Happy Beltaine!
We've had a lovely Beltaine. Last night was too...just TOO, so we did this afternoon. When I got home I set up the egg dye and when the kids got here we dyed eggs. Lesson learned: dye eggs at room temperature. Fortunately, the kids are not old enough to care that the eggs are blotchy and that the crayons wouldn't write on them properly (I DID try to make a nifty spiral from end to end on two of the eggs, but the wax didn't transfer properly).
The kids had a great time, though, and we only had 15 eggs, so it went fairly quickly. Then I got out the plastic eggs Grandma dewwta had sent and labeled each one with a kid initial, then "hid" them (in plain sight) in the backyard.
We went out on the porch, did our Kid Circle (which involves saying, "Hi, air! Hi, east!" while lighting incense, then, "Hi, south and sun and fire!" and waving south as we light the candle, then "Hi" to water/west and earth/north. Then we talked about how each element helps our garden and our flowers grow, and talked about how eggs come open to let out baby animals is just like how the ground lets plants and flowers and food grow.
Then the kids ran around and collected all the eggs, squealing in delight at EACH discovery. Elf has gotten quite good at LOOKING for things rather than just wailing, "I DON'T SEE IT!" Ben's still working on that, but he's not doing terribly.
We did a very quick "Bye!" to the quarters, put the water from our little bottle onto the flower garden, and I picked up Circle stuff. When we came in, the kids separated out all the eggs and quietly and politely put the "B" and "E" eggs in the proper basket (one of which is my Fall Basket for passing out Hallowe'en candy). They're SO GOOD.
I've got to see if we have any cold tuna and make some of the eggs into tuna fish.
Then, once the sun goes down and after dinner, we'll have a short Full Moon Circle as a closing. It's been a great day with the kids (who are currently watching Animaniacs).
The kids had a great time, though, and we only had 15 eggs, so it went fairly quickly. Then I got out the plastic eggs Grandma dewwta had sent and labeled each one with a kid initial, then "hid" them (in plain sight) in the backyard.
We went out on the porch, did our Kid Circle (which involves saying, "Hi, air! Hi, east!" while lighting incense, then, "Hi, south and sun and fire!" and waving south as we light the candle, then "Hi" to water/west and earth/north. Then we talked about how each element helps our garden and our flowers grow, and talked about how eggs come open to let out baby animals is just like how the ground lets plants and flowers and food grow.
Then the kids ran around and collected all the eggs, squealing in delight at EACH discovery. Elf has gotten quite good at LOOKING for things rather than just wailing, "I DON'T SEE IT!" Ben's still working on that, but he's not doing terribly.
We did a very quick "Bye!" to the quarters, put the water from our little bottle onto the flower garden, and I picked up Circle stuff. When we came in, the kids separated out all the eggs and quietly and politely put the "B" and "E" eggs in the proper basket (one of which is my Fall Basket for passing out Hallowe'en candy). They're SO GOOD.
I've got to see if we have any cold tuna and make some of the eggs into tuna fish.
Then, once the sun goes down and after dinner, we'll have a short Full Moon Circle as a closing. It's been a great day with the kids (who are currently watching Animaniacs).