We had a big event happen today!
No, it wasn't our visit to the Easter Bunny, although that was a big moment. Last year, Brian was terrified (can't say I blame him) and wanted nothing to do with the bunny.
And, no, the big event wasn't Brian's great coloring job that he brought to bribe the bunny (Can't say I blame him there, either. I wish I had thought of that years ago.)
The big event? Mommy created a craft project with the boys.
Me. I'm the Mommy. I know...I can hardly believe it myself.
We decided to decorate Easter eggs and I discovered a new way to make the eggs. In the OVEN!
I saw this circulating on Facebook and had to investigate. Turns out the idea came from the chef, Alton Brown. You can find the "recipe" here.
It only took 30 minutes and it was much simpler than watching a pot of boiling water. But the coolest thing about this? It didn't smell like eggs were cooking in the kitchen. It smelled like we were baking a cake!! How cool is that?
The other new idea I wanted to try was dyeing eggs with shaving cream and food coloring. We sprayed shaving cream onto a cookie sheet...
...and then dripped all the colors on top.
They suggested using a toothpick to swirl the colors through the shaving cream - and I didn't. I gave Brian a large chopstick.
In hindsight, I wish I had used the toothpick. The shaving cream was a little over-stirred and it kind of looked like one big color blob. In a test of "nature" vs "nurture" - "nature" won. I've never let on that I don't care to get dirty or do messy things so as not to influence the kids. But Brian has always been that way on his own! He is always asking me to wipe his face or get stuff off of his hands. This egg craft was entirely too messy for him. The photo below? Totally staged to show him "rolling the egg through the cream" - he barely wanted to touch it!! So, the rest of the egg rolling was left to me. And I had dyed fingers for the rest of the day.
In other news - I have NO idea if Gavin is really my child or not. He was completely out of control playing in the shaving cream. Let's just say clean up involved Q-Tips.
This is what the eggs looked like after being rolled in the shaving cream...
...and ten minutes later, I toweled the shaving cream off to reveal these...
I think they would have been a lot more vibrant and marbled if we hadn't over mixed with the big chopstick. But that's okay - I'm feeling pretty confident that this was a one time event. Thank God.
We also did the traditional "Paas" Easter egg dyeing kit.
Poor Gavin had to be restrained when anything was put in front of him. He literally would just grab any of these cups and throw them. Not a great idea when there's food coloring involved!
Both boys had a good time, though!
Brian asked me why we make Easter eggs and, to be honest, I wasn't sure where that tradition came from. Even when I looked it up, it wasn't entirely clear. So I told him that, just like Daddy, the Easter Bunny likes hard boiled eggs. We decorate them because he loves to see our artwork. And then, when the bunny comes to our house, he has something to eat before he leaves gifts in their baskets and hops onto the next house!
My explanation conveniently solves my dilemma of how long I'll have to stare at these eggs. Now I know the Easter Bunny will devour them before we wake up on Sunday! Score!!
If any one of you is learning about the egg baking or the shaving cream trick from ME - please tell me so I can have a good laugh. Talk about an unlikely source!!
I'm just learning about this from you. :-) My little is going through a hard boiled egg stage so this sounds like a great idea for us. As a preschool teacher I'm very excited to try the shaving foam and coloring idea. Thanks for sharing. Hope you have a lovely Easter.
ReplyDeletenever heard abotu the shaveing cream idea
ReplyDeleteI had heard about both on FB and on Pinterest. Husband wasn't brave enough to try baking in oven last night while I was gone, so next year for that. We bought the shaving cream and are going to try that tonight.....Nice to see that a "real" person tried it and it worked! (I too bought the traditional dye)
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter to you and yours!
I hadn't heard of cooking the eggs in the oven. I learned this from a magazine:
ReplyDeletePut your eggs in a pan with water. Bring them to a boil. Then cover the pan, turn the burner off, and let them sit on the burner for 15 minutes. They will be perfectly cooked.
The first time I made them I made the mistake of taking the pan off the burner and setting it on a pot holder for the 15 minutes. They were cooked, just not as nicely.
Love the shaving cream idea. Happy Easter.
I just wanted to let you know that I baked 18 eggs in the oven last night for my class to decorate today and they turned out perfectly :) Thank you for the wonderful idea.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to read that blogging bullying is bothering you. I find it very hard to understand why people feel compelled to respond in that manner. I loved your example of sitting at a table with a friend. You're exactly right! Anonymity makes people very brave. :( I for one love reading your blog because it is so heartfelt and personal. I, thank you.