Hollow Easter Eggs

I plan on dying eggs with 9 kids tonight.  By far, the most kids I've ever done such a messy activity with!  And what am I going to do with all of those eggs?  I don't even know if my fridge is big enough to hold all of those eggs!  But when I asked Katie what she wanted to do during her birthday sleep over, her response was dying eggs.  So that's what we'll be doing.

So since we decided on this, I've been trying to think of a solution.  What to do with all of these eggs?  That's when it hit me!  I'm going to hollow them out!  They don't have to be refridgerated and the kids can keep them as long as they want!  How fun! 

Well, since I've never done this before, I had to ask around.  Sounded simple enough.  Poke a hole in the top and bottom of the egg with a needle and blow. 

I can tell you, it's not so simple. 

The hole on the bottom needs to be quite big - bigger than a prick any ways, and you need to "scramble" the insides with the needle so that the yolk breaks.  And you need to have the cheeks of a chipmunk to successfully blow the eggs out!  Think of blowing up a water balloon but much harder!  It's a pain!  (My poor cheeks are SOOO sore!) But I did it!  I blew out 7 dozen eggs!  (I know..what a waste of eggs - but eggs are pretty cheap right now...it's worth not having to worry about making 7 dozen devilled eggs!  LOL)  I plan on giving each kid a half a dozen eggs - that'll leave extras for when some get broken.  And some WILL break - I'm sure of it!

After you have blown out the eggs, you then have to boil the shells to clean them up!  That was easy - except that they float.  So I had to carefully hold them in the boiling water with tongs.  Which led me to start thinking...how are we going to dye these things if they float!?

So I blew out a couple of extras to experiment on last night.  I think I have it down!  I am fully prepared!  I even have a plastic table cloth for my floor - we'll be doing the actual dying on the kitchen floor in shifts!  lol AND I have plastic gloves to help keep the dye off the kids' little fingers!  I just hope everyone brings a ratty old t-shirt, just in case - hint hint.

So bring it on!  I'm ready!