Fall “Easter” Eggs

The other day I hard boiled eggs like I do every few weeks, and I decided that Jack and I were going to color eggs again.  We did it for Easter and loved it, so why not do it more often?  I chose fall colors this time (yellow, orange, green and brown) and I think they turned out great! 

I started out with my tools :

The paper towel roll cut up into little egg drying stands works best if they’re not glued together.  For the colors, I followed the ‘recipes’ on the back of the food color box.

One egg must have had a crack in it when I put it in the pot.  We didn’t color this one, but it sure was fun to eat after we were done coloring the rest of the eggs.

I have a feeling we’ll be dying eggs for every holiday coming up.  Thanksgiving will be the same, but Christmas may look a tad different. 

I’m linking this up with La-La’s Home Daycare Holiday Kid Craft link up.  Hop on over to see what other holiday crafts have been posted. 

Birthday/Memorial Day Weekend

Not only was this Memorial Day weekend, but it was also my birthday weekend.  Actually this was Rick’s and my birthday weekend combined.  His birthday was back in the middle of the month, but I’m a kind wife, so I share my birthday weekend with him.

I have to show you the card my mother got me this year.  How she ever found it, I don’t know, but it’s perfect!  (except for the 200,000 part.  Mine is more like 20)

We spent Saturday at my sister’s place in the country.  They have a little pond that the boys enjoyed paddling a rowboat in.  This was Jack’s first time in a boat.  He didn’t want to get out!

It was a lot of fun for Jack to find snakes, turtles, catfish, geese, ducks, and bullfrogs.  I was a little worried for this one’s safety.

My sister and brother-in-law are great hosts.  We had such a good time relaxing and playing at their home.  We hope to spend a lot more time up there this summer.

The big hit of the afternoon was the badminton game.   Jack loved playing with the ‘fish’ (shuttlecock) and ‘net’ (racquet).  He was running all around the court trying to steal the ‘fish’ from our game.  Everyone kept saying “he’s going to sleep well tonight!”  (he did) But I think Jenn was the one who was really going to sleep well that night! She was often left playing by herself against the other team because Jack had stolen my racquet.   

Of course my mom came up for the day too.  Jack loves seeing his Gramma Donna.  I think the feeling is mutual.

I loved my brother-in-law’s glasses, because they had a mirror reflection.  I made him sit really still while I took this picture.  Sitting still and not talking is next to impossible for this man, so it’s good that I have documentation that it can be done.

A little self-portrait love.  Here are the birthday kids! Not so much Kids really as Old People.  One is 39 and one is 34, but I’m not going to tell you which is which.

Thanks for the wonderful weekend, Jenn and Rod!  We had such a great time with you guys.  And thanks to all the men and women who gave their lives to make this weekend celebration possible.  Happy Memorial Day!

Easter Egg Coloring

Tonight, I officially became a mom.

Well, maybe I’ve been a mom for a little more than 2 years, but I definitely entered another stage of Being a Mom. 

I colored Easter eggs with Jack tonight.  It’s a right of passage for all mothers.  I chose not to do it last year when he was 15 months simply because I was am too cheap and lazy.  I figured he wouldn’t know what he was missing yet anyway.

This year, I was excited to get a basket for him and color eggs with him. Being too cheap, I didn’t go for any fancy name brand dying kit.  I bought store brand food colors (liquid –which is hard to find these days) and some eggs.  Nothing more simple than that. I was ready to color eggs!

But this morning I realized I didn’t know how to dry the eggs after dipping them.  The fancy name brand boxes have holes that let you prop the eggs up to dry.  I knew putting them back in the carton would smudge up the color, and I was completely forgetting that I own 2 drying racks for baking that I could have used.  Duh! 

After an all-call to my Facebook friends, Dani, an old high school friend (also a mama to a 2 year old little SMARTIE sweetheart.  That little girl’s vocabulary blows Jack’s completely out of the water, and Jack’s pretty advanced for his age) suggested cutting up an empty toilet paper roll and prop the eggs on those little circles.  I remembered having just put a paper towel roll in the recycling, so I went ‘dumpster diving’ in my recycling bag and got the roll out to use.  I cut it up into 12 equal parts (that was totally by luck since I didn’t measure anything) and glued them together thinking that would give them more stability (and keep Jack’s little curious hands from grabbing them and throwing them all over the kitchen). 

Could I have used a few more parenthesis in that last paragraph?  (probably not)

Here’s what my ‘drying rack’ invention looked like and us getting started with the whole process.

Where’d the eggs go?

After placing our first dyed egg onto a ring, I quickly realized that having them so close together wasn’t such a good idea.  I should have kept them separate from each other.  Oh well.  It worked just fine in the end.

Here is what our colored eggs looked like.  I think they turned out pretty good.  It’s easy as pie to do.  If you don’t know how, just put a tsp of vinegar in 1/2 cup of boiling water and then add as much food coloring as you want in the water.  I used a LOT of color, since the directions on the box said to add about half a bottle of coloring to the water.  That was too much in my opinion.

Jack loved to see the colors as they came out of the water.  He was so excited about the white eggs changing to new colors. 

       

Happy Valentine’s Day

My husband and I don’t do much for Valentine’s Day.  Every year we do less and less.  Last night he jumped in the shower at 4 pm after a day of nothing-ness, and I asked “what are you doing?” He said, “I have to shower before I go out and get a card.  I figure you’ve already gotten me a card, and I need to get one by tomorrow.” 

Romantic

But I told him that I had in fact not gotten him a card, and that all I had planned to do was bake him a little heart shaped chocolate cake. 

He put his sweats back on and relaxed the rest of the evening.

But, today, we do have a date planned.  Thanks to my BFF Beth!  She got us tickets to the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey game today and is kicking us out the door, so she can stay and play with Jack.  She says it was a gift for us, but I’m sure it is just a ploy to get Jack all to herself for the evening.

So, we’ll be cheering on the Blue Jackets as they play against whoever they’re playing against today. (I have no clue). We’ll have our Arena food and my super yummy –but oh so super expensive- slushie, and we’ll try to enjoy each other’s company while wondering how our Boozle is doing with his first (in 11 months) babysitter.  *Sure, my sister watches him when I go to the dentist, and my BFF Heather watches him when I go to the Chiropractor, but those are all for such a short amount of time I’m not sure they count. 

So, we’re off to our second date since Jack’s birth.  We really should work on this.

Go Jackets! 

Thanks Aunt Beth!!!

 

Thankful Thursday

This is my last Thankful Thursday post. It's been a great blessing to me to share what I've been thankful for. If you'd like to read the first three posts from this series, go here for #1, here for #2, and here for #3.  When I finished my post last week, I thought to myself, 'will I be able to come up with anything else to be thankful for?'  I hit all the big ones - Jesus, family, friends, chocolate.  What else is there in life to be thankful for?
(Sorry, no pictures this time)

First, I'm thankful for a roof over our heads.  It's a nice home, but in a not-so-nice neighborhood.  If we are still here when Jack is ready for kindergarten, I'll become a homeschooling mama.  I love the space we have, and that there is plenty of room for the three of us. This is a great house for a big family. There are plenty of not-so-thankful parts about this house, but not so many that I can't appreciate the good parts. 

Along those lines, I'm thankful for the means to pay for this house.  Since quitting my job as a teacher to stay home with Jack, I have not had to worry about finding part-time income.  Rick has budgeted us out the wazoo, and we are blessed to be able to live comfortably off of one income.  We have done some reading and studying of Dave Ramsey, who is the mastermind behind Financial Peace University.  (Some people refer to him as Damn Ramsey, which I think is hilarious, because at times, you do want to curse his name!)  Working very hard with what we had, we were able to get out of all of our debt.  Not many people can claim that, and I am VERY thankful to be in this situation.

I'm thankful for the holidays.  I love that they are a time our families set aside to get together.  We don't always get to see everyone throughout the year, so the fact that we will get together over the holidays is a real treasure.  We know we will see everyone eventually!  Also, the holidays give us a time to reflect on our blessings, Jesus coming to Earth to save us sinners, and His death and resurrection that covered our sins.  Wow.  What a great God we have!

And finally, possibly most importantly, I'm thankful for peanut butter.  It's my favorite food.  There is nothing better than chocolate and peanut butter, but it really does go with EVERYTHING.  Bananas, toast, graham crackers, bagels, apples....the list is endless.  (I'm pretty sure my father ate a peanut butter and pickle sandwich - I'm not willing to go there)

Thank you for taking the time to read my Thankful Thursday posts.  I hope that you were able to relate to one or more of the things I'm thankful for.  I've really been very blessed, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to share my thankfulness with all of you!  (And good for you if you read them all!!) HAPPY THANKSGIVING!  I hope you have a blessed day!!