Flowers and Bees

We went hiking a few weeks after I moved here. There was a steady stream of people going both directions. Grandmas were passing us from behind and I swear we got lapped at least once before we even made it all the way up. I was excited when I realized we were almost to the top. I mean, the whole point of hiking is to get somewhere cool and then just stop and think about how you worked really hard to get there. And then to feel good about yourself because you are breathing outside air and seeing things that are not your living room walls and exerting yourself and stuff. Imagine my surprise when we reached the top and found.... WORK OUT MACHINES. I kid you not. Those old ladies that passed us half way up were hard at work ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN doing things like shoulder presses and abdominal twists. I mean, sure it was a nice view and all....but isn't climbing a mountain enough for one person? I tell you what happened next-- this person collapsed on a bench while pretending her infant needed attention.

I've had an exercise complex ever since that day. At any given moment, I can look out my window and see someone power walking through the rice paddies. I drive a bus-van and every time I try to squeeze it into a too small parking place, it never fails that I will be passed by a group of people who are using their own two feet to propel them forward. It is not uncommon to see taxi drivers doing jumping jacks and knee-bends on the side of the road while waiting for their next customer to come along. OOH -- and this one time, I was running early one morning and I ran past an entire construction crew performing synchronized stretching before they started work for the day. They were all lined up and everything.

 

A few days ago I went grocery shopping and when I got home there were no parking spots left on the ground level. I had to park in the basement. And I had a lot of groceries. Like, A LOT. I'm probably the odd person out here, but I don't actually enjoy taking my 3 crying, candy-needing, running crazy around the store children grocery shopping. So I try to buy enough food to last until we move back to America or for three weeks (whichever comes first) every time I go to the store. This time was no exception. I was not excited about carrying 14 bags of groceries up all the stairs, across the parking lot, up more stairs to my building, pressing the door code, the elevator buttons, and another door code. So I ran up and grabbed my children's wagon. I thought I was so smart. I was pulling it up the parking ramp and feeling pretty good about my exercising self. There was even a Korean woman standing there just watching me. I figured she was probably just amazed at how strong I was. And then, as I made eye contact with the Korean woman holding her 3 pears and some lettuce ...I realized... I was pulling a WAGON LOAD of food into my house. A wagon load. I had so much food I couldn't even carry it. But on the plus side -- I have plenty of flour and cocoa powder and sugar. So I'm just going to make cookies today and think about maybe exercising for real another day. Like maybe June 14th. That sounds like a good day.

After seeing Callye's super cute bees last week, I really wanted to make some for this platter.  What? That was nearly two months ago? Okay, well, in toddler-years that was like a week ago. I don't have a bee cutter though. So I used a mini pear cutter.

Stuff you need -- 
pear cutter
food color markers
pre-made eyeballs (tutorial here)
yellow icing
black icing
white icing
wagon load of food (optional)
pink petal dust (also optional)

I drew the lines on my cookies just like Callye did because the first time I tried to draw the bee on paper it came our really wonky. And it looked like it had two heads and was capable of eating me and all my groceries. Not quite the look I was going for.
1. Go ahead and draw your lines. And then fill in the black stripes and let them dry a good while.
2. Then do the yellow stripes and the head.
3. Let it dry at least twenty minutes before adding the wings. Just so you know, I used disco dust for the first time in my life on these wings. You can't tell from the picture, but I thought it was important to document this historical occasion.
4. I let all that dry overnight but you could probably get away with only 3 hours. Add your pre-made eyeballs, some antennae, a little mouth, the stinger and cute rosy cheeks.

And then hide these from small children. Because I am warning you now -- they are going to be really appealing to the young crowd. At least they were appealing to my young crowd.