And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure

I'm not sure why, but I've got a thing for Easter. I suspect that it's because I also love spring and, for me, it's a celebration of the season (eggs, baby animals, new plants growing, flowers), plus a chance to relive/recreate fun childhood memories. Also, chocolate. At any rate, we had a good one this year and hope that you did too.

Carrying on a family tradition: decorating
pussywillow branches with egg and bird ornaments

I made the kiddos a few little Easter presents - fabric baskets (I won't lie, these are really more for me - adding another kid has somehow significantly multiplied the amount of storage/organization we need around here) and little felt chicks (Fern's is a rattle, with a bell from a cat toy inside of it).

I also tried my hand at tsoureki again and was, again, pleasantly surprised with the results, given my relative lack of experience with baking bread. I made the full recipe, which made 4 of the loaves you see below, and pretty much filled up the KitchenAid. Although I'm sure we'll finish it all off, I might halve it next year and cut down on the amount of dried dough I have to clean off of the mixer head. . .

Most of our activities this year centered around eggs. Silas really liked dyeing them. His preferred method was to put one in each jar of dye, then promptly remove them and put in a new batch of eggs. I convinced him to leave a few of the early eggs in a bit longer, but we quickly used the 15 I'd hardboiled and moved on to dyeing raw eggs from the fridge. Luckily, there were plenty on hand (the chickens are laying up a storm these days!). We dyed every egg in the fridge and then saved the dye so that we could do the next day's eggs as well. I didn't do any more experimenting with natural dyes this year, but I'd like to try again next Easter, especially with onion skins and perhaps some red cabbage, as they're awfully pretty.

The main event yesterday was the egg hunt and it was a lot of fun this year. Silas started out slowly. Excitedly carrying around the first two eggs he had found, he was uninterested in looking further.

Then it became this.

Followed by this.

 After a refreshing snack, he was excited to find the rest and (of course), upon doing so relatively quickly, wanted to keep finding more. Ah, the enthusiasm of the two-and-a-half year old.

Fern got a new Easter shirt too - it's a little
silly, but it was a quick sew and I've been
itching to make her a little something to wear