Things to Make - Plastic Easter Egg Garden

Every Easter, we always seem to end up with more of these then we need. We try to reuse them year after year, but so many become lost along the way, causing us to rebuy - a vicious cycle. So this year, I poked holes in the bottom and made them into little planters and color-coded plant type by egg hue.

Now let's just hope I can keep everything alive and growing throughout the summer.

Things to Make - Natural Easter Egg Dye

We rarely dye Easter eggs (mom guilt). Often we vacation around this time, so I can use that as an excuse. But truthfully I hate hard boiled eggs and the obligation to eat several of them usually weighs me down, so I avoid the whole scenario. Luckily lately both Dan and T cannot stop eating any sort of egg, so without any excuses holding me back, we had a job to do.

I've wanted to make natural egg dye ever since reading this post. We borrowed the recipes used by Sweet Fine Day and the colors turned out beautiful and vibrant. And the kids' all loved following the recipes - now I'm trying to decide what to do with the leftover dye - any suggestions?

Here's the scoop:

Ingredients: red cabbage, red beets, turmeric, eggs (preferably white)

1. Follow the recipes below to make the dye:

Blue: Simmer 4 cups of water with 1 small red cabbage (roughly chopped) for 15 minutes.

Red: Simmer 4 cups of water with 2 medium red beets (grated) for 15 minutes.

Yellow: Bring 4 cups of water to a boil and stir in 1/4 cup turmeric. Boil for 1 more minute.

2. After each of the mixtures have cooled down, mix in 1/4 cup white vinegar and strain each of the colors into bowls for dyeing.

3. Leave the eggs overnight - refrigerated- in the color bath.

4. Eat (or, if you're like me, don't eat)


HAPPY TUESDAY EVERYONE!!

Things to Do - Happy Belated Easter

The kids and I spent most of Easter day driving back from spring break in Cleveland (more on Cleveland next week). I dreaded the drive, but between books on tape (for me) - Helen Schuman's thought-provoking novel, This Beautiful Life,had me contemplating parenting, porn, mistakes, and apologies all the way home - and DVDs for the kids things went well. We took the pictures above at a rest-stop off the highway where the kids danced, ran, and jumped until they decided they would rather watch more movies in the car.

Throughout the drive the kids kept discussing whether or not the easter bunny came to our house. Lucky for us we arrived home to a backyard full of plastic eggs (and a few Cadbury caramel eggs for me). Happiness.

How was your Easter?



So much green everywhere lately. It's a little overwhelming.



The matching shirt and easter basket were just a coincidence. A pretty cool coincidence.

Things to Do - Eastering Round II

As I mentioned last week (click here for the post), Easter has become quite a big deal around here. For Easter Sunday we had my husband's family over for brunch. I made baked granola (so yummy) using this recipe and tomato-onion-cheese-bacon strata using this Weight Watchers recipe. I love brunch, there's something so decadent yet wonderful about eating a big meal early in the day.

We also had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. I'm sick of all the candy, so I (oops, I mean the Easter Bunny) bought eggs filled with silly putty and small toys from Oriental Trading Company, which the kids loved. F even said "these are way more fun than candy eggs." My sister-in-law brought over an egg dye kit and I must say it felt wonderful to watch my children do a craft project without having to do it with them (thank you, A!). And, of course, all three kids woke up to chocolate bunnies and wonderful forest friends courtesy of the Easter Bunny (bought from Hazel Village ). I often plan on paying a little extra and buying hand-made toys for the kids, but then they want something plastic and it's so cheap I just cave. Anyways, this year I splurged and it was well worth it, the dolls are beautifully made, aesthetically gorgeous and the kids all love them. I hope all of you had a great weekend!!

MONDAY LINKS:

*These children's jackets are adorable. I sort of want one for me.

*50 Ways to Explore Nature In Your Own Backyard

*Wow.

*Cross-writing, sort of a cool idea.

*Books that Changed the Way We Think About the Earth - a great list.

*This home is just dreamy. I want it. I really do.

*I've been following Olivia Bee for a long time now through flickr and now she has a blog and she really is just great at what she does.


(I bought myself new shoes, the left foot seems happy enough but the right foot is a little confused. And I bought T an adorably cute Easter outfit, so I'm not quite sure how he ended up shirtless all day, but so it goes.)

Things to Do - Eastering

Until I had children, I didn't think much about Easter (or spring in general). In college, Easter always seemed to fall around midterms and I remember it as a call to study more (yes, I was and am that dorky). But then I had children and Easter has become quite the event in our house. I love the simplicity of it - unlike Santa, the Easter Bunny only brings a few small presents. And nothing emphasizes the joys of spring like hunting for eggs outside.

F's become so enthralled with Easter that she asked me to buy bunny snacks to give to all her friends at school. What I didn't realize was that she expected them to be wrapped and "pretty." So the other night we got out the tissue paper, the bird stamp (available here), and some silver ribbon. I think they turned out rather nice, don't you?



It's amazing what you can buy from the $1 aisle at Target. I originally bought the ears for the girls until my mother-in-law questioned the appropriateness of such attire. I didn't even think of all the awful associations between bunnies and the objectification of women until my MIL mentioned it. Does my ignorance symbolize progress or regression? I wish I knew. In the meantime, the ears have been passed on to T and he wears them well.

Postcript - According to Wikipedia, the Palms in Vegas has brought back the Playboy bunny. Hence answering my own question: regression.

RANDOM LINKS:

*So pretty.

*Loving these 1920s photos.

*After the Fall. Wonderfulness.

*I find this somewhat disturbing, yet so impressive.