I love making holidays and special events memorable and fun for my kids. We are there for the school events, fun nights and award ceremonies that are all promptly followed by celebratory pizza or ice cream. When the first grader gets to clip up to the highest color on the behavior chart, we get him a prize. (Mainly because I was under the impression they were unattainable and made that promise at the beginning of the year. As it turns out, pink is entirely attainable. About seven times, actually.)
Birthdays are like holidays in this house. We celebrate Birthday Week. We love April Fools Day. Halloween we invite friends over for post trick or treating chili. Christmas? We. Are. Pros.
That being said, I do not love coloring Easter eggs. I really don’t love anything Easter bunny related. He’s creepy. Bunnies of all sizes are disturbing, but a freaking giant dude delivering eggs (gag) just is right up there with clowns.
Each year I almost forget about the fun of dipping stinky-hard-boiled-grossness into food coloring. Unfortunately, I never have. Always, on Easter Eve, the Eckerts can be found doing just that.
This year we went with the Glitter Egg Dye. Wow, that added a whole new dimension to the fun. I boiled the eggs earlier in the day (I only did 12 because really, any more than 12 would be far too exciting). From the time those things came off the stove Evan was begging for one. Since a couple had cracked in the pot, I said sure and then came in the other two. Because if one dependent gets something, then of course, the other two should.
The eating of the eggs took us down to nine.
After dinner I got the cups of color ready. I filled 6 mugs with exactly 5 ounces of water and then commenced to drop in the color disks. Easy enough, no?
No. Big fat no.
The company happened to send us 7 disks and 3 of them were blue. So, each little Eckert had their own blue coloring. Cute.
So we start. I put my smart and glitter savvy husband in charge of mixing up the glitter “stick-um”. He did great.
Then Caleb started cracking his eggs on the table.
We said stop.
Then Evan dropped one into the dye and it cracked.
We said to be careful.
Then Caleb’s egg crashed onto the tile floor.
We said tough luck.
Then Michael rolled his egg around on the table, cracking it more.
We said more parental things…
Then Evan’s egg fell onto the tile floor. And we couldn’t find it.
Of course my mom’s dog took into the living room, like some sort of grand prize. Praise. praise, praise be that she didn’t bite into it. GAG
When it was all said and done, we ended up with 7 eggs. SEVEN.
And would you like to know what is the saddest part of this miserable fail? I don’t care. That just makes five less eggs that I have to smell or clean up after those little egg shells that were cracked. Or the disgusting remnants of egg yolk.
In fact, we may just do 6 next year. Two per kid. And we could just hand them markers and say go to town, boys. Make them so so pretty for that dang Easter Rabbit.