our herbs... they look so nice! Also in March is my oldest ones' birthday and my Mom's birthday, and we planned a little cookout for Lydia and we got together and ate out for Mom's birthday. I also went ahead and got my top bar hive (March) and my bees (in mid April).
In April, we proceeded with plans for the garden, even going ahead and bringing some plants out and starting some flower seeds in the ground. Then, it decides to get cold again, just at (and past) the last frost date. We covered stuff with hay and much and we only lost a few leaves to the frost.
In early March I saw a pintrest post that was a cute paper rose wreath made from coffee filters. I thought "I can do that!" Well, I did it, but it took 2 packs of coffee filters, almost 3 of the small bottles of craft paint, and 2 rolls of packaging tape and almost 2 months. It was a lot of work, but I think it came out well. I've got a few more touches to put on it, like I want to get some pretty green, wide ribbon to make a small bow and use that ribbon to hang the wreath.
Meanwhile, because of rain, commitments and such, we've just gotten our garden in the ground (mostly). We ended up having to go get some tomato plants and green bell pepper plants, the seeds didn't sprout at all! :( but we hope to plant those asap. Phillip was going to do that this morning, but it started raining. Maybe it'll clear up later today. There's a chance of rain all week.
The end of April brought Phillip's Mom's birthday, and since she was turning 70, his sisters wanted to throw her a really big party. I was asked to do the cakes, and she requested a strawberry shortcake. Some of the family do not like strawberries, so we did a chocolate cake as well. Each of the cakes were what I call a "half sheet cake". Basically, take your regular sheet cake pan and put the long sides together on the cake board. The strawberry cake was filled with strawberries and homemade glaze, and then iced with stabilized whipped cream, and more strawberries in glaze on top. The second cake was devils food cake with the stabilized whipped cream and chocolate syrup drizzled on top. They turned out well and everyone seemed to like them.
One last note, when I got my bees from the guy, I got what was called a nuc. More or less 5 frames of bees. We had put them in an 8 frame hive box we had, but had no clue on how to get them from the frames to the top bar hive. We talked to some people and we just pulled the cover off, took some of the bars off, and set the small hive body on top of the top bar, then a piece of plywood on top of the remaining bars so they would hopefully expand out into the top bar. So far, they're just using the big hive as a porch. But in the 3-4 weeks the bees were in the 8 frame hive, they had all but run out of room! Wow the hive grew quick!
In early March I saw a pintrest post that was a cute paper rose wreath made from coffee filters. I thought "I can do that!" Well, I did it, but it took 2 packs of coffee filters, almost 3 of the small bottles of craft paint, and 2 rolls of packaging tape and almost 2 months. It was a lot of work, but I think it came out well. I've got a few more touches to put on it, like I want to get some pretty green, wide ribbon to make a small bow and use that ribbon to hang the wreath. 
