A Hard Worker

ButterBean is shaping up to be a workaholic!
I've already written about how he loves to clean. However, this has evolved into him giving me the dustpan and broom and "Nnnhh! Nnnhh!"ing until I sweep! 
When desperate, he does the sweeping himself.

He has added mowing the lawn sidewalk to his list of chores

He also loves secretarial work, like answering phones and typing. 

These pictures were taken while we waited at a recent doctor appointment

He even answers the phone for his grandma from time to time "Hello, how may I help you?"

Last, but certainly not least, he tries to help me "study". This is also known as scribble on Mommy's text book with highlighter!

The life of a baby can be so busy! It's amazing that he gets it all done!

What a Wedding!

Yesterday our family went to our friends' wedding and I felt like I fell into a Pinterest board! The bride had thought of every cute detail imaginable! I wanted to run around taking pictures of everything, but then I remembered that I am not a party or wedding blogger and really don't need all of those pictures. And, I was chasing a 16 month boy and keeping him from jumping into the lake.

All those little pink and grey balls: handmade by bride- she had to have made 100 of them at least!

Our table

 The reception was held at the bride's parents' lake home. Their neighbors were kind enough to let them use their property as well. So, there were two tents, one for cocktails and one for dinner, both decked out with twinkling votives, gorgeous pink flowers, and pink and grey accents galore. Their grand entrance was coming in on a pontoon and dancing up the dock as they were announced. She had the photo booth with hats and moustaches, adorable pink and grey striped paper straws for mini individual bottles of pink champagne, hand made wood signs for each area, signature cocktails, and on and on. It should have been in a magazine! I loved it!!

And to top it off -- splendid dessert table!!

I didn't get a picture of the whole thing because it was quite the popular spot and got crowded quickly! There were brownie cheesecakes, white chocolate macarons, candies, pink cake, and individual jarred pies!

Too cute!! I had a raspberry pear pie, but there was also sour cherry and strawberry rhubarb. Ok, I had a macaron or three as well! 

What made the desserts even more special is that all of them (except the candy)were hand made by the bride's cousins. Eleven siblings in that family and the girls all made the desserts, while the boys help construct tents and dance floors. Butterbean made friends with one of the boys and was doing everything in his power to get his attention for the rest of the evening!

ButterBean dancing by himself on the dancefloor - he wouldn't let me dance with him, the little stinker!

Butterbean lasted well into the night, rocked it on the dance floor, and got oodles of compliments on his cuteness!! We all had a great time seeing friends and relaxing on the lake! Fabulous night!

24 hour lunch

One of my tactics for spending as much time as possible with ButterBean is to clump my clinical hours together so that I have longer chunks of time at home. Therefore, I subject myself to the 24 hour shift. Dum dum dummm! A 24 hour shift in the operating room can either be easy or insanely exhausting (like my last one...skull fracture, ruptured aortic aneurysm, C-sections, thoracoscopy, ectopic pregnancy, femur fracture ... to name a few). Besides the challenge of sleep deprivation with high adrenaline and caffeine overload, comes the challenge of eating healthy. It's high stress, you're tired, feel like you should get an award for your hard work, and the food options are extremely limited if you don't bring your own!

Today I am pre-making a few items for my 24-hour-packed-lunch instead of shoving all sorts of random pieces of food in my bag tomorrow.

Breakfast: Raw Bars - recipe courtesy of one of my beautiful college roommates, who has a passion for healthy living

Lunch: Homemade Hummus with carrots and celery. Maybe some leftover couscous and African kale stew from yesterday

From humble dried garbanzo beans to glorious creamy hummus!

Snacks/Shovel in my mouth between cases:

Apple

Peach

Almonds

Dinner: "Symphony" Salad 

My Dad calls any salad with multiple components a symphony salad. In honor of Fathers Day tomorrow I'll bring a symphony salad. It will look something like this:

and be composed of local/organic spinach, kale, chard, and arugula blend, strawberries, blueberries, walnuts, goji berries, and bleu cheese. If I had an avocado it would be going in there too, but I don't. For dressing I just bring olive oil and balsamic vinegar with cracked black pepper. This is one of my all time favorite salads!!

Green Juice

My parents just recently bought a fantastic juicer. Whenever I venture over there I'm guaranteed to get a tall glass of green juice: kale, celery, cucumber, lemon, apple, ginger, and perhaps a tumeric tuber. If I had a larger kitchen I can see investing in a juicer. For now though, I'll just look forward to fresh juice a couple times a week! I'd like to try a juice fast and see how I feel. I'll update if I get around to it.

Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly I guess considering he'll eat anything, ButterBean loves green juice! 

Sans juicer, I've been staying hydrated with home-made sun tea and cold-press iced coffee. Not nutritious, but tasty. Unfortunately my glass sun-tea jar has acquired a leak around the spigot. I've not had good luck with glass lately. Besides the sun-tea jar, I broke a half gallon glass bottle of whole milk in the back seat of my car on the way home from the co-op today. That's going to smell great this summer! And, I still have to make another trip to the store for milk! I'm trying my best to avoid plastic, but glass is giving me a run for my money!