Preparing For Easter - Part 1

Easter is almost here, and with it come feelings of spring and the joy and victory of Easter Sunday! 
This will be the first Easter the family will be home for in quite a while, and we're really getting into it! 

Abigail insisted that we make egg trees (something Melissa hasn't done since the kids were small), so out we went one early Saturday morning to gather blueberry branches...

It was still pretty chilly outside with a blanket of snow on the ground, so I bundled up in my favorite gloves and a shawl my great-grandmother knit. 

Quinn said I looked liked Tasha Tudor!

 (which I guess makes Quinn 

my faithful corgi, right?) 

If we looked closely, we could see that there were dew drops frozen to the bright red blueberry branches. 

Bright pink buds were on every bush, and with some luck they'll bloom inside for us very soon...

After filling the trug, 

it was time to go home.

Now came the hard part:

Blowing out all the eggs!

Abigail was sick, and Melissa was busy in the kitchen (preparing a wonderful lasagna dinner for us!), so the task of blowing out and cleaning all the eggs for decorating fell to Quinn and I. The task took us nearly two and a half hours! But that might have been because we got five dozen eggs...we wanted to be able to decorate a lot!

While we blew out egg after egg (Quinn remarked that he wouldn't eat eggs for a month!), snow fell quietly outside but was soon replaced by sunshine.

Cedar sat happily out on the porch, watching the last few snowflakes fall in the bright sunlight.

Once all the eggs were done (two and half hours later...), it was time to take a break and eat some dinner!

But dinner didn't last long, and soon we were all ready and excited to start painting and dyeing our eggs!

It had gotten dark outside, but we all happily worked and worked on our mini creations!

 Here are a few of my eggs, dyed and painted waiting to dry. I hadn't dyed eggs in years, and I'd never thought of painting them. Considering this I am very happy with how they turned out! 


But mine were nothing compared to Melissa's...

Yes, that's a teeny-tiny bird's nest on an egg!

Melissa laughed as she counted my eggs...I had painted 23 eggs in one evening and she had only painted 2.

I think you can agree with me however that her's were a bit more complex then mine.

She has promised that she'll be painting more eggs throughout the week, so we look forward to seeing her other creations!

When we finally stopped for the evening, it was after midnight! Oops! I guess the time really does fly when you're having fun.

 To read part 2 of this adventure,
click here!