13/52 (A Weekly Photo Series)

I invited Andi's parents over to color Easter eggs with us last Thursday afternoon. I supplied the hard-boiled eggs and Easter egg coloring supplies, and Janie brought over dinner for all of us to eat afterwards. Bless her! It's become a tradition to color eggs with Andi's parents a few days before Easter, and I'm happy we were able to do it again this year.

We used a few different methods to color our Easter eggs this year. First, I set up a station for volcano eggs which are truly my favorite way to dye Easter eggs. Tory didn't remember doing volcano eggs last year, so she was equally amazed and surprised as she watched them erupt. In fact, the bubbling startled her enough the first time that she actually scampered half-way across the kitchen table to get away from it. Once she figured out the "explosion" wouldn't boil over more than the glass, she was really into it.

To make volcano eggs, I mixed about 1 tbsp. of baking soda with a few drop of water and 1-2 drops of food coloring, then let Tory "paint" the hard-boiled eggs with the baking soda mixture. Painting them simply acts as a fun way to get the baking soda mixture onto the eggs. It kept Tory entertained for about 20 minutes' time, and is a lot more interactive and instantaneous than the traditional method of dying Easter eggs. Once all the eggs were painted, we placed one egg at a time in an empty cup, poured white distilled vinegar on top of it and watched it bubble over. So neat!

After "erupting" with vinegar, the volcano eggs took on various shades of tie-dye - blues, reds and greens. 

I also picked up a couple packets of Kool-Aid to try coloring Easter eggs with this method. I mixed one packet of Kool-Aid with 2/3 cup of water and let Tory dunk one egg into each color cup. I have to say, I wasn't as big of a fan of this method because I was deathly afraid of the Kool-Aid spilling and staining everything. The egg colors were really bright though, and smelled great.    

We also colored eggs with regular egg dye -- those little tablets you dissolve in water. After the colored eggs were dry, Tory decorated them with stickers. 

Aden watched Tory color the eggs nearby with Grandpa. Next year you can help too, Aden Bear! This year, I wouldn't have trusted him for a second with a hard-boiled egg. He throws everything, especially items that resemble balls.

Andi came home from work a bit later and helped Tory finish coloring the eggs. She asked to do more volcano eggs so that's what they did. 

It was a fun pre-Easter celebration!

(And now I have three dozen hard-boiled eggs to eat up this week - gulp!)