Holiday Traditions–Cascarones (Confetti Eggs)

A non-running related post today friends

I was chatting with my friend Amy the other day and we were discussing holiday traditions we are trying to continue with our families. I mentioned how when I was little, my grandma would make “cascarones” for our Easter egg hunts. What are “cascarones”? They are hollow eggs filled with confetti. Amy was intrigued and suggested I blog about it and share how to make these confetti eggs with my readers.

As a child, I loved cracking and smashing the eggs when I found them and I always tried to find these eggs rather than the regular, boring, hard-boiled ones. I’m not the most creative person out there, but I knew I wanted to carry out this tradition with my own kids and knew that they’d love them as much as I do did 🙂

This is also a really inexpensive project–a great plus!

Step One:

Tap the top of an egg to create a penny-sized hole. Drain the egg and rinse the inside with water. Let dry.

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I typically start saving eggs about two weeks before I’ll need them. So every time I make pancakes, scrambled eggs, or any recipe that requires an egg I make sure to drain it this way so I can start collecting them. I then store them in an old egg carton until I have my desired amount.

Step Two

Once you have enough eggs and you’re ready to start turning them into confetti eggs, take out the necessary supplies.

1. Eggs
2. Confetti (I used a three-hole puncher and newspaper ads)
3. Glue
4. Tissue paper (I reused saved tissue paper from past gifts)
5. Scissors

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Step Three:

Decorate the eggs as you like. You can still dye them like you’d normally do to a hardboiled egg. For this post, I just wrote a little something on it 🙂

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Step Four:

Fill the egg with a small amount of confetti (or however much you want).

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Step Five:

Cut the tissue paper into squares large/small enough to cover the egg’s hole. Spread glue around the edge of the hole and place the square on top, pressing so that it sticks.

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Place finished confetti egg in carton to dry and voila! Repeat the steps with each egg until you’re done with all of them. Simple right? And trust me, “cascarones” are definitely kid approved 🙂

My daughter's first confetti egg experience

You can throw them, crack them on someone’s head, or stomp them. Guess which one my daughter chose?

You can throw them or stomp them. Guess which one my daughter chose?

She’s a stomper!

Hope you liked the project! If you don’t celebrate Easter, there are many other festive holidays where you can have fun with confetti eggs 🙂

–What are some holiday traditions you remember as a child?
–Do you carry on any traditions now as an adult?
–Have you heard of/seen “cascarones” before?

Throwback Thursday–Costa Rican Honeymoon

Maybe because it’s “cold” here in Arizona (I feel horrible even typing that), but my honeymoon came to mind as I was sipping hot chocolate last night.

We took our honeymoon a few months after our wedding because we had just gotten the keys to our new home three days before we got married; we clearly had a lot of things going on at the time!

We chose Costa Rica as our honeymoon destination because we liked that it had a lot to offer. We could hike, swim, and do touristy stuff in the city. And we could zip line!!!

We spent 4 days there and the first day we went straight to the fun : )

Here I am getting ready…

Don't let the smile fool ya--I was scared!

Don’t let the smile fool ya–I was scared!

This is what awaited me…

um....yeah.....

um….yeah…..

The first time you do it it’s scary as all hell. But afterwards, it’s….freaking…awesome!!!

Now I'm just showing off ; )

Now I’m just showing off ; )

It’s definitely one of the craziest things I’ve ever done. Sky diving and bungee jumping have zero appeal to me and not doing them ever in my life would be totally okay. But zip lining for some reason was something that I thought was doable crazy. Like even though I knew I would be terrified, I was curious.

We chose to do the full ride which was 14 zip lines. They happen pretty quickly. After you’d do one, you’d land on a platform to the next and so forth. You get absolutely stunning views. Really though, you wouldn’t catch views like that from any where else.

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Afterward, we relaxed by taking a ride through the rain forest. This ride took us high up to the tops of the trees. Again, breathtaking.

I'm second from the left.

I’m second from the left.

At the top top top

At the top top top

The next day we went on a hike and looked at some of the cool stuff that was around.

You don't want to mess around with these guys..

You don’t want to mess around with these ..

A butterfly comes out with its full grown wings....I didn't know that

A butterfly comes out with its full grown wings….I didn’t know that

This was a huge leaf.

This was a huge leaf.

Then it was beach time!!

Insert pic of alcoholic beverage

Insert pic of alcoholic beverage

Oh, just hanging out...

Just hanging out…

Me and my new buddy.

Me and my new buddy.

Finally, we did some touristy stuff in the city:

Traffic and buildings everywhere!

Traffic and buildings everywhere!

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Like our San Francisco trip, my husband and I took full advantage of the time we had in Costa Rica; we don’t mess around! Even though we were crazy busy running around doing stuff, we had so much fun and we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way : )

–What’s your favorite vacation spot?

–Have you been to Costa Rica?

–If you could choose anywhere to travel to, where would you go? (we still want to hit up Europe!)

Don’t forget!! The giveaway is still happening!! Click here to enter to win 35 FREE dollars to use towards a Road ID purchase. Yes, FREE!!

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Me

So it was a rare late morning/early afternoon and I had roughly about 20 minutes of alone time (both kids were napping) before my son would wake.

During these sporadic moments, I try and catch up on reading whether it’s with a book or a magazine. I typically avoid the television during my alone time but something told me to look at the channel guide—and then I saw it: 10 Things I Hate About You was on.

I can’t resist a Joseph Gordon-Levitt movie, especially a vintage one so I settled back on my couch and hoped my kids would let me watch a good chunk of it.

Evidently, I’m not embarrassed to admit this is one of favorite movies. It’s silly, it’s fun, it’s a good no need for deep thinking movie, and it inspired today’s post : )

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Me

  1. Spanish was my first language growing up but I was an English major in college and am now an English teacher. Being bilingual rocks!
    images
  2. My brother and I were born in the same year, he in January and me in December. Clearly, I was an oops baby.
  3. My favorite book is Where The Red Fern Grows and I cry every time I read it and I’ve read it too many times to count.
  4. There were 600+ people at my wedding
    . wedding
  5. I once danced Michael Jackson’s Thriller in front of hundreds of people.The dance class at my high school sometimes asks teachers to perform at assemblies and for Homecoming this was the dance of choice. I couldn’t pass up this amazing opportunity. Seriously, the perks of being a teacher.
  6. My husband and I love basketball so much we chose our wedding day, October 23, in honor of Michael Jordan and also because it was before the NBA basketball season started.

    michael

    Also, I love that I met Bill Simmons who started as a basketball/sports blogger and is now a commentator for ESPN.

    bill

  7. I hate water. As in the ocean, lakes, swimming pool… I don’t like that I can’t see what my feet are touching and thinking about all the people that have been in the pool I’m considering getting into grosses me out. I would never want a house with a pool either because it’s too much maintenance and I’m lazy for those types of things.
  8. I had (have?) a serious soda addiction. I would drink about a 6 pack a day and in college it was that plus a few Big Gulps.Coca Cola. Don’t even think about offering me a Pepsi.
    coke
  9. I like Meatloaf. Not the food.
    meatloaf
  10. I’ve written before that I’m an oxymoron in so many ways. I’m old school and am very reluctant when it comes to new technology. I’m always the last one to buy whatever was “in” and then never learn to use it to its full capacity nor care. But, technology fascinates me.

–What is one interesting thing about you or that you’ve done?

–Do you share any of my idiosyncrasies?