The Bea Hive

Only one more sleep until she turns 1!

Saving the Beavers

My 2 big kids each have a best friend at school who happen to be brother and sister. The love to play at their house since their backyard offers much more opportunity to get dirty and wet than ours does! There is a large stream and paths that wind through the woods. Two visits ago they led us along the path to the most amazing neighbor's yard. They have fixed up their yard almost like a community nature park, with swings, bridges, hammocks, a sand box, etc. We were welcome to come play, and after flying for a while on swings suspended from tree limbs 20 feet high, everyone descended into the creek to run, splash, climb logs, search for salamanders, and explore a huge dam. They said they were "saving the beavers." We went back to their house last week for another round of saving the beavers. It was chilly and rainy this time, so I didn't have to drag the kids away when it was time to go, but they still had great fun. EB played at a neighbor's house all morning, so I got to bring the camera on our walk through the woods. I have a feeling we'll be spending much of our summer out there!

Here's a link to the pictures.

Her Sporty New Hair Do

Well, she DID get a haircut this week and it's really cute, but that's not what the post is about. Tomorrow morning we are having the kids' portraits made, and I've been gearing up for it for days - picking out the right clothes, finding new shoes, working on their feet (do your kids get awful summer feet? I blame it on crocs...), haircuts, etc. Anyway, just before bedtime tonight, all three kids started playing in the living room, and since I don't usually do bedtime, I was happy to let them stall (G was playing basketball with friends tonight). K was entertaining EB with his remote controlled race car, and she and A were crawling around chasing it. Then I hear a cry and "oh no!" I look over and the race car was dangling from A's hair!!! Just what I need the night before a photo session, but I guess it's a classic situation. Anyway, the hair was very tightly wound around the wheel, so there was no option but to cut it out. I think with the right combing it won't show, but it just about gave me a heart attack.

And this was on top of me - I kid you not - somehow managing to hole-punch my stomach using a 3-hole-punch this afternoon. That's a nasty boo-boo, and even Addie the intrepid patient was grossed out by it. The excellent part of the day was that K&A played with the water table, buckets, spray bottles and water cannons on the deck for 6 HOURS today. It was unreal. Like having them in a wet and wild playpen for the entire day.

Photo Safari

One thing the kids like to do when Grandma and Granddad H are visiting is to go on photo safari. They bring along their kid cameras, but I never see a lot of snapping going on (I made up for it)! They just like hiking, finding bugs, and walking on logs. This weekend we ran across some people fishing, and K&A got to watch for a while. It was perfect weather for a nice walk, and it's so great that we have a nice place for family hikes right near the house.

Shadow family

Tasting honeysuckles and playing with Daddy

Sunlit tweety hair and balancing on logs


Lessons in fishing and walking

Birthday Babies

On Saturday we had a birthday party for EB and her two little buddies who are all turning 1. When we lived in Maryland, K had two little buddies that were born within a month of his birthday, and we would celebrate them together, so it's funny how life can repeat itself. K and his little buddies are still great friends when we get together, and I hope that EB and her two little pals will always be great friends. Their families certainly are very special to us. Here are some highlights from the party:

birthday babies

the one sad little "bea cake" that survived

We weren't sure how long the babies would last being happy, so we first put them in their high chairs and gave them their cake to work on while the guests enjoyed food and cupcakes. *One sad note - I had worked very hard to make cupcakes with little bumblebees on them (I've been envisioning "bea" cakes for her birthday since she was born), but I dropped them on the way to the picnic shelter! Luckily one little cupcake survived well enough for EB to have, but I was still pretty bummed...

Mommies and Daddies and babies - oh my!


Cake! He definitely wins for the biggest mess!

Just like her siblings before her, EB got strung out on cake and lost it. She was so upset she didn't even look like herself! Who IS this baby?

What the bumps became... :)

play time at the party

opening first birthday presents at home

Just the girls

One-on-one time is her currency. She LOVES the attention and can really turn on the charm, so she was happy for me to take pictures this evening. We played together in the backyard, making up games in the play house, swinging, sliding, checking out the baby figs, and chasing bunnies that kept popping out of the woods.


I've got to figure out how to get more of this one-on-one time with her. It's fun!

Pizza and Blueberries...

Result in this:

Not sure what set her off - usually she doesn't have a problem with being messy!

Festivities for the 3s

To celebrate the end of the school year, one of A's little classmates had an ice cream party this morning. A has been looking forward to it all week, and she even picked out the outfit she would wear a few days ago. She is a little smitten with this little boy. ;) They had a nice morning playing in the backyard and thoroughly enjoyed their ice cream. Even EB got a teeny tiny cone. K was happy since his best buddy was there and K did a great job getting across the monkey bars and flipping on the rings. He's getting lots of good arm strength in his gymnastics class.

EB had fun riding in the little car and eating a tiny ice cream cone


They spent lots of time jumping off the retaining wall

Dum, dum-da-dum, dum, dum

So are you singing the graduation song? If not, start playing it in your head. K is officially done with preschool, so he says that now he's a kindergardener! I know it's just preschool, but I was really proud of him today and he seemed like such a big kid showing me around his school room for the last time. He definitely seemed ready to move on to bigger things. And I only almost started crying once during the ceremony. Thankfully I had seen the slide show several times before since I did all the editing, otherwise I would have been a crumpled mess of mommy down on the floor! :)

After the ceremony they had a little cake party, and then Kellen chose to come on home early and eat lunch here. We looked through his folder that included a booklet his teacher made about what each child wants to be when he/she grows up. Kellen wants to be a builder. That seems about right to me since most of what he's talked about over the past 2 years has been all the playground construction projects he and best buddy Robert worked on (fixing the school's water mains, building sky scrapers, paving roads, etc).

It's all going by way too fast!

Singing their graduation songs and waiting for his diploma

Getting called up on stage and recessing down the aisle

With teachers Ms. Linda & Ms. Susan

With his best buddy & saying bye to the class hermit crabs Anniken, Sparkles & Cookie