Easter Sunday Afternoon

After church on Resurrection Sunday we all went over to my parent's house for the afternoon. We cooked out and the kids hunted Easter eggs. Everyone had such a good time. We visited and relaxed and played in the sunshine. It was a such a pleasant way to spend the day.

Last year for their Easter Baskets I really knocked myself out making a couple of handmade toys for each of my children. They loved finding their surprises in their baskets when they woke up on Easter. But I had worked so late into the night for the week leading up to that Sunday that I was exhausted by the time the big morning came around. That afternoon, as soon as church was over, food eaten and the kids hunted eggs, I slept the rest of the day. I regretted sleeping though it later while everyone else was visiting, but I was just too tired. {Being in the first trimester of pregnancy didn't help!}  

So this year, I decided to give myself a break. And you know what? It was just fine! I bought each of the kids a chocolate bunny, and I picked up a couple of slinkies for the  Claire and Emmett and a pair of nice yo-yos for Matthew and Ethan. Violet was too little this year to care about toys or sweets and Logan only wanted the chocolate~ thank you very much! The kids were thrilled when they woke up to find their chocolate bunnies and their toys. 

When my big boys were very little I would buy them those cheap-o kind of toys like you see stuffed into the pre-made Easter baskets at the grocery stores. The toys would break within a day or so and then the garbage would litter their bedroom floors until I threw it all away. I didn't really know any better. Eventually it dawned on me that those kinds of "toys" weren't really good for anyone. They weren't entertaining, or educational, or even pretty, really. Basically they were a total waste of money, I was buying the exact same little toys every single year, only to have them break long before the next year rolled around.  So I started making them toys and little games. I had fun making them, and they really seemed to enjoy playing with them. Plus they usually lasted much longer than 24 hours!

But here is the thing with having a big family and making or buying well made toys, those toys actually last. And that becomes a problem because you really don't need 4 or 5 much less 20 copies of each toy (one for each kid each year!) For example last year I made Claire a little memory game with sweet Springtime motifs painted on wooden disks. Well, all of the children played (still play) with that game. I sewed a little cotton drawstring bag  to store the pieces in, and now we have a fun memory game and honestly we don't need another. Just yesterday the little ones were playing with the set of wooden sorting toys I made for Claire when she was about 18 months old. So while I haven't run out of ideas for fun new toys I want to make for my kids, I have decided to limit the number of things available for them to play with at a time. They all seem so much happier and more easily entertained when they have a few well sorted toys to choose from, rather than a million different things with missing or mixed up pieces.

So while the above reason was a big deciding factor in not over-stressing myself to make a bunch of new things this year for their baskets. Another was during the month of April we had family come in from Guatemala to stay with us. So there was the 'pre-visitors cleaning of the whole house' and then the 'we have visitors lets do stuff to entertain them' that took up most of our month once they arrived. But most importantly is that chocolate bunnies and toys have nothing to do with the reason we celebrate Resurrection Sunday! I want to be sure they understand the real reason we choose to celebrate this day. 

That reason is the most important of all. This is the day we chose to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from death. His crucifixion, death and resurrection was specifically so that each one of us could receive forgiveness from our sins and be able to have a real relationship with with Him as our Lord and Savior. That is a wonderful thing to celebrate and it should never take second place to Easter Eggs or Chocolate bunnies!

At the same time I really enjoy the sweet little traditions our family has of dyeing eggs, and having egg hunts, and finding an Easter basket with treats waiting on Easter morning when they wake up. Those are fun things, and memories I cherish from my own childhood, and things I want to pass on to my children. But as I said, I am very happy that I decided not to go "over the top" with candy, or toys this year! 

P.S. Violet's dress is the one that Grandma made for Claire for her first Easter. You can see pictures of Claire's first Easter here.

Cora goes egg hunting

This is Cora. She is a sweet little Waldorf inspired doll that I have had in my mind to make for more than a year! She turned out even more adorable than I imagined. After I finished her little cape she wanted to go outside to play in the warm spring sunshine. And when I showed her the tiny bunny bonnet that I had made her as well, she insisted that it was time to hunt Easter eggs! 

Cora took me a while to make because the pattern I was designing for her body seemed quite fiddly at first. I just couldn't get everything to come out like I envisioned it. Finally last week, I had one of those wonderful moments of perfect clarity when everything just fell into place, and there she sat on my sewing table being practically perfect as Mary Poppins would say. 

Cora stands just shy of seven inches tall (about 17 cm.). She is entirely handmade by me. Her hair is super soft brushed mohair with two tiny braids. Her body is of 100% cotton calico and her skin is of high quality 100% cotton jersey. Her lovely cape is made of !00% cotton pale pink Dotted Swiss, and her bunny bonnet is made of a high quality wool blend. She is stuffed with clean carded sheep's wool. She comes with her little basket and two tiny wooden eggs, hand painted by yours truly. And of course her cape and bunny bonnet will accompany her to her new home as well!

Now for the exciting, nerve-wracking part...I am listing her for sale in my brand new Etsy shop! Well the shop itself isn't brand new. I created it a couple of years ago, I just never got around to filling it. At the moment Cora is the only listing, but hopefully more will come soon! If you would like to read a bit more about Cora please GO VISIT HER (and me!) on Etsy. I still have to add a banner and do a bit of tweaking in my shop, but I thought if I waited until I got everything was just perfect I might just never list her! And I needed to do that before I got cold feet! 

Linking up with Skip to my Lou.

Botanical Eggs, Etched Eggs, and Toddler Eggs!

Naturally Dyed Botanical Eggs: A tutorial of sorts. To make these pretty eggs we used yellow onion skins for the red-brown eggs and purple cabbage for the lovely blue ones. We went out to the garden and gathered lots of pretty little leaves, flowers and seed heads. 

A few more things you'll need to have on hand: Raw eggs (we used white eggs, I've heard that they turn out pretty using brown ones too, but this is what we had on hand) Rubber bands, scissors, and pantyhose.

 Wet the (raw) egg with a bit of water and place the botanical pieces face down where we want them. The water helps the leaves and flowers hold still while we tie everything up with a square of pantyhose.

 Wrap the square of pantyhose tightly around the egg and greenery and fasten with a rubber band.

 Eggs all wrapped up and ready to be boiled with dyestuff.

For the red brown colored eggs we placed them on a bed of onion skins with 2 tablespoons of vinegar and enough water to cover everything. We brought it to a slow boil and let them cook gently for about 15 minutes (turn it down a bit so the eggs don't rock around too much while cooking and crack!) After 15 minutes turned off the heat and let them sit in the dye bath for another 15 minutes or so. Rinsed with cool water and cut off the rubber band. Removed the pantyhose and the greenery and admired our beautiful eggs! 

For the blue eggs I chopped up and boiled a half of a head of purple cabbage with a couple of tablespoons of vinegar for 30 minutes. (I read online that if you boil the eggs with the cabbage leaves they can turn out splotchy... don't know if that is true, but we didn't want to chance it.) After it boiled I strained the leaves out and returned the purple juice to the pot and let it cool before adding our prepared eggs. After the eggs where in the pot we brought it to a slow boil and cooked the eggs for 15 minutes. Turned the heat off and let the eggs sit in the dye bath for at least 15 minutes more. Carefully removed the rubber bands, pantyhose and leaves/flowers/seed heads, rinsed and admired our pretty blue Easter Eggs!

The following are Etched Easter Eggs! Not something to attempt with small children as it involved scratching the designs on the dyed egg with a razor blade! A nap time endeavor for sure!

First we just dyed our eggs (blown eggs) using regular egg dye (food coloring) Then the boys and I drew designs on the eggs in pencil (Draw lightly, so you don't crack the egg and any lines left after etching can be erased.)

Once a design has been decided on and drawn you can begin etching. We used box cutters which have nice short sharp blades and sturdy handles.

 Matthew's etched egg designs: Mama bird and her chicks, and a fairy.

Logan made geometric designs.

Ethan says his red egg's design is a flower, abstract I think :-)
I made the yellow dandelion egg and the aqua blue one on the top left with the flowers etched on it. These eggs were inspired by this artist on etsy. Hers are real works of art!! We had fun trying this out, but I think it will be a few years before we reach her level of expertise! ha!

And before nap time we let Claire dye her Easter eggs! This year was the first time she got to join in the fun. I hard boiled 6 eggs just for her and gave her only 3 colors of dye. I thought it best to limit her choices, to make everything go more smoothly.

Only one egg was broken beyond usability. The other 5 she decorated with stickers and declared them beautiful!

As soon as she finished dyeing her eggs I laid her down for her nap. The minute she woke up she wanted to see her eggs again.  I took them out of the refrigerator and she carried them over to her baby brother so he could see her pretty eggs!

She showed him the eggs, explaining about each one, and all of the stickers... He thought they were pretty too. I know this because Claire told me "See Mommy? Emmett like them, my eggs. He says they're pretty, Mommy!"

Snapshots of our Easter Week

The eggs we dyed this year. We made stickers from low-tack painters tape and craft paper punches. 

Then we dyed the eggs with the stickers on.

 Once the eggs were dry we carefully peeled the stickers off and revealed the pretty eggs!

 Hunting eggs at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Sunday afternoon.

 Claire enjoyed her first egg hunt.

We made it challenging for the big boys! 

 She soon discovered that the reason some of the eggs rattled was because they were filled with CANDY! A very rare treat for my children!