coloring easter eggs!

Happy Easter!i know that coloring Easter eggs has nothing to do with the TRUE meaning of Easter. but since it is not appropriate to take pictures at church i'm going to make this post about our more pagan traditions.

i was a little nervous as this was my first time coloring easter eggs without my mom. the whole time we were dying eggs i was telling james about how it has always been one of our favorite traditions to do together. i love the smell of the hard boiled eggs and the vinegar (as gross as james thought that was). i love the sound of the color tablets as they sizzle in the vinegar. (i got just as impatient about how long they were taking to dissolve as i did when i was seven years old.) i love the vibrant spring colors that the eggs turn when dipped in the little cups (my favorite color always has been and always will be the sea green color.)

the first step is to boil the eggs. (and i must say that i boiled them to perfection.. they were SO easy to peel!)

next, you must dip the hard boiled eggs in the colored vinegar water. i foolishly bought the cheapest food coloring set i could find so there were no cups included in the box! this threw me because my mom and i ALWAYS use the special food coloring cups. but i improvised.

then, it is very necessary to check the eggs periodically to make sure they are the color you want them to be. james and scott did a great job of checking the vibrancy of the eggs.
when they are the color you want them to be, you have to dry them in the special cardboard punch-out holes provided by the food coloring kit. (i have learned over my 27 years of easter egg coloring that you have to be careful not to let the eggs touch or your pink eggs have some green on them and your yellow eggs will have some orange on them... disasterous!)

and Voila! you have beautifully colored easter eggs! (though i was a bit distraught that our cheap-o coloring set didn't even come with stickers... but maybe next year we can splurge and get the $1.29 set.)

and to recap, the easter eggs BEFORE we colored them:!)

and the easter eggs AFTER we colored them:

scott BEFORE we colored the easter eggs:

and scott AFTER we colored the easter eggs:

oh, and does anyone have any suggestions for getting easter egg dye off of a counter?

this has nothing to do with the easter eggs but i wanted to attach this video for anyone interested. scott has been army crawling for a while now but i realized that his grandmas and our other family and friends not in iowa haven't seen him in action. and for any of you who know scott, you know that it is a BIG accomplishment for him to get that long and heavy body of his to move around.