If she had the proper words to say,

Jack's ready to dye eggs.

And so, it has happened. A.J. is now "too old" for many things, and one of them is dyeing Easter eggs. Even with both me and Jack pleading, we couldn't convince him to join us for the color-explosion. :-(

And what COLORS they were! See, Philip and I had looked for egg dyeing kits in the BX and commissary for a week or so, but we hadn't found anything. The next time we headed into town, we picked up a simple PAAS kit for a buck or so, thinking we were set.

On the day of coloring, Jack covered the table in a leftover yellow vinyl my neighbor had given me for just that purpose. He grabbed two undershirts from Philip's drawers, and he donned his. I read the instructions on the back of the kit and carefully measured the correct amount of vinegar into each of our twelve glasses. Both boys carried the glasses to the table, and then I opened the box to give them the tablets.

Only to find the kit completely EMPTY inside. No stickers, no egg holder tool, no dyeing tablets - nothing! Oh noes!

(This is where A.J. lost interest, I should add, then citing that he was "too old." Stupid egg kit, you cost me a memory!)

I had Philip pull the tub of Easter decorations from the shed to see if there were any old kits in there. He "didn't see any."** He looked up the BX and called before heading out, just to ask if they had any kits in stock then. They didn't. While he was doing this, I was frantically searching online to see what I could use for makeshift dyes. I only had a tiny amount of both yellow and blue food coloring - not enough to really make anything.

Every website I could find mentioned regular food coloring. Didn't they understand that not only did I not have the four traditional colors, but that I didn't even have enough?! I wasn't having any luck trying to find a method using gel decorating colors (of which I had nine colors in my baking supplies), but I decided to wing it. I individually boiled a cup of water for each color, and then Jack stirred in the gel coloring until it dissolved/melted. Then we poured the new dye into the measured vinegar and crossed our fingers...

I had ten colors of gel, but I refused to make black. I also didn't make red because I didn't want to open it just for the eggs. The yellow and the orange didn't dissolve well, so we had more of a peach, and we added the yellow (which was basically clear) to some leftover 'rose pink.' Once Jack added the eggs into each glass, the liquid was too high, so I carefully spooned out some dye into a clean, large glass. He chose to then use the "mixture glass," and it produced his favorite eggs!

( More pictures. )


All of Jack's eggs.

---

** Later that night, when Philip and I fully opened the tub of decorations from the shed to get all the plastic eggs out for filling, I found THREE unopened PAAS kits in it. Three! Twenty-seven little dye tablets in all! *facepalm*

Jack wrote the sweetest letter ever to his dear friend Natalie in Nebraska. I waited a few extra days before sharing it to make sure that she'd receive it in the mail first. (Sometimes her mama reads my blog.)

Hey Natile,

What's going on at your house? How's it been in Nebraska lately? Just a couple days ago I got the new game HeartGold. A.J. got SoulSilver. How was your Birthday? My teacher's name is Mrs. Conklin. My new house is great. How's Andrew doing. I heard what happened to Lilly. Hows Bob and Trixie? Hope to hear back from you. Have a good easter. I miss you so much.

Your friend,
Jackson

** Clarifications: Her dog, Lily, passed away this winter, and (Silent) Bob and Trixie are their kitties. Andrew is her brother. Also, HeartGold and SoulSilver are brand-new Pokemon DS games.

Edited to add: I'm not crazy how my tabbing makes everything suddenly ALLCAPS!-y. I know it doesn't show from others' friends' pages, but still. Full CAPSLOCK always looks raging and intense if not intended for a joke. FAIL. (<-- ha, see what I did there?!)

The Refrigerator Rolls are doing the second rise, and I'm very pleased with them so far. The recipe was to make 50 2.5" rolls, and I used the very closest round cutter I had (I figured the shamrocks would be much too difficult for rolls!), and I cut 49. I figure I must have done several things correctly to be at nearly the same point as the author.

(Please forgive me, I still consider myself to be a newbie when it comes to making breads from scratch. Beyond my cinnamon rolls, which I only began making about a year and a half ago, I don't make yeast breads from scratch, really. I'm hoping to change that, though, as I get better at doing it.)

** insert the National Anthem over the base's loud speakers **

Which reminds me, this is the first base we've lived on that plays the anthem base-wide at 5:00pm instead of 4:30. I wonder why that is? I've always thought 5:00 was the "correct" time (it's when we took our flags down when we had a large outside flag), but the anthem played a half hour earlier.

It's sad, really, that I don't even know if we have a flag insert on this house. What with it being so cold and snowy since the moment we arrived, I'd not even thought to look! Today, my neighbor brought a piece of my mail to the door, and while we were chatting, a large squirrel scuttled out of a massive hole in my would-be flowerbed. I'd not known the hole was there, as it's only *just* become unearthed from the snow! I do fear that this yard (and all those on this street, sadly) is not good-looking under this snow. We'll have to really work to turn it around again. For once, I was hoping not to have to resurrect a yard from the dead - hehe!

Jack's been jogging around the house for the past two days now. The new Pokemon games that he and A.J. bought on Sunday came with little Pokemon pedometers. The more steps they accrue on their "Poke-walkers," the more experience points they can add to their games. It's a clever marketing ploy, I must admit, for the game-makers to also get the kids to exercise. So Jack runs laps around the house - he did it last night for a full hour, and I finally made him stop. Today, as soon as he arrived home from school, he finished his homework sheet, then changed into a t-shirt and went jogging around the block for half an hour or so. That's dedication!

I got the decorative shelves in the hallway arranged with pretties last night, and I was really tickled at how they turned out. I wanted a special, safe place to shine some of my favorite pictures. I have my godson, Douglas, in one frame, and then special frames as well for Heather's Catherine and John. I also have the framed portrait of our entire family with Heather and Shane at her graduation - it's close to six years outdated, but I just love it so much, and I can't replace the picture inside with a newer one. I also tossed a few baskets up there, as well as our special seashells from the beach this summer, and I felt creative in displaying Catherine's picture, in particular.

And then, just now, Jack and I were in the living room, trying on tennies and making sure to have he's got the appropriate fit for tomorrow. As he was tying his laces, he said, "I saw all the pictures on the shelf this morning."

"Oh, really?" I asked. "Did you notice them on your way down the stairs then?"

"Yup," he answered, and then his voice softened and became quieter. "But they made me kinda sad, Mom."

"Why is that, honey?" I asked quietly, too.

"'Cuz it makes me miss 'em even more," and tears were in his eyes.

My sweetheart Jack. I love the way he gives a piece of his heart to everyone he loves. Sometimes, though, his little broken heart hurts too much. This was one of those times, and we hugged for a bit and shared a few tears over missing our loved friends. :-(

There's a particular holiday kid craft that it seems everyone has made at some point in time or another. You alternate red and white-colored beads on a pipe cleaner to make a candy cane Christmas tree ornament. A.J. has made a few in preschool and Sunday school, and Jack has made some as well. This year, however, he made his stand out a bit more...

Jack: Look, Mama! Here's the ornament I made for our kids' tree in preschool yesterday!
Me: It looks great, bud! Good job!
Jack: And see, if you look closer, I put on one ORANGE bead at the very end. I like it that way, but it doesn't look silly! Do you think it looks silly, Mama?
Me: No, Jack. Actually, I think it looks just - like - you!
Jack: ME? I don't have an orange BEAD at the end!

But it's a rusty sort of orange color, and you do have to look closely to see it next to the red pipe cleaner. Still, each year when we find this ornament, we'll know exactly who made it among the many bead candy canes. :-)