Those small children times were the best of times, don't get me wrong, I like the adults my children have become, but nothing beats those first holidays with little ones.

Just lovely--is that a pink rose I see on one egg? So envious. We have a family member with severe egg allergy, so dyed eggs are out, unfortunately. And I echo the sentiments about kids growing up, especially as I wait for the phone call this aft from my son at U of T telling me that he's written the last exam of his undergrad career.

Beautiful pictures, and my sentiments exactly, as my two girls grown into womanhood. Happy Easter and happy spring to all Yarn Harlettes.

I know just what you mean. I remember buying dozens of eggs and having my four kids dye them all in about 12 seconds (or so it seemed). My oldest is away at college (getting an Easter care package) but my other three (11, 15 and 18 on Sunday!) still want to do all the Easter things. Including the letter from the Easter Bunny that arrives on the wall Easter morning (replacing the one that Santa Claus wrote).
Happy Easter and Happy Spring!

Beautiful pictures, and my sentiments exactly, as my two girls grow into womanhood. Happy Easter and happy spring to all Yarn Harlettes.

And happy Easter to you.

I'm with you on this one. Gee if my eldest was 1 I'd be 23 again. Sure wish I'd known about the YH when I was a mere 23. Hoppy Eater all.

Lovely entry today! My favorite card of all time said this on the cover: Know what the week after Easter is called? and inside the card it said: "National Egg Salad Sandwich Week!!!!"

Happy Easter indeed.

Please excuse this form of English, but the eggs just don't get prettier than that. Happy Easter!

Yup! Exactly.

No they shouldn't!! ....and I cannot believe how many times my "baby girl" comes home to me and all she wants to do is snuggle and crawl under my skin and nuzzle...just like when she was a baby nursing.

Oh shit.....you made the tears comes and hubby wants to go out....

Amen!

Isn't it great when the kids come home for the holidays and want to do all the traditional things? Happy Easter.

That takes me back :-) We used to decorate or eggs, then have down-=hill egg-rolling races when I was a child in the north of England. A very happy Easter to you and your family, Stephanie.

Best wishes to you and yours. Hope you have a marvelous weekend and egg hunt.

How lovely. The eggs, and your daughter, and your post. Just lovely. Happy Easter. xoxo

What fun to have all your chicks back in the nest! (Temporarily, of course.) Have a wonderful weekend!

That warm fuzzy feeling is back- this year my children and grandchildren dyed eggs together!

I agree about the growing up part, now I feel that way about my grandson. At times it seems to go so fast, now I laugh as I watch my daughter-in-law making sure he dyes eggs with blue berries and other natural ingredients. I know she is doing her best as a mom and isn't that what we all want to do ? Hugs and Happy Easter to you and your family and I hope it has stopped snowing. :)

*sniffle*

I'm not quite sure, but I got rather choked up reading that. Am I overly emotional at the mo? Will I tear up if I read this in a few days? I'll have to show my Partner. I suspect he'll get a bit teary-eyed too, especially with his 17 year old man-boy in the house and our own Beaster Bunny preps in the works.

What lovely eggs! Your post makes me want to go home to my Moms and dye eggs. And I'm nearly 50! Especially love the dyed fingers in the last photo.

Amen....this is the first Easter that my daughters, 22 & 19, won't be at home. It just isn't the same. I'm knitting both of them alpaca bunnies....not ready to let go just yet.

Wonderful sentiments. But, really, they are always our children! I do remember grieving when my eldest wen to college though.

Happy Easter Steph.

Ah, but they do grow up to be women. I am long past having girls and now my grandchildren are not that many years from their teens. Unreal.

They never will grow up completely - I know I haven't, have you? My definition of being grown up is when you realise you never will be. Happy Easter xxx

All 5 of us girls still make my mom fill our stockings on Christmas eve for us to open on Christmas. We are all over 30 :) She complains but I think secretly she likes it.

I'm about to celebrate my first Easter with my son, and it's hard to believe he'll ever be a grown man!

I'm about to celebrate my first Easter with my son, and it's hard to believe he'll ever be a grown man!

That is really sweet. You are scarily close to the empty nest time.

I dyed eggs with my 7 year old this morning It will be a sad day when he no longer wants to do that. Happy Easter Stephanie!

Yeah, I watch my kids and marvel at how grown up they are getting. They get big so quickly, and my arms still ache to hold them as babies... not forever, for just a little longer.

I can't help thinking of carlie Brown's Easter. When Pepperint Patty was trying to teach Marcy to dye eggs. So funny!!! I'm glad you had a great time with your girls. I wish I had my mum with me to do our mum-daughter things together again.

Just heard from my daughter after lunch. The three girls dyed eggs this morning. Mom hid them in the house because it's raining. They seem to have found 23 of the 24. She has them down for a nap and is hunting for that last egg. Their house is on the market and subject to short-notice showings, so she definitely does not need a less than fresh egg popping out from somewhere!

Brings tears remembering those days. Now grand daughters have their turn. Wishing you all a very Happy Easter.

Grown up girls are a bitter-sweet part of life. I still dream of my girls as just starting school and yet one is a wife and mom and the other is just as grown up and married, as well. Sigh.

I really, really hate to tell you this, but I have it on good authority that little daughters really do become women...my own adult "girls" tell me so. But, here's the good news...if you are very, very lucky, you will have small people again in your life to share these traditions (we'll be egg-dying ourselves this afternoon) and make up, just a little bit, for the fact that their mommies are no longer your little girls. Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Spring, Steph and Everyone!

Cute pictures!!! Hope you and your family have a Wonderful Easter!!

In your heart, I don't think you have let them. : )
Beautiful eggs!
Adding to Georgia's list: Happy Earth Day!

Yeah, Steph...BIG secret. :-). Must get eggs and dye since the almost 20 year old girl here will blow into the house tonight with the same desire. Happy Easter!

Don't worry about it. They never will really grow up for you, or so it seems in our family. My grandma was still calling my dad "Sonny" when she was 90 and he was 61.

My dad doesn't think I'm grown up, either, and I'm 52 (he's almost 88).

Love it!

If you ever want to get rid of old men's ties, this intrigues me but I haven't done it yet: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/04/silk-dyed-eggs-aka-tie-dyed/

I dye my eggs at my aunt's house who had young children. The older ones always have more fun than the younger ones.

I remember the year it finally occurred to the older generation (me and my husband) that we did not have to wait for the kids to come home on Saturday night before the Easter Bunny could hide the eggs. Suddenly we realized that there was NO chance they would get up early on Sunday morning, so if "Mr. Bunny" arrived early (i.e., 7:30 am!) on Sunday am everything would work out beautifully. Life has been much pleasanter ever since!

Barbara M.

Have fun!

My sister and I still beg my mom and dad to hide eggs for us. We are 30 and 28.

This post is so a propos of a conversation I had this morning with a quite helpful woman at the Department of Defense pay section. When I cheerily said I no longer had dependents (minor children) as they had grown up, she said that was both happy and sad. She had never had kids, but over the years, her nieces and nephews had spent a lot of time with her. When she offered egg dying to the last of her nieces this year, the 13 year old told her that egg dying was for kids. Aunt told the 13 year old that she didn't think so since she'd been doing it for 50 years. I hope the 13 year old comes around to your kids viewpoint in future year.

You and your girls make such pretty eggs! I wish I had daughters (or sons) to hide eggs for, but no such luck, yet, and I live too far away to hide eggs for any of my nieces.

Guess I'll just have to keep making pysanky. Can't hide those, though.

How DID you do that one with the flower in it?

What a wonderful post. I had to hide my sniffles when my taller-than-I-am 14 year old son and I dyed eggs earlier this week.

I'm really excited about tomorrow. We're going to decorate Easter eggs! The two Bulgarian muslim girls who live with us have never done it before and they have asked to color eggs. I went on a major hunt today and all they have here in Portugal is brown eggs which I find are not nearly as satisfactory to color. Also, all I could find was yellow food coloring. Fortunately I still have some food colors left from my move here 6 years ago. I think a quick trip tomorrow morning to the craft store is called for in order to acquire some alternative decorative effects. I did check out the natural food dying techiniques but they generally call for a lot more time. Also, there's lots of good german and belgian Easter chocolates but not a single jelly bean to be found. IT'S NOT EASTER WITHOUT JELLY BEANS! ( Yes, I know that all caps is online yelling! I'm yelling!)
Happy Easter/ Passover / Spring to all. :^)

Coloring Easter eggs never gets old. I'm 50ish and I love it. (Perhaps I should start to dye yarn?) My teens still love it too. Next year my daughter will be far away at school in Florida (we are in NY). She mentioned today that she is looking forward to dying eggs with college friends. Hope it happens for her and she will think of all the fun times we did it as a family.

I'm always surprised at what a kick it is to be a Grammie. I get to do a lot of it again, without the terror of Messing Up. (c:

Ours have grown up and now we have grandkids. Guess what??? The mystery starts all over again! The daddies hide the eggs and the children hunt for them. (But, since we live in Phoenix, AZ and it's a bit hotter than there we don't use hard boiled any more; plastic eggs with stickers are highly sought after.)

So, the good news is that the grown up kids provide you with a new generation! :)

My siblings and I used to make a mess dyeing hard-boiled eggs. It was fun but we ended up with pink and blue hands. On Easter morning we ate the eggs, marvelling at how some of the dye had seeped through the shell and coloured the egg inside. I let my kids make the same mess. Now that I'm almost an empty-nester, I'm the only one in my house who would even touch a hard-boiled egg.

Made me cry:) My girls are 8 & 11 and I feel exactly the same way!

Little daughters do indeed become women, but the interesting (and neat) thing is sometimes they still surprise you. Twice in the past 2 years, my daughter (now 30) has volunteered me to do something for her friends -- before asking me -- because hey! Of course she'll say 'yes' and hey! Moms can do anything, right? :-) And I did, and I did. Happy Easter!

Twofold:
1. Have you tried silk dyed eggs? Easy. Google that!
2. I finally have my first adult job and I will not be buying mill ends anymore. My first check will be spent in your fancy-twine-name. Suri/Merino/Bamboo who knows? Rambouillet fleece? Maybe. Thank you for writing your books. They've helped me get this far.

Love it!

I think that beautiful traditions are joyful no matter how old you get. (I bet if they all moved to B.C. you'd still dye the eggs!)

Speaking of which... we'd better get to it! Happy Easter, Steph!

I harbor the same secret. I want my girl to still cozy up with me when I am old and doddering.

Me too and we too.

My babygirl is in her 30s and still sits in my lap. They never grow up so much that they can't.

:)

Oh mama. Nothing like a holiday and tradition to bring things into perspective.

I wonder if my mom feels the same ..... I am almost 57and still love to color easter eggs. No hunt, though. Chocolate. That's the best part of Easter. :)) Linda

SO true. Mine are 21 & 22. My son is actually putting up crown moulding in the living room instead of making Easter eggs. We'll all still go to church on Sunday, though!

Happy Easter!

Me too, only with sons (almost men). No dyed eggs this year unless we do it soon, but their will be candy filled easter baskets on Easter morning. We all know they are primarily for me. I can live with that.

OTN reclaimed merino and cashmere hat on US4's. Soft, squishy, cheap. Keep poking myself on my knitpicks nickel 16" needles, those are some sharp tips.

You're the best mom! Those girls are lucky! And so are you!

Why grow up when you make such beautiful Easter eggs!!!

Lovely!

I know exactly how you feel. I just sent Easter Bunnies to my 2 girls that now live in Portland. I sure do miss them. I also miss the one in Kansas, but at least I can drive there in a day if I need to. Can't wait for sock summit on so many levels.

I am in my mid-30's and my mother still sends an Easter package. And I still get excited if I happen to celebrate with them and my dad still hides the little foil-wrapped chocolate eggs all over my house (or theirs). I am still every bit as excited to find them! I hope your girls never grow up, because Easter traditions are the best!

Think of doing it all over again with your grandchildren! - and then sending them home to their mothers so that they can clean up the mess and cope with the chocolate aftermath...... it's called building traditions.

I still send things to my two boys (men,actually) now that they each live 600 miles away from me. They'll always be my little boys! And, now I have a grandchild to send goodies too as well!
Have a very happy Easter!!

You made me think not so much about family traditions, but about our children specifically, the little buggers.

My 14 year old son had an appendectomy five days ago, and is still quite shaky on his feet.We need to keep him moving, so my ex-husband and I took him Geocaching this afternoon. On any kind of slope he (wait for it...) reached for and firmly took my hand. And it frigging slayed me each time. Wish he was well enough for an egg hunt, but I will take this GLADLY.

KarenJ at 5:54 PM: Check out Yarnista's 4/21 tutorial. She does some marvelous dyed brown eggs.

http://threeirishgirls.squarespace.com/

What a beautiful almost-woman. She really is lovely. And smart and kind, too, I hear! Every time you mention or post a picture of her, I'm amazed that she's both so near to and so far from the little girl of nine she was when we "met" you. :) I have a 17-year-old sister, and to me, she will forever be the six-year-old darling in my mind's eye, though she's grown into a remarkable young lady.

Awwwww! (You know the girls are softening you up to do this with the grandkids, someday.)

Who gets to play the Easter Bunny, and can we see a photo of him or her in their bunny outfit? Or in their bunny slippers? Or viciously biting the head off a wascawwy chocowat wabbit?

(Yes, it's chocowat wabbit season. A wittwe bwack duck and his squiwweh fweind tode Elmuh and I so.)

Cool photos, but just remember the Easter bunny and his eggs did not rise from the grave.

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Let's keep our eyes on Christ, for HE is risen!

God bless.

This Easter is the first time my daughter will hunt for eggs (she is 2) and my son has very few memories from last year (he is 4), so I'm excited to see how it goes. We are dyeing eggs today.

I remember hunting for Easter eggs until I moved out of the house, at 18, for university.

I really missed the little children, and then wonder of wonders, I got grandchildren. Happy Easter.

I spent yesterday with my 19 and 29 yr old daughters coloring Easter eggs. Love it.

My oldest daughter is 13 and in 7th grade. At a recent conference with her teachers, there were several references to high school. As in "these classes next year will prepare her well for high school" or "this math class will lead into the high school algebra class" etc. Each time I was startled and wanted to remind them that they couldn't possibly be talking about my child, who I was fairly certain could only possibly be 4 years old. Sigh.

This is beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing. I'm also a mother of grown/almost grown girls. I've been complaining this week about them expecting eggs for Easter. You have shown me how wonderful it is that that still want to be little girls. I'm still putting baby carrots in the plastic eggs this year though!

Your girls are the same ages as mine, and I feel the same way. Except this year, they're hiding the eggs and WE have to find them. Can't wait!

My brother and I continued hunting for eggs (and leaving milk and cookies--although that morphed into cheetos and tequila!--for Santa) until I had a child of my own! It was so much fun to share that secret with my parents.

These are the traditions that your girls will start with their own families one day. What a beautiful thing.

I know the feeling. I was just thinking the same thing. My teens and pre-teen love Easter.

There's never anything quite so comforting as a hug from Mom.

My parents always hid the little wrapped chocolate eggs for us every year. Now and then we'd find one we missed months later. One year, my parents decided we were too old for an egg hunt, so while they went out for breakfast, we hid eggs for them. We hid them in the same spots that my parents always did, but it took them longer to find them than it ever did us. We hid a gold coloured egg on one of the brass and crystal ornaments on the window, and had to finally tell my parents where it was because it was starting to melt in the sunshine :) Now with 2.9 kids (was due yesterday *sigh*), I have the fun of hiding eggs all over again.

I never had girls but my boys and I did all the egg dying and pumpkin carving in this house. Holidays are not the same without little ones. I miss my boys but I love the men that they've become and (for one) the woman he has chosen to spend his life with. Happy Easter to all.

I know exactly how you feel. My oldest daughter was 16 2 weeks ago and my youngest is 13 tomorrow and I've been thinking about how grown up they are and how quickly it's gone and how I don't want them to stop being my little girls.
Happy Easter.

Look at it this way, once they grow up - they will bring you grandbabies. And grandbabies need hand knits.

I'm not sure it's about growing up and thereby outgrowing egg hunts (and maybe sand castles). Maybe it's about not losing the joy of creating the simplest thing that is temporary?? An egg, covered in color and design isn't serious and it's only around for a day or so. It's play essentially. We allow our children this joy - encourage it even! And we get to participate as well.
Oh heck... what do I know? I think I'll go smell that box of crayons that we bought recently (even though there are no kids in our household) and think about it.

Our two kids (4.5yrs and 2.5yrs) will be dying their first easter eggs this afternoon (with our help, of course! :))

I know it will feel like a few weeks and they will be off on their own. Thank the universe for digital cameras! :)

Welcome to the world of all moms. I love my adult kids, they are still my best friends, but the magic of holidays and the anticipation they had for each one, as well as my joy and anticipation to watch them can't be beat. Now it's moved on the grandkids.

I remember you were looking for a shawlette. This is a cute easy one. Bakersfield, by Corrina Ferguson for PicnicKnits. Hope you like it. Debbie, greensweater. Also, it looks like they're going to put something in the Oregonian about the baby blanket group knit. deb

Happy Easter too! I just bought Easter eggs for my children too; both the nearly 25 year-old and the nearly 30 year-old. The great thing about reading your blog for years is that when I looked at the beautiful Elsebeth Lavold cardigan that has just been finished, blocked, sewn together and had the pefect buttons sewn on....well, one of the cables
(way down on the bottom of the back) was going the wrong way. And I had this little bell ringing that Stephanie had the voodoo - some tricky knitting thing so that I wouldn't feel that everyone who praised the cardi to my face, then turned to a friend as I walked away and whispered; "Hey, look at that cable way down on the back - it's going the wrong way!" Thanks a million - again.

Whoa! Those are some fancy eggs! Happy Easter to you too.

Everyone needs to see this:

Jersey Shore Transcripts in the Style of Oscar Wilde, Performed by the Broadway cast of The Importance of Being Earnest

http://macguffinandpuffin.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/jersey-shore-transcripts-in-the-style-of-oscar-wilde-performed-by-the-broadway-cast-of-the-importance-of-being-earnest/

My son is 19 and is still leaving his basket out for the bunny to fill tonight. I'm glad, I probably don't have many more Easters with him at home.

Two, soon to be 20 yr old boys/men will be looking for their "baskets" immediately upon arising. Then they will help me make special Easter cookies to share with girls they want to impress. My job is to wear the rabbit ears. Time and change. Some.

That's made me a bit....no, a lot misty. I second that emotion...

That was lovely!

You now have the best of both worlds, enjoy!

My Grand-daughter and I coloured eggs today. She is 4 and reminded me all month that we needed to colour the eggs. The first time we did them was last year and I am thrilled she remembered it. Afterward she kept opening the fridge and checking on the eggs to be sure they were ok. LOL My daughter is 32 and still expects a "basket" every year.

My sister and I are both tradition lovers (as is your family), so we drug such things out well in to our young adulthood. Because my sister is six years younger, that meant we drug it out until just a few years ago. This year, I provided the first Grandchild, and now the traditions are starting up again with my daughter. It worked out well!

I read this with my little one (not quite 17 months) running around the living room after the dog...and it brought me to tears faster than I'd like to admit.

<3

Family traditions are what make the holidays so special.

Happy Easter! I love that they still want to dye eggs and then hunt for them :)

I'm seeing this with my teenager, too....but I'm also seeing it in how my parents relate to ME, and I'm 44! I was over at my folks for Passover dinner, and when the kids got up to hunt for the afikoman (a tradition involving a hidden dessert cracker and a game of hide-n-seek), I leaned in to ask my dad where he'd hidden it. He wouldn't tell me, because to him, I will always be one of the kids LOL.
Happy Easter ;-)

My feelings, exactly! My 17 and 13 year old died eggs last night and I almost cried!!! If only the 21 year old could have been here! Happy Easter!

Just wait until they grow up and present you with grandchildren. They are even more fun. You get to do it all over again with all the fun and none of the responsibility.

I always loved dyeing eggs when i was a kid. my mother stil has some of the ones that me and my siblings painted (one has a lovely scene with geese and trees on it). easter egg hunts never get old, i always love them (like stckings at christmas).

There will no little ones around this Easter, so I didn't bother to color Easter eggs. But I would even do it with a like-minded adult...but none was to be found.

no little ones here either, although my MIL did buy my big teen-age boys candy, lol. I'm looking forward to grandbabies, lol (my oldest is 26, sigh)

Oh, the parental paradox: we want them to grow up, but then when they do, it almost breaks our hearts.

Oh, I understand that feeling. We had our second holiday with no children at home not because they were away at college, but because they were with their girlfriends' families. I understand that as they grow have up this will happen (they are 25 and 23) with more frequencey, but it still makes me sad to not have my "little" boys around.

Awwww. My 19 and 21-year-old daughters still wanted to dye eggs. If only we'd done a better job of hard-cooking them! They're a little soft. Ugh.

My bairn (baby) is nearly 31 and still wants me to stick to all those traditions - (so does the 34 year old son who would never admit it) Go with it - they love it either way.

@Damiane Lucas, who said: "Cool photos, but just remember the Easter bunny and his eggs did not rise from the grave. Let's keep our eyes on Christ, for HE is risen!" Let us also remember that not everyone believes as we do, that some things are cultural, not spiritual, and that Canada is a lovely web of multicultural, multireligious/areligious goodness. Lighten up! There's plenty of "Christ is the Reason for the Season" at Christmas.

My best earliest memories of Easter is of my Dad taking us to the hayloft early on Easter Sunday morning to find the home dyed hard-boiled eggs he had hidden. What delight when we found an egg nestled in with a new batch of baby kittens we didn't know were there. Last Easter, I helped my Dad, then 95, to get 'spruced up' for Easter Sunday church. As I was finishing off his shave he said, "Don't make me look too good, they'll expect me to turn up more often" and we both couldn't quit laughing for a minute or two. We sang "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" all the way to church. He died 2 months later - I'm still heartbroken, but I have these beautiful memories of a Dad who knew how to make Easter happen for his kids. Wish everybody had a Dad like that.

I think reading the comments makes me mistier than the initial posting! I too, felt this way, with my boys 15 and 12. I was glad they still wanted to hunt eggs!

Ah, see, if you weren't vegetarian, you could take away vegetables, like I have threatened to my boys, if they don't stop growing. Your poor children would starve, now you are stuck with beautiful women for children. There are worse fates, but the one you yourself endure is always the worst. Wait, I hear a crunching carrot... stop the madness! No, it was the two year old ripping open a box of peeps. She is so going to be my baby forever.

I have that thought often. I have 3 teenaged girls. They grow up so fast.

I know this is off-topic but will your blog ever be available on the Kindle??

More on some crochet and yarn coverage in my area...
tried to post this on the Yarncaching post, but it was closed...
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135705721/crochet-vandals-do-graffiti-like-your-grandma?sc=fb&cc=fp

Your photographs are so beautiful...is there anything you're not amazing at?

Lovely poem! :)

Beautiful.

I think that's how my Mom feels about me...except I refuse to hunt my Granny's easter eggs. I love the pictures (your photography skills are AWESOME)!

This doesn't fit your post, but I wanted to let you now that they forbade my needles on a flight coming out from Mexico (in Cabo) last week. I fly all over NA, Europe and Africa and no one has ever taken my needles before, but they were adamant and even showed me (when requested) the regulation. So, be warned! I convinced them to cut off the needles on the circs so I at least didn't lose the work, but it was so sadly mutilated!

PS -- happy easter ;-).

I am not sure I want my girls to grow up either - I have three adolescent / pre-pubescent girls and most days I just want to snuggle with them and keep them safe from the world - Thanks for sharing your thoughts -

As I prepare to send my eldest son to college in the fall, I alternate between excitement and terror. Imagining our household other than it is right now (yes, even with two teen-aged boys) is something I can't quite get my head around yet.

I'm with Meg: we call them curlies and pointies!