Dying Easter Eggs

Our first attempt..until he touched the Cool Whip

I love when I have this wonderful image in my mind of an activity that Callen and I are going to do together. It's going to be fun, entertaining, and occupy at least an hour of the day. And then reality hits...Callen will have nothing to do with the activity, and I end up spending more time prepping and cleaning up than he spends in total playing. That was us with dying Easter eggs today! I knew Callen would be easily bored or make a complete mess with the traditional method of dropping the egg in colored water and waiting for it to be ready. I could see him tipping over the cups, dunking his hand in a bright blue color, or drinking the water. While reading different blogs, I saw several posts talking about using shaving cream or Cool Whip and food coloring to dye eggs. Simple technique...spread the shaving cream or Cool Whip in a glass or ceramic dish, drop a few drops of food coloring (2 colors is best), swirl the colors together, and then roll the eggs in them. You allow the eggs to sit for a while and then wipe off the exterior. Viola! Colored Easter eggs. 

I thought this would be great for Cal and me to attempt. I figured it would be a good interactive activity and allow Cal to actually color some of the eggs on his own. I opted for Cool Whip in case Cal decided to take it to the mouth. I had everything set up on the back deck and Aunt Kimber and Ella came by to help with the activity. We were ready to go...until the kiddos touched the Cool Whip! Instantly hands were jerked back and trying to shake off the Cool Whip that had made it on to the fingers. I tried to show Cal that you could eat the Cool Whip thinking he might touch it if he knew he could eat it. He didn't fall for that trick unlike Ella! She was all about eating the Cool Whip!

After handing Cal an egg and letting him play with it for a little while, he finally dipped it in the coloring mixture and swirled it around for a second. I feel lucky that he dyed ONE egg on his own. Ella and Kimber did a few, and I was left to finish the remainder of the 18 eggs I had hard boiled.

Taste testing the eggs before dying

Finally going in for the dip

The eggs after the dye

I put them in the fridge for about 4 hours before wiping clean. One thing I learned...wipe clean with a paper towel and not rinse with water! You are left with white eggs if you rinse with water!

The finished product!

Even though this activity did not go as I had thought it would, I still enjoyed it. I think it will be a fun technique to use in years to come for Cal as he can help choose the color combinations and help make the egg to look like he wants it to. For now, this was a good sensory experience for the kids and a reality check for mom that nothing goes as planned!!!

Books and Puzzles

We have read books to Callen since he was a teeny tiny baby. He would lie in our arms and we would read whatever kid book that was nearby. Neither Doug nor I are the best about reading...we read while traveling and that is about it. We both know the importance of reading and have really tried hard to instill the love of reading in Callen. Once Callen became mobile, his desire to sit in our arms and read quickly dwindled! We would pick out a book to read, he would sit still for about a page, and then off he went to play. However, over the last few weeks, Cal has taken a greater interest in books. He has a stack of about 7 that he loves. Most of the books are about trucks or animals, but one of his favorites is a book full of pictures of babies doing everyday activities (eating, sleeping, crawling, walking, etc.). He always asks for his 'kid' book, and will stand at his chaise lounge and flip through the pages for a good 5-10 minutes at a time (that seems like an eternity for this child!). Other favorites include Goodnight Moon (love looking for the mouse moving around on each page), My First Truck Board Book (he wants to know the name of each truck on each page), Fischer Price Little People Let's Go to the Zoo book about the zoo (he enjoys lifting all the flaps and making the sounds of each animal), and Little Blue Truck (he loves looking at the dump truck and making the sounds of the animals in this book too). We recently started naming all the 'kids' in his Little People book after the kids in his Kindermusik class. It is so cute to see him point to each kid after I ask who each one is. He loves his little friends! 

Cal will either stand at his chaise lounge and flip through the pages on his own, or curl up in your lap and read the books with you. I used to fear what I would find if I left Cal alone for a few minutes and did not hear the pitter patter of his feet. Now when I don't hear any noise, I go straight to his room to find him standing and reading.

Good snuggle time with Grandmom

Loved showing Nana and Oupa one of his favorite books

Not the chaise lounge, but it is a place to perch his book so he can read!

He has also taken an interest in puzzles. He is getting really good at them and can do a puzzle that is aged for 3+ with just a little bit of help. He cracks me up doing the puzzles...he knows where each piece goes, so he purposely puts the pieces in the wrong places and says 'nooooo' and moves it to another incorrect spot and says 'nooooo' before putting it into the correct place. Cal recently got this puzzle to try and advance his puzzle solving skills. He hasn't been able to take every piece out and put it back together yet, but he can take out 3-4 pieces and put those back in place. I have a feeling he'll be doing a 1000 piece puzzle with me at the beach this summer (one of my favorite traditions from family beach trips!)!!!!!

Cal uses the coffee table as his puzzle table!

Friday Fun

I am so sorry for the lack of blogging the last two weeks. Doug was out of town all last week, and Cal used that time to wake up every night and stay wide awake for a good 4 hours. He sleeps pretty well most of the time. However, when Doug has to be out of the country for a week, he chooses to party hard in the middle of the night! I spent nap times and any down times resting and catching up...or in preparation for what was to come the next night! This week has been spent enjoying the warmer weather and getting outside as much as possible. Also, Cal has decided that he no longer likes his 2-3 hour afternoon nap and would prefer to be up all afternoon. NG...no good...for this momma! I am sure it is a phase and he will be his old self soon, but it makes for a long day and one tired mom!

One of Cal's favorite things to do is to go on a laundry basket ride. We started carrying Cal in the laundry basket at an early age when we would go downstairs to the basement to do laundry. At first it was a simple ride in the clothes up or down the stairs, and then get tossed onto the bed. Next it became a ride around the living room before dumping him on the bed. It eventually evolved into just riding in the laundry basket through the kitchen and living rooms...over and over and over! Cal loves for Doug to race him around the rooms and have me jump out and scare him. While Cal should have been napping this afternoon, he ran into the kitchen and found the laundry basket that was waiting to go back to the basement. He carried the basket in to his room and climbed in it so I would take him on a ride. There is so much enjoyment on his face with each ride that we can't deny him this fun.

In this video, Doug is racing Callen around the front rooms and I am jumping out to scare him. Notice at the end that he is asking for 'more please' (this was already about the 20th time we had done this with him!). Doug was one tired daddy.

This is what you call one wild party at the Morris Household!