speaking of the beach

I have decided there is no better babysitter than the beach--that said aforementioned babysitter is doing a horrible job of teaching Lafe not to eat sand.

Beach bums...

This week, Emily turned 6. Here are the sock puppets we made from the kit Gramma Nice sent us. (Sorry Mom, but Em's title is sticking.)...

Here was Ainsley's reaction to the sock puppets:

Here is Caleb on his last day of ice skating lessons, looking very German. (Gustav, save some room for later!)

Here is us at the beach yesterday. North Carolina rocks

Ya All!

Hi Ya All!
I have tried this server time but with the same resoles, It never gets to posting, it couldn't be that I am doing some thing wrong! Right Will I'll try one more time:
Emily looks so quite for her 6th birthday, I now she did very will in the Dance resistless, Charlie Ann and an other birthday, Ele Set me a new book of my collection, one very talented girl, Addison I am looking forward to shooting he bow with you this summer in East land. Grace, and Gretchen and supporting there mom and day with Youth conformance, a Wedding and then a Girls Camp any one of these events would be enough for one summer, but with the help of them in the Nielsen Family I know that all of them will be a great success. I wanted to show some pitchers with ya I will try one Hope it works

Emily is Six now!

Emily! Happy Birthday to you this week! I'll bet you thought that your birthday surprises were all over 'til next year.... but grandma didn't write about your birthday yet! I wanted to write because I remember the day you were born pretty well, and I'd like to tell you about it. It was such a pretty day for a baby girl to be born, and we were all excited that you were coming. Grandma got to come to the hospital as a helper, so I was there when you were born in the very middle of the night! You opened your eyes so big and looked all around you - I can still see you wrapped up in a snuggy blanket in your mom's arms with your dad right there. They looked so very happy to meet you, and do you know what? They sang the birthday song to you so softly right there while you were still brand new!
Now 6 whole years have passed and you are growing up! I am glad we can talk on the phone, and I can send you letters and marshmallows, and sometimes we can get on a big jet plane to come see each other. I had a lot of fun last spring when grandpa and I came to your house... every time I see kids running through the sprinkler I think of you, Caleb, and Ainsley as we played in the water that day at your house. It was fun to make water rainbows for you to run through. I love you, Emily - I hope you have a wonderful year this year! Grandma Denise

Summer Reading Bonanza

Summer has hit here and in honor of it we are trying to get all the free stuff we can! Here are a few summer reading programs that the 5-12 year olds can enter--maybe we can have our own adult contest!

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

http://247moms.blogspot.com/2010/05/11-free-summer-reading-programs-for.html

Happy is...

Catching

Fireflies.

Happy Father's Day Daddy. Bryan. Adam. Dave. Ben. Levi.
I love you.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

If only a picture really was worth a thousand words, but these pictures fall short of the morning for us today. Dad was sure surprised... at a loss for words, actually. It's one of the few times I have witnessed someone be left speechless. A man of action, however, he swung right into gear descending the stairs with his new flag in hand.
In no time the bow was off, the balloons removed and the rope was being lowered to bring the brass flag anchors into reach.
This picture gives a good feel for how tall the pole is... it's way up there, taller than the house to be sure. (lightening anyone?) It was fun to watch, we even had neighbors waiting for dad to come out.
And perhaps the best one of all, and that's dad being so perfectly dad. The perfect gift for a richly deserving guy - Thanks to everyone for being our family. We love you Dad!

Happy Birthday CharlieAnne!

Happy Birthday 4 year old! I am so excited for you to have another birthday- you are growing bigger and bigger! It's fun that you and I can talk on the phone now, and it's fun to send a text message too- I know you can do that all by yourself! I remember on the day you were born Grandma Denise was in Utah, and you were going to be born in Omaha, so I felt very far away. I kept my phone right with me, everywhere I went and everything I did- and every time it rang I would JUMP thinking it might be your daddy telling me you were finally here. It seemed like such a long morning! Then finally your daddy DID call, and I got to talk to your mom too. I could hear you fussing in the back ground, and your mom told me how cute you were, and how excited your sisters were to have you there! It was a such a happy day for all of us!
CharlieAnne- an awesome name for an awesome girl- We love you and hope you have a very, very fun year this year! Grandma Denise & Grandpa Don

Busy Bee.

Some of you have asked about my beekeeping, so I thought I'd give you a virtual tour of sorts:

My bees are about 15 minutes away from here, out in the country. It's a really beautiful drive, especially right now with everything waiting for first harvesting. (It seems like we get at least 2 or 3 harvest seasons a year.) I took this picture on the way out of the wheat fields and an American flag. Beautiful.

People sometimes ask me if I'm not afraid when I work with my bees. And the answer is "Yes" but it isn't the bees I'm afraid of. It's lighting the smoker. I have a fear of fire, and the first thing I have to do, before I can open my hive, is to get a bunch of pine needles really burning and smoking. I tend to be too timid with my fire, and so it usually goes out and I have to do it again. I'm trying to be more brave about it. (In this picture, I need to use the bellows and get the flames jumping out the top.)

My hive is on a beautiful blueberry and blackberry farm. When I approached it last Saturday (when I took this picture) I could tell that something or someone had gotten into my hive--see how the lid is kind of tilted and not put on quite right? My hive is a very light Carolina blue. (Go Tarheels.) When I get into my beehive, I have to make sure to move very slowly and carefully. Bees can't hear, but they sense vibrations with their antennae. You don't want to frighten them.

This is my hive, open, with the top super (those are what the hive boxes are called) already removed. The big super is where I spend most of my time. I look at each frame of honeycomb to see how much honey and pollen the bees have to eat, to check for other bugs, and to make sure that there are lots of baby bees. I always try to find my queen, but she is pretty elusive these days.

This is a picture looking down into the super, and those are my bees. Can you see how they're making bridges with each other?? It cracks me up when they do that. Bees hate too much open space--they like 5/8 inch. Any more than that, and they'll try to fill it up as fast as they can. Any less, and they feel too crowded and they'll swarm. There are 10 frames in each super, and a healthy hive has between 20,000 and 40,000 bees at it's summer peak.

Last one, this is just a good shot of a frame already filled out with beeswax. The wax is filled with honey and it is VERY heavy. The bees are putting wax caps on the honey, to store it for the winter.

So those are my bees--you're welcome to come with me and meet them, any time you like! :)

Love, Becca

addison the babysitter

A few days ago Lafe, being the early riser in the family, got up at the crack of dawn and we spent some quality time together. Finally Addison heard us and got up to join the fun. I decided that the two could fend for themselves and went back to bed. Here was what I woke up to. What can be better than a fort and fruit loops. Lafe can't wait for his big brother and sister to get out of school so they can take dare of him full time!

Our Bathroom renovation..

Where do I start? Certainly this is unlike any experience we have ever had before... a hole in your ceiling is so, well, so impressive. Your ceiling on the floor of your bathroom- that's pretty remarkable too, as is seeing your tub filled with attic insulation. Honestly? well, for a while there I just about lost it. Today, however, is a new day. (Don't you just love getting a chance to approach life's challenges afresh with the dawning of a new day? It makes all the difference for me.)
I cannot begin to convey the absolute mess of it - We have samples in Salt Lake City undergoing testing for asbestos, answers are promised tomorrow morning. Solutions will be 100% simpler if they come back negative. After a $500 deductible all will be cared for- cleaning up the mess, drying out the inside of walls, replacing the split copper pipe that dripped destruction into the insulation in the attic, a new ceiling, new paint, even cleaning the carpet. All so very nice... if there's no asbestos (which our insurance company will not allow.) If there is... well, that's another post, and one I hope I will never make. To quote Marjorie Hinckley "The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it. You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh, crying gives me a headache." We'll do "after" pictures when we've recovered. Love you all!

On the verge... got Advice? Speak now!!!

Not much of a picture, but I wanted to show at least a little of what I have been up to. That is one of my silver fingerprint pendants that I have attached a fresh water pearl charm to. I make the charms myself- in lots of variations, and bless my soul, I have a partner. She loves them, says "I'll provide the money and I'll do the marketing, you make the pendants". She is smart, she has endless connections, and she knows a good thing when she sees it- and she loves the fingerprint pendants. We will have a contract, I am to decide whether I want to be paid a set price for the pendants (like piecework), or share in the business and own a percentage. I like the percentage idea best for the long haul. We will go for a high quality product with an additional twist, (the fingerprint & jeweler quality charms), but we are also going to produce a pendant without the print that will be hand stamped, initials, words, what ever. These will not be what you are seeing now where they are made using a machine produced blank (round, star, heart, you name it...) I will be hand producing our pendants using the precious metals clay to get that old, uneven look, then hand stamping and adding the charms. We are ordering a kiln tomorrow morning. wow, huh? I am excited - I have worked on these for a long time but had come to an impass - needed backing, needed more time and energy to go very big. There you go - she has what I don't, I have what she wants. Let me know your thoughts- Love you all! Mom

Live Action...

The Itsy-Bitsy spider, went up the water spout.

Down came the rain,
and washed the spider out.
Up came the sun,and dried up all the rain,

and the Itsy-Bitsy spiders went up the spout again.

And because Emily was at school while we were playing Itsy-Bitsy, here is a picture of her, dressed up for her recital yesterday. She did great. :)