Easter Prep.

22  My brother-in-law Larry made a beautiful video for his wife Katie's birthday (David's sister).  It is such a sweet gesture and so full of love, it almost brings me to happy tears every time I watch it.  Their two sons, Micah and Dominic, are just as adorable as the video shows.  (I removed the link, because they had it set to 'unlisted'.)

Micah is amazingly polite for a 3-year-old.  His parents taught him 'no, thank you' instead of 'no,' so even when he's disagreeable he sounds adorable.  One of my favorite stories about them is when they had a doctor's visit and both needed shots.  Dominic was crying after getting his, and Micah comforted him saying, "It's OK, Dom. Don't cry."  Then the nurse started getting him ready for his turn.  "No, thank you! No, thank you!"  was Micah's response.

They'll be in town for Easter, and I can't wait to see them all!


23  Speaking of Easter,  last night I tried out a craft I saw on Pinterest for Easter decorations.

The site I followed is here.

I really didn't want to go to the store, and didn't have glue or fabric stiffener, so I did a little research.  Corn starch (which I have way too much of) and water mixed and boiled make a good homemade fabric stiffener. (I think it's 1/4 cup of starch to 1 cup of water, boil till thick).

I blew up some water balloons and had various colored threads ready.

I didn't take any pictures of the process, since it was really messy.  drop the string in a spiral into the goop.  (I used about 20 feet per balloon as my thread was thin.  The other website uses one 'skein' of thread - which I just looked up and is about 24 feet ).  It's not as much thread as it sounds, and it goes fast.

Let it soak for a couple of minutes.  You can even layer a couple of different cuts of thread, if you keep track of the ends.  Pick up the end of the string and wipe off excess glue.  Hold the end to the balloon with your right hand, and use your left to continue 'pinching' off extra glue and wrap the thread around the balloon.  I tied them to hangers to dry when I was finished:

The balloons above were inflated to regular size water balloons.  I also made some small ones, about half that size.  

I Let them dry overnight.  I tried popping some early and they shriveled.  About 24 hours later, I was able to pop half w/o a problem.  The other half needed some serious reshaping.  I think the difference was soaking the string, or the thickness of the thread, or excess glue, or a combination.  Here was a good egg:

Here was a bad egg:

But I fixed it:

And here is a bowl of colorful eggs!

Here are the eggs separated for size:

There, now I'm caught up.  Today is the 23rd day of Lent.