Saturday afternoon, everyone (except Eddie) made Ukrainian Easter eggs - called Pysanky - at our church.  Miss Mona has been offering this pre-Easter activity for years, with her assistants Jackie and Jenny (who used to babysit Adam and Aaron!) and Cheri.  We had a fun time, and made some pretty cool eggs.  Unfortunately, Adam's 1st masterpiece is missing from this picture.  It was the victim of an accident, and never made it out of the building.  "My egg got squished!,"says Adam.  (Pysanky eggs are dyed while raw, and usually blown afterwards.)

Notable events per Aaron:  Adam's wax applier caught fire (briefly).  They didn't let me light the candle.

To make a Pysanky egg, you start with a white egg.  The parts that you want to stay white, you cover in melted beeswax.  Then you die it a light color, say yellow.  Anything you want to stay yellow, you cover with wax, then you die it again.  You repeat the wax & die processes as many times as you have patience for, or want to.  Traditionally the last color is black.  Then you clean all the wax off with mineral spirits.  (Since the dyes and the mineral spirits are not edible, the eggs are no longer edible either.)  We used candles to heat the tips of the wax appliers and melt the beeswax.

Arianna got to try putting the wax on the eggs, but since she didn't want to hold the applier in the candle flame, the wax kept solidifying before she put any on the egg.  So she decorated her eggs with markers. 

Are you still wondering about how we saved the world?  Cheri told us a legend about a dragon chained at the bottom of the ocean.  Every time someone makes a Pysanky egg, they add to the chains holding the dragon down.  It the time comes that no one makes Pysanky eggs, the dragon will escape and destroy the world.  So by making Pysanky eggs we helped keep the world safe!