Mega Crack-Off

The Friday before Easter, I think we cracked enough eggs to depress chickens nationwide. It was quite the day. Let's go in chronological order to keep things straight.

The first Crack-Off of the day happened at Tyler's work. I'm only documenting my favorites here. Tyler entered these two eggs:

And I liked these two as well. (The Grenade being my favorite.)

I liked the way the guys boxed in the table, leaving no holes for the egg to escape.

It came down to William and Dan.

Can you guess who won?

The second Crack-Off of the day happened in Robyn's classroom. I thought it would be fun to try one with the school kids and so I put myself in charge of her Easter Party. (I guess egg hunting is traditional, but I wanted to mix it up, and I think they really enjoyed it.) The only reason you get pictures is because Tyler was nice enough to attend.

I had one mom bring in 3 dozen hard-boiled eggs and we let the kids decorate them. Here is Robyn's creation. She named him Anger Bird.

We had a designated spot to keep eggs between crack-offs. I didn't want them to be left at the desks where kids could more easily break them.

We adults demonstrated how to crack. Notice the awesome 'cracking corral' I created this year. I knew the kids would miss sometimes, and I didn't want them crowded around the table. The corral worked beautifully, and I think we will keep it for the long haul.

And then the competition was under way. If your egg survived, you took it back to the carton for safe keeping. And if your egg cracked, you got to go to the back and get a treat. It seemed to take the sting out of losing.

Here are some semi-finalists.

And then there were only two. (Ha ha. Look at the height difference.)

And you know who won it all? Robyn. Yep....my kid.

I have to admit, it looked a little staged when I planned the whole thing, Tyler came and took pictures, and amazingly, our child won. Hmm..... But since I didn't cook the eggs or distribute them, there was no way to fix the competition. Robyn was just lucky.

The third Crack-Off was rather spontaneous. June was having friends over after school and I promised to save them some eggs. Robyn ended up with friends over too, so we had a good amount to compete. I relented to pressure and cooked more eggs, made dye, got out sharpies, and the girls went to town. They had some really fun eggs. (But no pictures this time around. My photographer had gone back to work.) We voted on the designs and then we cracked them. And guess what? Robyn's egg beat them all. The same egg that won the school Crack-Off. Wow. I wonder what is up with that egg? I promised her that after the party that evening, she could pit her egg against the winner.

And so, that brings us to Crack-Off number four. (See what I mean about the enormous amount of eggs going down in a single day??)

In the evening, we hosted our neighborhood Crack-Off. Dave commented that he had never been to an adult Easter Party. But I told him that was the way we roll around here.

We had so many fabulous egg creations this year. Here they are all displayed. (And Stacey and I must be talking about our shoes or something.)

Let's take a closer look at some of these eggs. (They are not all pictured. Sorry.)

Tyler wanted me to give credit this time around, so I'll see what I can do. Here are Jonny's eggs. (I love the color on these.)

Beth made a fun glittery one. (Don't worry, she had a spare because she didn't know if the glitter complied with standard cracking regulation.)

Katelyn's eggs were awesome and reminded me of this year.

My eggs had a theme.

Tyler had some fun ones. (I wish you could see the train better. It was cool wrapping around the egg.)

Jamie is seriously talented in the art department.

Dane's egg was my favorite. I wish you could see the sword on the back of the Ninja.

Stacey and Dave brought superhero eggs, although I think Stacey decorated them all. (Notice Jenaca's Polka Dot egg in there.)

Becca had one that I really liked.

Then we started cracking them of course. (Yes, the corral works for adults as well.)

I had a pretty simple bracket, but Eric was teaching me how to make it into a double elimination bracket. I think it is funny that Tyler caught my confused expression. I was struggling trying to keep it all straight.

More cracking. (Check out Beth's cute baby bump.)

Eric won it all. (Why don't we have a picture of that??) And then Robyn came down to test her egg against his. And guess who won?? Robyn....again. She didn't even bat an eye. She picked up her egg, didn't even look at it, and said to Eric, "Yours cracked." And she was right. (We still gave Eric the prize.)

We have saved Robyn's egg because amazingly we are not done with Crack-Offs. We will have another when my parents come to town in a couple weeks. We'll see if her egg can conquer all.

We played a few games after. The guys dominated in 'Four on a couch' They won twice, so we let them revel in their glory.

And although we didn't win, we took a picture too. (Probably to mock them a little.)

It was such a fun Crack-Off, only made bittersweet because Camille and Eric were moving a few days later. I had to get a picture of my girls. I'm glad we have these times.

And so ends the momentous day of CRACKING!! Be glad you aren't an egg.