Our Robin's Nest: Three Little Birdlings on our Windowsill

       This year, a robin kindly built her nest on a low outside windowsill.  First the nest appeared, all cleverly made with thin twigs and even some of our purple Easter grass that migrated from one of the girls' Easter baskets.  It seemed a long wait, but sometime in April (after peaking into the nest a thousand times!) I spied four gorgeously bold jade-colored eggs.  Magnificent. 

        Tragedy of some kind met one of the eggs because I found a partially broken and very empty egg in the grass below the nest. Then, on May Day, two little baby robins hatched from their eggs! Liliana and Vera Rose shrieked with delight when I held them up to see the fascinatingly bald, ugly/beautiful birds with their tiny necks, their huge closed eyes and their spindly wings as the birdlings peacefully slept. When the birds move, their heads bobble and collapse quickly. 

May 1st:  Day 1: two robins hatch from eggs and huddle next to the remaining egg.



May 1st:  Day 1 with two birds hatching.

       By Day 2, the remaining egg had hatched overnight and all three birds periodically stopped their rest to raise their heads and open their beaks to swallow the entire sky.  Tiny chirping sounds can now be heard, not even drowned out by the noise of the worried mother chirping at me from the nearby lilac bush.  These hatchlings are so tufty and grotesque yet so meticulously detailed and lovely.  I feel so privileged to watch them grow and so delighted to share such a wonder of Creation with Liliana and Vera Rose. 

May 2nd: Day 2 of life

 

Onion Skin Egg Dye with Leaf Patterns

Onion Skin Easter Egg Dye with Leaf Patterns

 

Center egg was dyed with onion skin dye.

 

       This week, while dying Easter eggs at my Mom's house, I decided to try a dye technique that I read about in one of Liliana's Easter books: Onion Skin Dye. Liliana helped me peel the skin off of two onions and place them in a saucepan. Then I added water and boiled it for a while. (The original directions called for boiling the eggs in the dye combo for 20 minutes but our eggs were happily already pre-boiled by Grandma before we arrived so I simply let the onion skins simmer for about 20 minutes with no eggs in it). 

       Since there were no live leafy plants anywhere in the snowy outdoors (at least that weren't frozen and crunchy!), I used some branches from my Mom's houseplants, wet them, wrapped them around the eggs, tied them to the egg with some string, then set them in the onion skin dye.  The eggs soaked for about 3-4 hours, then Liliana and I removed the leaves to find some fun textures.  Such a pretty hue, reminiscent of freshly-laid Barred rock chicken eggs and with such an interesting yet subtle texture because of the leaves. 
       This technique would be fun to use some year when we have a later Easter with some green plants outside so that the girls would have the fun of scavenging for leaves as part of the process.  This was so simple to do, that I'd love to try some other natural dyes while making Easter eggs!

Springtime Easter Fruit Cups

A Healthy Fruit Treat for a Happy Easter

 

        Part of our "Healthy Easter Treat" for the girls' Easter party at Tiny Tots playgroup preschool was a medly of watermelon and cantalope cut into Easter shapes (a chick, a cross, a tulip, and a butterfly), then set in a spingtime cupcake paper (which I had lined with a flower-shaped foil cut-out so that the fruit juice wouldn't soak the paper).  It was a bit tricky to cut the fruit into layers conducive to cutting out shapes (but the only real "tricky" part was trying not to have a ton of scrap left over).  The rest was super easy because cookie cutters cut through melon quite well and my girls had such fun nibbling on the excess. 
       Luckily, the night I worked on their Easter treats coincided with their Tuesday night playtime/Spanish exposure with my dear cousin Rachel so I was able to work with less distractions (you know, those fun everyday interruptions like diaper changes, the "I'm thirsty"s, etc which seem to add an extra hour to every project attempted!).  I am so thankful that my girls have the opportunity to play with 25 children each Wednesday morning, that they have such a wonderful teacher, and that I, too, have the chance to visit with highschool classmates of yore!  Life is such fun these days!

Easter Bunny Snack

Healthy Snack: Easter Rabbit Treat

 

       While perusing Pinterest for springtime heathy snacks,  I noticed that using a cookie cutter to create an Easter rabbit shape out of bread could be lots of fun for my girls to eat and "simple" to make.  I hoped to embellish the Easter bunny's face with carrot whiskers, raison eyes and nose, and cheese ears (using a miniature egg cookie cutter to cut out the cheese). 
       The finished product looked more like a mouse than a rabbit to me, but maybe I just stared at whole-wheat veggie rabbits for too many hours.  By the time I was done creating 25 Easter bunnies, too many hours had elapsed for me to think that they looked anything but rediculous and also they started to seem like a bit too elaborate to be worth it (although I did remind myself that I had once made my nephew Darius an entire two-foot wide pirate ship complete with a hand-carved cheese treasure chest with blueberries inside for his own one-person daycare snack so at least it wasn't as over-the-top as that!) 
       Part of what ended up making it take so long was realizing that I needed to cover each rabbit with damp papertowel so that the bread and cheese wouldn't dry out before we arrived at the party--and they still were nice and moist the next day but the stiff decorative cupcake holders did mishapen a bit from the dampness.  All in all, I think they turned out fine but if I did it again, I think I would do it for a smaller group so I didn't have to create quite so many--or at least I would buy grated carrot so there wouldn't be so much chopping.  Although, that said, I'd probably make them again next week if my girls wanted them :)  

Easter Sprinkle Pretzels

Pretzel Rods dipped in Sprinkles

 

        As Liliana and Vera Rose's church Easter program and party approached, we all eagerly awaited the fun. We practiced the songs daily until the final Saturday practice and party were upon us. What should we bring to share as a treat for the other boys and girls? I finally decided upon plain old pretzel rods (which Liliana erroneously calls "curtain rods"), decorated a bit with a dip of white chocolate and Easter sprinkles. They weren't super sweet, nor were they complicated and Liliana was able to help sprinkle the sprinkles. I melted Wilton's white chocolate melts, used a spoon to cover just the tip and part of the end of a pretzel rod, then held the pretzel over a mug on a tray as Liliana poured the sprinkles (the mug allowed us to continually reuse the fallen sprinkles) and then we arranged them in a bunch of mugs, sprinkled-tip up until they cooled/dried. It took longer than I expected but it was so worth it when Liliana was able to give them out to her Sunday School friends and when I saw even the older kids happily debating which color they wanted.

        It was a fun practice, a great party, and an even better performance last Sunday as I silently laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks as I watched the antics of a 3-year-old on stage for an hour of sweetly singing (plus some jumping, exploring, twirling and meandering around the stage--yes, my little girl was the most active of the not-intended-to-be-active program).  I am so glad that Christ is alive so that all the children may have a personal Savior to rejoice in this Easter.