Easter egg dyeing with Leo

Leo is old enough this year to really enjoy some of the Easter traditions like egg dyeing and hunting. So he was thrilled when we went to the market to get the egg coloring supplies. Beets and blueberries and tumeric, I told him. I fully intended for us to make our own natural dyes this year. But with beets in my cart and two kids already starting to fuss a little bit, I panicked and grabbed the last packet of natural dye from the shelf. I told myself that we would still make the dye from scratch if we had time, but I knew that we probably wouldn't, and that was okay. I am learning that with two littles, sometimes you have to take short cuts and postpone the big projects for another time.

Leo didn't even seem to notice that the plan had changed. He was perfectly happy when I set the 4 plastic cups of colored water in front of him and he didn't even complain about wearing a smock. He enjoyed drawing on the eggs with crayons before dunking them into the colors, and he thought that the ones with his name and Everly's name were "cool." He also wanted to sample one of the eggs right away after dyeing, and looked a little disappointed that it tasted like a normal hard-boiled egg.

We used brown eggs from Vital Farms because we like the taste of them and I knew we would be eating them. I didn't think about what brown eggs would look like dyed, but I think the colors actually turned out beautifully, especially the saffron orange, the lavender, and the violet ones. Leo double-dunked some of the eggs, in two different colors, so I think that made for some of the darker, deeper shades. We also stickered the eggs after dyeing them.

Evie slept through the entire project, which actually gave Leo and I some nice quality time together. Maybe next year she'll be up for it. And maybe I'll be up for making homemade dye!