Bees for Bea

This is longed for and long-awaited baby Beatrice, whose name means “she brings happiness.”And she surely has! Our church, family and friends prayed long and fervently for her safe arrival into the loving arms of her adoptive parents.

The afternoon of her baptism a few Sundays ago, friends hosted a barbeque for the entire church and other family friends in Beatrice’s spacious country back yard.

This sign greeted guests.

Did I mention that the theme of Bea’s nursery is Winnie the Pooh? Can you tell?

Of course, it was HOT!

I made the smocked bee sundress for Bea, complete with bloomers and a hat. She is tiny, born 2 weeks early at just 6 lbs. Even the newborn size is huge on her. But babies grow and there is still plenty of steamy summer weather left here in central Florida. It should fit her soon.

Using black on such a tiny baby gave me pause. But there is no way around it when you are dealing with bees. The picot edged bias softened it a little but I much prefer white or pastels for newborns.

At the top of her hat sits an adorable little bee which I found on the facebook Smocking DeStash site. I bought 20 because I knew there would be many opportunities to use them for Baby Bea.

This country barbeque in a huge yard with pet goats and chickens was just the sort of fun children love. Still, they needed a few special activities. So while they were eating I discreetly hid bees all around.

With the children gathered I told them to look closely at the top of Bea’s hat. Then I explained that when I made the hat with the bumblebee on top, the rest of the of the hive escaped! I needed their help to capture 18 runaways. Off they went on a bee hunt.

Then one little 5 yo rushed back to me asking, “The bees are not real, are they?” Reassured, he was back on the prowl. There was a prize for the most successful bee hunter.

Another fun activity was guessing how many honeycombs were in the jar. The guesses ran from 15 to 10 hundred. A lot of thought went into their guesses.

The winner came away with a jar of breakfast cereal with a $1 bill in a ziplock tucked in. That’ s big bucks to these little ones.

Bless her sweet little heart, Bea slept through the entire afternoon, waking just for a bottle and a diaper change. She was passed around to scores of open arms awaiting their turn to hold her. Whatever, she slept.

Her wonderful mama was teacher of the year this past school year. Her daddy is equally awesome. She is a lucky little girl.

Sewing for babies is such a joy. Because neither of her grandmothers is living, I have been chosen to serve as her official Nana!!!!! (I would have thrown out the all other applications if I had to!) So now I have a wee one to baby sit, to sew for, to see and hold at least every Sunday. Hurrah!!!

I have lots of garments planned and a few things finished for Baby Bea. Stay tuned to see her new church dresses.