Easter Sunday at the Farm 2011

Tessa ogling the peep cake, long before it was time to eat it.

We took our silk dyed eggs. They were complimented and then enjoyed.

Why the coon-skin hats? Mom had just been to Conner Prairie with her class, so she outfitted all the boys. Charley wore his most of the day.

Tessa's doing a ballet posed in the front in case you're wondering. And even though about half of them aren't looking...this is still a pretty good picture of the crew!

The menfolk did their job and hid eggs, then the kids hunted them!

This is a great picture of Tessa's Easter dress.

Somehow the kids all ended up on the pontoon to blow bubbles.

Jessie taught Charley how to sneak up on someone and scare them. His new favorite game!

Tessa decided that Mamaw's Easter basket made a better hat.

Just some spring scenery on the farm

Jessie Was Here

Jeremy's sister (and blog regular) Jessie decided to join us for a long Easter weekend. She was here for Easter last year as well and I think it was Mamaw's ham and German potato salad that may have enticed her to return.

While Jessie was here, we:
-- Ate alot of food
-- Shopped for a birthday present for Tessa (who settled on a Cinderella carriage)
-- Went to water aerobics at the gym
-- Ate brunch at Sophia's and headed to the children's museum
-- Shopped at Goodwill and made silk eggs!
-- Made mozzarella cheese
-- Played Rockband
-- Put Jessie in charge of getting the kids to church on time, since we were singing at the Easter service and had to be there way early. She did fine!
-- Went down to the farm and spent all of Easter Sunday eating, egg hunting, playing and snuggling kids.
--Played and played

Do I have pictures of all of these things? Um, no. I'm often neglectful with my camera when we're doing fun things with company. But I do have pics from the museum! And of course a whole gaggle of farm pictures from Mom that I will post later.

Enjoy!

These are made out of jelly beans. How cool is that??

Jessie has a new name. Charley called her Annie (for Aunty) and sometimes couldn't remember so just pointed and said 'dat one!'. And sometimes the two blended together. Annie Dat One!!

How to Make the Perfect Easter Egg

Step 1- Go to Goodwill and buy a bunch of crazy ties. They HAVE to be silk. They only cost $1.50 each.

Step 2- Don't forget to fly Aunt Jessie in just for the occasion....or for any other reason. Beg her to move to Indianapolis, then cut the cotton backing off the ties so you are left with swatches of the silk pattern.

Step 3- Let your little assistant wrap some plastic eggs because this project is not otherwise very kid friendly.

Step 4- Wrap the eggs TIGHTLY in the pieces of patterned silk, tie like candy. To keep from bleeding too much, then wrap them in pieces of white cloth. We used a t-shirt, also purchased at Goodwill.

Step 5- Hard boil the wrapped eggs in water and vinegar. We decided to do more vinegar than our instructions said, 1/2 cup total.

Step 6- Let them cool while chomping at the bit to check them out

Step 7- OOOOH and AHHHH at your beautiful creation. In the boiling process the silk tie pattern transfers to the eggs. Cool cool cool!

Step 8- To make them extra shiny, rub with a dab of oil.

Bonus step- Try doing the same thing with blown eggs. For whatever reason it doesn't work. But, you do end up with pictures like this....

Step 10- Take them to your family's Easter celebration and let everybody OOOOOH and AHHHH over them. Then remind them that despite their beauty, they are meant to be eaten!