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!!
