At the first mention of decorating Easter eggs, Jonah became obsessed. But first he had to wait for us to buy the eggs. Then we had to boil them. Then they had to cool. Then we had to dye and/or crayon some before painting them. Then they had to dry.

He nearly died of apoplexy.

Of the ones we dyed, several came out so perfectly I couldn’t bear to let the boys come anywhere near them with paintbrushes (that’s the Easter spirit, right?).

 And the ones I did the crayon wax-resist technique with came out okay. It worked best when I first colored on a white egg with a white crayon, then dyed the egg one color. When I tried dyeing the egg, then coloring, then re-dyeing a different color, the results were not as good. 

Then the boys finally got their hands on several eggs to paint. But their painting technique these days is to mix all the paint colors together, then apply. Making for muddy gray and brown eggs... so festive! The best results came from a restricted palette – but even that didn’t prevent most getting cracked and dropped and terribly abused in general. 

Yes, yes. Lots of egg salad!