In anticipation of Easter and our big Easter egg hunt on Saturday we dyed eggs today. Why I thought it was a good idea to give a not even 3 year old colors the entire point of which are permanence is beyond me. He's not even allowed markers and here I go giving him sloshy bins full of dye. Oh well, we had a good time.
Here he is nicely holding his egg on the holder.
Here is what generally happened. Fingers in the mix.
And here are the colored hands to prove it.
I'm not entirely sure why he's pretending to eat this egg.
He can't wait for Saturday and keeps talking about finding eggs. We dyed over a dozen and filled 3 dozen with candy today. Combine that with our friends and this hunt should be one major haul.
Ciaran is also anticipating Easter. He grew two teeth in the hope that he'd be able to eat some candy.
Last year Beckett and Anna took their mothers to a Maple Festival somewhere in the area. I'm not exactly sure where they went, because I was enlisted in teaching the Communications Merit Badge at a seminar. Lucky for me, this year's Maple Festival trip was scheduled for the week after my annual teaching sojourn.
But first, here's Ciaran looking super cute.
And back to the festival. This tiny little festival was like 80 miles away from our town, which ended up being about 40 miles further than it was worth. Fun, but, yea, a bit too far. Good maple syrup and good pancakes though.
Here's me and Beckett. I got a haircut last week. Beckett still needs one. Not to complain, but it was like freezing outside 3 days after it was 60 degrees. Bad timing Mother Nature! Weekends are supposed to be nice weather, not weekdays.
There was a horse cart that was giving rides around the fairgrounds of Dutchess County. Somehow we didn't get any pictures of the horses, but here's Beckett hanging off the back.
Prior to the cart ride we had crafts with the local girl scout troop. Beckett (i.e. Dawnell) made a soccer bracelet. Here Beckett and Anna are coloring and gluing on maple leafs.
This is a working sugar house where they make maple syrup. We got a nice tour. As you can see, Beckett was particularly intrigued by the rocks on the outside of the sugar house.
Or in honor of my brother-in-law St. Daddy's Day. Did we already miss St. Maren's day?
Beckett's best buddy invited him to decorate cookies for St. Patrick's Day. Chris tried to make a case for it being weird that non Irish people celebrate this holiday. I in turn pointed out that when you name a child CIARAN you can probably wear a green shirt and eat cookies with shamrock sprinkles without looking like too much of a poser.
This picture is so deceptive. It looks like he was trying to place the decorations on with such precision and care. Really it happened more like: Eat an m&m, grab a handful of sprinkles and eat them, lick the sprinkles out of the cracks between your fingers, shove your finger in frosting and lick it off, grab more sprinkles, lick your whole hand because it's wet from the prior snacking and all the sprinkles are sticking, cry for your hands to be washed, get them washed and dried, rinse, repeat.
The sticky paw ever ready to grab more sprinkles.
And the finished, completely kid decorated cookies.
Enjoying the fruits of your labors i.e. licking the sprinkles glued together with frosting off the top of the cookie. Yum!
Beckett was so involved he even sprinkled his hair. He was sporting a shamrock for a while but evidently it fell out between me grabbing the camera and snapping the pick of the sprinkle curls.
I realize portions of this video will look coached, because they are. I swear Beckett had been declaring vociferously on his own, "Sprinkles are my favorite!" And when I randomly said at one point just to mess with him, "Sprinkles are my favorite." He said, "Oh mommy, they're my favorite too." Then of course he wouldn't talk with the camera on.
