Easter

As usual we died eggs for Easter and because only brown eggs are available in stores in this country the results were a bit hit and miss. I used a marbling dye but other than the yellow the colours turned out dull and instead of a nice marbling effect it was just drops and drips. So I got the trusted food colouring out and used that with a dash of vinegar and voila, nicely coloured eggs. Well, red ones, the red turned out lovely but the the others weren't too bad either.




The sun was out so we spent the whole day outside again. Oh and did I mention Little Monkey was excited?

365 - 112 Easter

Oh, the excitement. Little Monkey didn't quite know what was happening but he followed Big Monkey's lead and as she was very excited...


This year the Easter bunny had a slightly mischievous streak and hid the sweeties very well and sometimes a bit out of reach.

Little Monkey is lucky too

In the evening little monkey opened his presents. He now knows very well what wrapped up parcels mean. The first one contained a little toy camera, he was very pleased with that and ordered us to "mile" for the camera. Very good, although I doubt that this will keep him from requesting my camera. In any case he was very busy with that and he delegated further opening of presents to big monkey. She was more than happy to oblige, after all she had to wait the whole day until she found out what little monkey got.

Lucky, Lucky Monkey

This morning two parcels arrived, Easter presents from the Grandparents. Form the moment big monkey laid her eyes on them, she needed, NEEDED to know what was inside. She was delighted with everything. As it was sunny and warm today she had to put on one of her new T-shirts straight away. We played the new game and big monkey needed to put everything Hello Kitty in a special box.

She even was very happy about receiving a second scooter she got from Grandpa. I was worried she would do her teenager impression but no, she hopped around happily singing lucky, lucky. She tried it out straight away, she even tried to scooter on both at the same time. Not such a good idea but it had to be tried out anyway.

The good thing about the new scooter is that the handle bar go higher up than on her old one but the disadvantage is that it is not as fast. Considering that it will be the garden scooter, as she had decided and how small our garden is, I think that is an advantage.

Easter

Aww, the excitement... The Easter bunny came and he was in a cheeky mood this year. Big monkey wondered whether this was because of the carrot she had left out for him. Maybe there was something in it that made him go all funny, she mused. Because there was one present hiding in the shower! Most, however, were outside hiding between flower pots, under daffodils and inside the tree. The moment we realized he's been already here, at 7.30 in the morning, the rain started. Hence the search was a rather hurried affair. Luckily the clever rabbit had hidden the uncovered chocolates inside but he put the new dress for big monkey outside. I guess he couldn't resist in hanging it onto a tree branch. He drew the line at putting things into bird feeders though. The monkeys were a tad bit disappointed that they couldn't take apart various feeding stations.
Still, I see somebody has been very happy with the amount of sweet findings and was looking forward to taking a bite.

Meet the master in speed-unwrapping chocolates

Little monkey tried his best to consume his own body weight in chocolate. Therefore he was thoroughly disappointed that the parents did everything to foil this worthy effort.
I guess it was a good thing that the Easter bunny brought something for exercise.

Easter Eggs and more importantly she is here!

As is is so close to Easter we have decorated the sitting room for Easter. We're blessed with such a big selection of decorated Eggs we can put up two Easter trees. I put the plastic and wooden Eggs onto the tree that can be reached from the sofa. But it took me a while to find the other twigs so temporarily a few real eggs ended up on that tree. During this time an egg broke. As usual there are suspects. Both of them don't speak. Both were very interested. Hard to say who's to blame. The cat looked innocent enough and little monkey, well he always looks innocent in the kind of way that makes one think he did something he shouldn't have.

FINALLY - The long wait is over and on Tuesday evening the monkeys' cousin arrived with her family. It feels like big monkey hasn't slept since. They went off to play and they hardly stop. Since there isn't really a tradition for decorated eggs in the UK we have to be creative in where to get the dye for the hard boiled eggs. This year I found quite a selection in my larder. I've been stockpiling it seems. Anyhow the big monkeys were eager to help and we started to turn the kitchen into something out of a witches den. The smell of vinegar was overpowering.

As always none of the eggs take the yellow dye, one reason being of course that it is impossible to buy white eggs. But the red turned out so pretty that the eggs-that-were-to-be-yellow got coloured a nice red too.

I did however buy a box of specialty eggs that were naturally blue and green that included one white egg. They were also tiddly so they got a cute banderole design. I shall take pictures tomorrow but a few eggs are awaiting ears.

In the afternoon and with little monkey back from nursery we showed off the most important local point of interest. Yes! We took them to Clowntown! The Aunties, however, had to miss a bit of that and had to go and have a look at the selection of socks at the superstore next door.
More shenanigans of the monkeys tomorrow...

Carrot cupcakes

Last Sunday big monkey and I baked carrot cupcakes. We got the recipe with our vegetable box and as the required carrots and oranges came in this box we decided to give it a go. I couldn't find mascapone cheese so we decorated them with a blood orange sugar icing and sprinkles instead. I have to confess I haven't searched hard for the mascapone. You just can't go wrong with sprinkles.

Personally I still think cakes with vegetables rather weird. But this one was actually very nice, not too sweet and no nuts. I think that's why I normally don't like carrot cake. Big monkey was a big help, little monkey only helped with demolishing. Sadly, none of the cupcakes lived long enough to be a present for the Easter bunny. He will have to do with a plain ol' carrot.