easter in an eggshell

The fun began on Saturday morning at a joint egg-hunt-themed birthday party for our little friends, Blake and Lola. The day was beautiful -- the first day since spring began to actually feel like it. All of our favorite people were there, so even though the actual egg hunt only lasted for about ten [glorious] seconds, we got to enjoy visiting and catching up with our friends in the sunshine, which was the best part.

Lola's cousin, Adam, drove up from Virginia with his family to attend the party, and he and Garrett hit it off immediately. They both claimed to be each other's "new best friend in the whole world!" Their fun continued the next day in the same Primary class at church, and both were pretty devastated when Adam had to head back home. But never fear -- Garrett has already struck up a long-distance friendship by way of a letter he has already sent off to his new best friend.

In the afternoon, we colored eggs (an activity which unfortunately was not documented in photographs). This entailed a few experiments, first with the hard-cooking of the eggs, and then with the coloring of them.

You may have seen the idea springing up here and there around the internet to hard cook eggs using muffin tins in the oven. I was skeptical that it would work until my mom wrote to tell me that she'd tried and, well, let's just say she no longer sees a need to boil eggs ever again. So, with an egg in each cup of a muffin tin, we, too, cooked ours in a 325 degree oven for 30 minutes and voila!

As for coloring them, I'd read about an idea that called for Kool-Aid to dye them. I thought, "Well, that sounds fun. And easy." Not so, my friends. At least in Brooklyn, where it is surprisingly difficult to find packets of Kool-Aid on grocery store shelves. I thought maybe, what with its reputable staining properties, Jell-O would work as a substitute for the colors I couldn't find in Kool-Aid, but no, the dyes in the Jell-O wouldn't adhere. So we dyed some eggs in Kool-Aid and water and the rest in vinegar and food coloring.

On Sunday morning, mostly thanks to a few packages from grandmas, the boys woke up to a visit from the Easter/Wiester Bunny. Included in their baskets were matching Easter outfits that they wore to church.

At church I had to speak in Sacrament Meeting on, of all appropriate topics, the Atonement. I think it went well, and I was told by a few people that it went well, but I'm still relieved it's over. Also, Garrett and Caleb sang a special musical number with the Primary, which was adorable (but please know that by "sang," what I actually mean is they "just stood there and smiled.")

Back at home, we hid candy-filled plastic eggs around the living room for the boys to find. They had a blast, and, even with their sharp eyes, were stumped by a handful at the end.

Easter dinner was divine, if I may say so. On the menu was a slow cooked ham with pineapple (my first ham!), funeral potatoes, broccoli salad, and dinner rolls, with a layered carrot cake for dessert. It was a real effort to put together, but worth every savory bite. To provide me with motivation to prepare something more than Easter egg salad, we invited the missionaries over, and at the last minute, when we learned she had no other plans, we also invited our local substitute grandma, Sister Dorsky. The food was delicious and the company entertaining.

Once the kitchen was cleaned up and the boys were in bed, I plopped onto the couch (and deservedly so) to watch the season two opener of Call the Midwife. Is anyone else out there watching it? Because you really should. PBS, folks. It's where it's at.

And now we're winding down. Garrett goes back to school, after a week-and-a-half-long Spring Break (more of which I'll write about later), and the Easter chocolate has mostly been consumed. Today we finished up with a simple sewing lesson by making caterpillars out our leftover plastic eggs.

And that was our Easter (in what turned out to be a not-so-tiny eggshell).