Julia's Baptism

Julia was baptized this morning, during the Holy Saturday liturgy. Here are some photos:







This is Julia with her godmother, Elena Tiemeyer:

Dyeing Eggs with Onion Skins

We spent the morning dyeing eggs to bring to church for Pascha (which is this Sunday). The tradition is to dye the eggs red, but there really isn't a good way to get eggs really red without using yucky dyes that come off on your fingers when you handle them. Last year we came across this natural way to dye the eggs and it's my new favorite. I've been saving onion skins for several months, and we've saved up several dozen of our own eggs just for the occasion.

Here are the eggs before


and the bags of onion skins (yellow ones)


I made the dye first by boiling the skins


Here is the strained dye cooling before I poured it on the eggs


These are the eggs after boiling in the dye


The finished product, I really like the dark reddish brown color.

Catch up time

I've been busy and sick, which is a bad combination since being busy while sick inevitably leads to being sick longer than necessary. Due to the long interval between posting, we have lots to share, mostly in photos, so here goes.

These are our Pascha baskets from back in April. Pascha came much later than western Easter this year, causing confusion amongst our family and friends. Here is a fairly concise explanation of the disparity, for those who are interested: http://orrologion.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-dating-pascha-or-why-orthodox-in.html
The dark brownish-red eggs were dyed with onion skins, something new we tried this year and they turned out very nicely.


Maggie, aka the world's only midwestern bear dog, fell asleep under the crafting table and got covered with bits.


The girls had a nice day at the zoo recently, and Sophia made a new friend.




I tried to capture the beauty of the lilacs at twilight, but you really can't photograph the lovely smell, so this was the best I could do.


Anna was hanging around and doing that funny scrunchy nose thing she does, but due to the low light the photo is a bit blurry.


Margaret created this lovely greeting for me on Mother's Day that made me smile.


We have growing things in our Square Foot Garden beds at last. The black pots on the left have potatoes in them, the beds have beans, tomatoes, some herbs, lettuce, kale, spinach, and swiss chard in them.


I have more, but I'd better save them because blogger is acting up and I don't want to lose what I've posted so far.

More about Anna

Anna was baptized yesterday (June 3) at our church, St. Mary Orthodox Christian Church. She was very good and only fussed a little bit. Her godmother is Justine Nightingale, a wonderful friend of ours, and a homeschooling mother of two little girls.

Her patron saint is St. Anna the Prophetess. St. Anna's story can be found in the bible, Luke 2:34-38. St. Anna is commemorated on the church calendar February 3, which is just a few days before Anna's birthday, February 6. This, of course, is why we named her Anna :).

Here is Anna with Justine in her new dress:

St. Anna the Prophetess: