Easter Egg Decorating

Hard boiled egg decorating is extremely popular here in Germany for Easter and luckily they are also a very popular snack!

I bought two kits from the many available and we might be trying them later today depending on how things go in the kitchen (we are doing biergarten picnics with friends Friday and Sunday (at a minimum) and I am cooking zucchini slice, meatloaf, tomato bruschetta, potato tortilla and cakes to take along as well as fresh salad ingredients!).

One of the kits has egg colours and then a “magic pen” to draw on the eggs with and the other kit also has egg colours with silver paper that you rub on afterwards for a glitter effect. I was also tempted by the marbling kit and the wax decorating kit, but really not sure how many boiled eggs we can get through! Miss Seven is very keen to decorate but doesn´t want to eat them…

The other option would be blowing the raw egg out and decorating the hollow shell for decorations to hang on branches, however I don´t think I have time for this today – next year I will try and start earlier .

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They turned out just like the picture on the box . The kids really enjoyed doing the dyeing and rubbing of the silver paper and we will take these eggs to our picnic tomorrow. The “magic pen” eggs we will do on Saturday for Sunday´s picnic. Eight eggs here, though I boiled ten – one broke in the pan and the other we ate after dyeing to check that they were cooked properly

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I forgot to mention a recollection I had. As a child we always spent Easter with my Polish grandparents and after collecting brown onion skins all year long, my grandmother would boil eggs in brown onion skin water to make lovely brown coloured eggs.

Then the more patient of us would sit at the table with sharp knives and painstakingly scratch designs into the brown to reveal a hint of white underneath – usually sheaves of wheat for some reason – though we would also draw flowers, lambs and write Easter messages.

I didn´t know until I did some research today that they are called Drapanki. This photo here shows the kind of effect you get more clearly. I will try this with my children in the future when they are old enough to handle sharp knives

Filed under: Easter, Things the children and I have done

Hama Bead Fun

This morning we hit the shops early to buy some particular craft materials I had been promising my daughter for a while (my son wanted and received a different “holiday” gift) Hama beads are a Danish toy that is very popular in the kindergartens here – the Midi beads are great for dexerity and hand-eye coordination.

After the little beads are placed on a form or you make a pattern of your own on a square block, the beads are ironed under non stick paper and permanently fused together. They are great for just playing with, giving to people as gifts, making a mobile from (as my daughter wants to do with her new horse set) or even using as a coaster, which I decided we could do with the square one my son made today. On the square form you can do anything that fits- make letters and other shapes and pictures – depending on your imagination!

Up until today, we only had a dolphin form at home and a rapidly diminishing tub of beads as she has made many many dolphins over the last year. Today we bought a horse mobile kit and many more beads.

The beads last a LONG time and the trick is not to spill the tub of course….oh dear if that happens! (and has….)

Filed under: Things the children and I have done

Niggling Things

Thinking of the future, as well as finishing off my old list, there are some more niggly things that I need to do:

1. Get the light on my bicycle fixed so I can cycle at night again.
2. Look at what I can do about rust patches that have appeared on my nearly new (but kept outdoors) bicycle.
3. Find somewhere else to put the CDs…..as I wrote that I decided to move them off the china cabinet to the top of the DVD cupboard- much more appropriate as I would like the top of the cabinet to be for family photos. done 5 March
4. Clean a sticker off a window in the living room my son put there. done March 19
5. Sort out all the small bits of playmobil from my son´s room and put everything that is not pirate related away, as it is extra clutter he does not play with. done March 15
6. My daughter is not tidy and there is too much in her room to encourage this. I think I can help her be organised by removing some things from her room. My little pony things and excess drawing materials spring to mind. done March 15
7. Take all the photos out of the drawer where they are dumped and store them more neatly. Dream one day of actually filing them or putting in albums…. I stored these in a plastic tub for the time being. I have the drawer space back now for baby things. Done March 16

There are other things that are niggling me too, but they involve spending money (carpets, curtains, blinds) and at the moment I just don´t have any to spend, so everything I will do above (except maybe fixing the bike light) will be free!

Filed under: Home Matters, Media storage, Things the children and I have done

Quiet Saturday at Home…

I sent the family to a play center and cleaned the fridge, microwave, window sills and mopped the kitchen floor- all the things that upset me on Thursday. I do feel somewhat better…

I have a few more home maintenance things to attend to now and then a hot bath to change out of my dirty pajamas into clean ones! I am probably not getting out of them this weekend.

Its school holidays next week for my kids (for one week) so I have then at home the next nine days and have to think of things to do with them (will get them involved in decluttering!). We will go to the movies on Monday or Tuesday and see the new German kid´s movie Hexe Lilli, will be a bit of trial to sit through in German (for me), however they will enjoy it. I am trying to instigate some good penny pinching ways so we will be making our own popcorn at home first and stopping by the supermarket across the road from the cinema to buy soft drinks first (I always take my own water from home).

Other plans- sledding, snowball fights, painting, board games and a big jigsaw puzzle.

Filed under: Things the children and I have done

Christmas Spirit

A busy weekend and not much accomplished life as far as getting organised. I have been sick with the flu for the last three weeks and the apartment is a state and a half…..and my mother in law is coming on Saturday!

We did a lot of family things this weekend which was lovely, a children´s Christmas party with other ex-pats for St Nikolaus Day and today a visit to the famous Christmas markets in Nuremberg which left me exhausted jointly because of illness and pregnancy too.

My children received some early Christmas cheer today as we listened to Christmas music in the car on the way to Nuremberg from Munich- I taught them the words to Feliz Navidad and my daughter did a lot of singing of Deck the Halls which she had learnt from her new Barbie video.

On St Nikolaus Day (and the day before which was a school day) in Germany children receive hessian sacks filled with chocolate, nuts, mandarins, apples and perhaps a small toy. Its a lovely tradition – sometimes sacks are not used and children´s shoes are filled up in the morning through an overnight visit .

I did manage to pick up some cute and inexpensive straw and wooden Christmas decorations in Nuremberg though which I look forward to putting up over the next few days and I have made a big list of all the cleaning and tidying to do. And that includes making the house look more festive- its rather bedraggled now and our plastic Christmas tree is rather low-key. So, I will be getting the camera out tomorrow!

Filed under: Christmas, Things the children and I have done