Naturally Easter

Nothing artificial here!

I tried a new method of dying Easter eggs this week. I had seen some other sites mentioning ways to dye eggs using only natural ingredients, so I hopped on board and tried a few! After googling for a while, this is the site that I got the instructions from. 

I used red onion, red cabbage, paprika, and green tea. My picture shows tumeric and blueberries, but I decided to use green tea for my yellow eggs instead of tumeric and I bought fresh instead of frozen blueberries. You're supposed to use frozen, so I'll try that one next year!

Green tea and red onions at work

Overall it was a success. If I had more time/bigger bowls/more fridge space/more dye I would have left lots of eggs in the dye overnight in the fridge for more vibrant color. I left most of the eggs in the dyes for 15 minutes or so and they were a very nice pastel hue. I put some in the fridge until evening and they darkened quite nicely.

pretty pastels

Here's my verdict:

Green Tea: Yellow Very easy to do! Just brew green tea, cool to room temp and soak the eggs! I used 5 old tea bags that I knew I was never going to use and 1 cup water. Paprika: Orange A very pale orange and is all speckled from the spice bits. Again, very easy because it's just a cup of boiling water and a couple tablespoons of paprika. 
Red Onion: Jade Green Jade Green? Ha! How about camo-brown green? Not so successful! Now, I could have done something wrong, but I followed directions (boiling red onion skins) and it was definitely barely greenish tinged brown. 

Big ol' bowl of red cabbage dye

Red Cabbage: Blue For sure the best of the batch!! 1/2 of a head of red cabbage makes enough dye to soak 8-9 eggs at a time. These are very pretty as a pastel blue and becomes a vibrant blue if left to soak for hours. I modified slightly and did 1/2 head of cabbage chopped into chunks in 5 cups of boiling water. Stir in 2 Tbs of white vinegar and let cool to room temp before straining out the cabbage. Aaaaand, you can take the slightly boiled cabbage and put oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper and on it and you have a tasty salad!

In this picture you can see some eggs that have polkadots. These appeared by themselves!! Maybe wash the eggs before dying? I don't know.  

Quick soaked!!! Left: red onion (blah!!) Top middle: paprika  Bottom middle: Red cabbage  Right top: green tea

After a long soak in the red cabbage 

Red cabbage and green tea

Next year I'd like to try the blueberries, and maybe some saffron. I'll do green tea and cabbage again, but I think I'll skip the paprika and red onion. 

2nd Birthday: Sesame Street

Somehow ButterBean is 2 years old! He is growing up so fast and each day more of his personality emerges. He is one of the funniest people I know!
His love of all things Elmo/Abby/Sesame Street prompted the theme for his 2nd birthday party: Sesame Street! I had so much fun planning this party!

Decorations were easy because it seems that every party store has a section dedicated to Sesame Street. Any bold primary colors work for this party! I picked up some plates, napkins, balloons, and table cloth at Party City. Michaels provided some cute little cardboard cutouts in the scrapbooking section. We had the party at Gatsby's work since our house would not accomodate the amount of people we expected to come. 

The food was the most fun to make. I made the same turkey sandwiches that I made for his first birthday (big success both times). We also had Abby Magic Fairy wands -- fruit on bamboo skewers

Burt & Ernie veggie sticks with Ranch dressing

Big Bird popcorn puffs (ButterBean gags on  the hulls of popcorn, so we had to get the puffy kind)

Goldfish crackers in honor of Elmo's goldfish, Dorothy. I considered getting ButterBean a real goldfish for his birthday, but I decided I didn't want to take care of one!

Elmo and Big Bird crackers and Sesame Street juice boxes were picked up at Babies R Us on a diaper run, but you can find those lots of places. 

For dessert we had Cookie Monster Cookies and Elmo cupcakes. 

The kids played Oscar's Trash Toss, which was just throwing crumpled news paper into my tiny compost bucket that looks like a mini trash can. Running up and down the hallway was another favorite!

 ButterBean got more presents that we know what to do with! It's time for a toy purge in this house!

I had a great time with this party and most importantly, I think ButterBean did too!

After the party ButterBean insisted I put a tie on him!

party favors!!

First Crush

I knew this day would come. 

ButterBean has fallen for a girl. She's cute, friendly, wears pigtails...

His first crush

Her name is Abby Cadabby and she lives on Sesame Street! Yes, ButterBean has a crush on a puppet fairy girl. 

Elmo (or Melmo if you're talking to BB) used to be his absolute fave, but he has moved on to Abby. Before Christmas, I was at Target and picked up a stuffed Abby doll for my cousin's daughter. ButterBean spent the entire trip yelling "Ahhhbeee!!" and giving her kisses. So, Santa brought ButterBean an Abby for Christmas. 
Fast forward to this week. I won tickets to Sesame Street Live a few weeks ago and we brought little ButterBean to see his favorite characters sing and dance on stage. He LOVED it and yelled "Ahhhbeee! Melmo!! KeeKee!" (*cookie monster*) over and over. 

He looks terrified, but really he was thrilled!

All went well until we were a couple blocks from home when all of a sudden there was a loud shriek and wail from the back seat. 

ButterBean burst into huge crocodile tears and continued to wail. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong, but finally he sobbed "Ahhh...beeeee!" When we got home he stood by the door, pointing and crying Abby's name. Not even his stuffed Abby could console him at first. He finally snapped out of it, but he and Abby have been inseparable ever since. Every car trip, nap, journey from living room to kitchen - Abby is right there! The first words out of his mouth waking up from his nap have been "Ahhbee???" every day. 

Snuggling on the couch with Abby

Napping with Abby

Playing in his room. What do you know? Abby's close by!

ButterBean's first crush! How cute! She's going to break his heart some day...

We stood in a long line (of girls) to get a picture with the Abby cutout

What We've Been Up To: Arizona

As a present to ourselves and as a reward for surviving anesthesia school we went on a fantastic vacation to Arizona right after Christmas! We went to escape the cold, but somehow we brought the cold with us and Arizona experienced unusually cold weather throughout the entire week we stayed! The weather promptly warmed up the day after we left. Even so, we enjoyed a good 30-50 degree increase in temp by going to AZ!

I've never been to Arizona and it was amazing! We went to Scottsdale, Sedona, and the Grand Canyon and I already have a list of things I want to do when we get to go back some day!

 ButterBean was an absolute champ travelling (other than vomiting in a museum...we're still working on that) and kept us entertained at all times with his crazy dances and songs.

Checking out the cacti in the Botanical Gardens

Pure ButterBean bliss: a golf cart

My in-laws, who had also never been to AZ, came as well. ButterBean loved spending time with them! The most frequent words out of his mouth were "Papa!! Papa!! Mama!" Mama  = Grandma to him. It gets confusing.

We are back in frozen Minnesota and trying to getting back into the groove of real life. Vacations are never long enough!

What We've Been Up To: Christmas

Another fun-filled Christmas has come and gone!  

An almost-two-year-old is the best at Christmas!! Every time he sees a Santa he says "HoHoHo" in a really low voice, followed by "pum pum pum", which is Rumpapum-pum from the Little Drummer Boy song. He also loves to carry around baby Jesus and put him to bed.

Here's Christmas morning!

Putting Big Bird and Abby Cadabby "nigh nigh"

Really got into the wrapping paper ripping this year!

Passing Gas

Ha! Guess what?? As of December 7th at 0940, I am officially a "gas passer"! In other (more mature) words...I am officially a CRNA - certified registered nurse anesthetist!! I have never been more stressed out in my entire life! I have spent the last month studying (I'll post my study plan for SRNAs later) and the last 27 months waiting for this one day.
These were my thoughts:
1) How would I ever face my friends and family if I failed?
2) How could I possibly stand another moment of studying?
3) I'm going to freak out!!

Our graduation was in November, but it didn't give me a sense of relief because you can't do anything as a CRNA until you pass your certification exam. It was definitely a sense of accomplishment though.

Getting my diploma

My parents gave me the Fisher Price doctor's kit that I always played with. It came with a note saying "Who would have thought when you got this kit as a gift from your grandparents, you'd make it a career!"

Finally, the big day came and it was time to take the certification exam! The entire week prior I had been a nervous wreck, had to force myself to eat, and barely could sleep. Thankfully, my test was first thing in the morning so I didn't have to stress about it all day. 
After going through the thorough check in process (2 IDs, picture taken, pocketes emptied, sleeves checked, palm scan taken, blood draw...kidding on the blood draw) I was able to start my exam. Half way through the exam I had to close my eyes and take a few deep breaths and refocus my brain. Then, at the end, an hour and 40 minutes later, my identification was checked again and I was given a piece of paper that would tell me if I passed. I honestly thought my heart couldn't be pounding any harder and that I might just pee my pants. I went around the corner and peeked under the paper and there was the best four-letter-word I had ever seen: PASS! Oh my goodness, I just started shaking all over, gathered my stuff and scooted out of there. I can't describe the relief I felt!I did I little ninja kick in the hall and ran to bathroom so I wouldn't pee my pants. Seriously, unbelievable day! 
That night we celebrated at our house with a yummy dinner with my parents, one of my sisters, and a fantastic bottle of wine. I also received some gorgeous roses from my grandparents. 

And that was my fabulous day!!I'm looking forward to the rest of my life as a CRNA!