Adventures in Party Planning: Egg Dying Party

I had tentatively blocked off last night for egg dying, and after fielding a series of e-mails from needy people via Blackberry (note to file: stop obsessively checking work e-mails on an around-the-clock basis) I was even more determined to spend some quality time with the fam. Except the fam (initially) had other ideas: the smaller fry was Wii-ing, and the larger fry and the Dad Unit decided that it would be a good idea to go door to door and alert neighbors that cookie dough from the PTA sale would be delivered tomorrow. (I thought that this was a good idea as well, given that the kids sold fifty units of frozen cookie dough, maybe four of which will fit in our freezer. Nana is good for some storage space as well, but, still, that's a LOT of frozen cookie dough.) So P and C left to do their modern-day rendition of Paul Revere's midnight ride ("Yummy perishables are coming! Yummy perishables are coming!"), PJ continued to Wii, and Mom set out to boil two dozen eggs.

I actually remembered to use the method where you put the eggs in the pan first, cover them with cold water, bring the whole thing to a boil and then take the pan off of the heat, cover it and let the eggs sit (and cook in the hot water) for fifteen minutes. It's supposed to give you a less chewy egg, and I can report that the method works (Dad cracked one while we were coloring, so I sampled).

I spent the first minute of the fifteen minutes setting out items of egg decor. This year's egg theme (she says as if this was an every-year thing - truth be told, we get around to decorating eggs about as often as we carve pumpkins, or roughly every third year): insects. I purchased a kit from Target, and I found another kit in the craft closet.

Minutes two and three: I cut down some Solo cups (the ones that keep falling out of the sideboard every time I open the door - time to get rid of 'em) to a manageable height for egg dipping.

Twelve minutes remaining. Hmm - those e-mails were really annoying. And I have an extra Solo cup. Sugar-free margarita time!

Eleven minutes to go. Okay, I'll share some Easter decor photos with the blogosphere:

Egg coddler is one of a pair that my grandparents sent to me from England when I was a teenager.  Love them.  Never use them for egg coddling, though.

Did you spot two Peeps bunnies? Eleven months out of the year, they reside in my office - but, this month, they are chillaxing on the chiffonier.

The Telle Stein bunny bracket stays up year round. It used to be a different color - silver, I think? - but I whitewashed it right around the time that I whitewashed  most of the picture frames in the living room and dining room.

Here is an extreme close-up of another Telle Stein bunny (a big one - two-feet tall):

Another bunny that I own (next to a photo of my father-in-law as an Eagle Scout):

Still more bunnies that I own:

Okay, I'll stop - because eggs are done! And I actually remembered to cool them in a bowl of ice water. Wow, I'm two for two.

Connor (not shown, but also shirtless - didn't ask them to disrobe, but given the fact that dye was involved, didn't ask them to put shirts on, either) measured water into the dye cups, and Parker added vinegar to all of the cups but the pink ones (mental note: Google "why you aren't supposed to add vinegar to the pink dye pellet"; does it blow up, or turn a really grungy shade of greige?). He also added cooking oil (you're supposed to use canola, I think, but I grabbed the olive) to some of the dye cups, because I had read that you could create some interesting marble designs with the addition of some vegetable oil.

I didn't photograph the actual dying, because it got messy and a bit hectic. Dad joined us at that point and figured out the marbleizing thing when none of us could. Photos of his work product in a moment. After the eggs dried, we added wings, antennae, etc.:

Mom made these two kinda girly bugs:

This is a back view of Connor's sort-of dragonfly:

And this is a front view:

Connor also made a spider, complete with compound eyes and mouth parts (repurposed foam sticker antennae).

Parker and I made two sets of twin bugs (fraternal ones, since they are similar yet different).

We decided that Dad's marbled eggs, and some of the prettier speckled ones, didn't need adornment:

Here are some of Dad's best eggs hanging out with a couple of caterpillar dudes (or dudettes). The oil left a little sheen on them, so they photograph sort of glittery (bonus!).

After we took pics, we put the eggs away for future use (I'm making deviled egg potato salad for Easter dinner, so that will take care of several of them). Couldn't resist snapping one more shot of one of the little bug critters poking his head out of the carton.

Then the kids headed off to take baths, and after cleaning up the mess I fired up the computer . . . to resume work on a document for a cranky person. Hello, my name is Kathryn, and I am a codependent.

Guess family egg dying time did the trick, attitude adjustment-wise . . . .