Coloring Eggs

After the fun morning I wrote about in the previous blog, we came home and set up shop in our garage to color eggs with Lily. My brother Wayne, my three cousins (Jodi, Tiffany and Lee) and I used to do this at my Meme's house every year just before Easter. I have always loved coloring Easter eggs! I think I was more excited about this than Lily!

I had purchased a special little decorating kit for Lily that had zoo stickers and holders for the eggs because I know how much she likes animals. She was very excited when she saw all the stickers and the holders that looked like a rhino, an elephant, a zebra and a lion. She was pretty curious as she watched me mix the vinegar and little tablet to make the colors too. We put an old shirt of Ryan's on her (and me!) to keep the mess from spills and splashes off her clothes, and then we brought out the two dozen eggs and accessories into the garage. I showed her how to put an egg into the dye and then let her do it. After the first drop, I had to show her again how to GENTLY put the eggs into the dye. She did a good job with them after that. She really liked "helping" me pull the eggs out and put them on the little drying rack and then into the cute holders.

The first dozen eggs we just put into the dyes and let them dry. They made beautiful shades of blue, green, orange, yellow, pink and gray. The second dozen though, she had a lot of fun putting them into one color, drying them and then putting them into a second (and third...) color. This is her first experience with seeing what happens when colors mix, and I think she was fascinated.

After we dried off all the eggs, she put each egg into her basket. After they were all in there, she was ready to start putting the stickers on which she loved; she always has fun with stickers. She put each sticker on the very top of each egg. They had cute monkeys, elephants, giraffes, butterflies, panda bears, alligators, birds, hippos and tigers. Here's how a couple of our sticker conversations went...

Me: What sticker do you want to put on next?
Lily: Snake. I like snakes.
Me: Really?
Lily: No. I no touch snakes. SSSSS.

Me: Now which one?
Lily: Oh, the beautiful butterfly! Oh, matches the pink egg!

One thing to note about putting the eggs into her basket. She seemed to have forgotten the "gentle" part of putting eggs down. She wasn't throwing them in or anything, just sort of letting them fall in from a few inches up. With each egg, we would hear a little cracking sound as it hit the other eggs in the basket. We couldn't reuse them for hiding with all those cracks, but that's okay because we were able to make delicious deviled eggs!

I had so much fun doing these eggs with Lily, and I think she had a great time too! She told several people on Sunday about "dropping eggs in cups," and she has asked us several times to color eggs again. If I think about it, I might try to buy a couple more of the little decorating kits and we can color them over the summer too. I think she would like that, and there are very few things I like better than seeing my child having fun!

Here are a few pictures from the egg coloring...