Dye job

I don't know how we've skipped this tradition all these years, but this weekend marked our first attempt at dying hard-boiled eggs. At least the dye part worked. We discovered Sunday when we tried peeling one that the "fool proof" instructions for cooking the eggs that I'd found online, really weren't fool proof.

Sydney had a short attention span for dying eggs. What she found fascinating, however, was mixing the vinegar with the dye tablets to see what color they'd become.

AJ couldn't stop with merely dying the eggs. He had to experiment with the wax marker...

And the stickers that came in the kit.

One last step in the preparations for the Easter Bunny: preparing a plate of goodies and a note. We had a small skirmish in the kitchen as AJ and Sydney fought over who could bring the carrots from the refrigerator to the table. I suggested they use teamwork - Sydney could carry the bag and AJ could actually put the carrots on the plate. That worked, and they quickly moved on to finding other veggies to set out as well.

AJ added a short note, "To Easter Bunny", and taped it to the plate. He then added his extra special touch. (Note the gift in his Easter basket.) He'd colored a picture of an Easter egg earlier in the day, rolled it up and had me help put a rubber band around it. He then wrapped a another piece of paper around that, stapled it at least a dozen times, found a leftover Christmas gift tag and stapled that, too.

You'd think the sugar rush had already set in as these two finally went to bed. Sydney was a mix of excitement and fear. After talking big all day Friday and early Saturday that she was no longer afraid of the Easter Bunny, she only needed one look at the big furry guy walking around at the Easter egg hunt earlier in the day to have to admit she still wanted nothing to do with him. But then we saw the movie Hop, which featured an adorable, little Easter Bunny who wasn't nearly so scary. So the thought that one of those two creatures was coming into her house while she slept was just a bit overwhelming.

AJ was happy to play brave older brother (Surely the Easter Bunny would appreciate his good deed. It works with Santa.) and let Sydney snuggle with him as they at last fell asleep.