Easter Egg fun

Every year for Easter there are certain traditions that I am not willing to let go of.  The first is the coloring of easter eggs.  I love to watch them change color and watch the kids as they explore the different things they can do with them.  This year just the girls colored eggs.  I honestly can say that I'm writing this post just a few weeks after easter and all I can remember is the boys weren't there to do it.  I can't figure out where they were.  Maybe off with John doing something I don't know, but I decided that I wasn't going to wait for the boys to be around to color the eggs so we colored them without the boys.

The second tradition is an easter egg hunt.  This year Matthew and his friend Dylan helped Ches Sharp and myself hide the eggs.  It was probably the biggest hunt I've done.  We had easily 1500-2000 eggs.  (Obviously I didn't actually count them all).  I don't fill the eggs, I just am a drop off house where filled eggs can be brought.  Then the morning of the hunt we go out and hide them.  At the end of the hunt, the kids take home the eggs they found and I have no need to store any more eggs than we found. 

I always do a 5.00 egg to keep the older kids from taking all the eggs that are easy to find.  It works pretty good.  It seems many years there is always a parent who no matter the instructions I give try to help their little kid (under 3) find the really hard eggs.  Luckily, this year it was a well hidden egg that was found by an 8 year old boy.  It made me happy to hear that other kids helped him to the spot as he saw the egg and when they worked together to get the egg for him and they found it was the 5.00 egg no one was upset that they helped him and didn't get it. 

Next year I do think I'm going to change things up a bit.  I will likely still do this egg hunt as I really like it.  But I think I want my older kids hunting and not having to be "so nice" to the little ones.  So maybe a glow in the dark hunt at night, or hunt with flashlights will be the plan.  Maybe if I write it down it won't come up on me so fast that I don't get around to it.  I really want to add that next year.

I love this picture of Ellie.  She loves to show her personality.  And boy does she have plenty to spare!  Funny thing she said the other day on a side note.  She pulled down her shirt and told John, "I'm going to eat lots of green apples so I can have hair on my chest"

 


 Finally we do Easter baskets. We keep them simple. A few treats that all go into the family candy bowl that everyone eats out of. Eggs hidden around the house. (We learned years ago, you count how many real eggs are hidden and the game isn't over until all the real eggs are found!)

 Finally, I love that in the basket the kids typically get either a book or swimsuit. I love that there is a little something practical but fun in their baskets. I was taught years ago that a book as a gift teaches kids that they are something special they should want to read. I liked that idea and am glad the Easter bunny follows my example of giving them as gifts.

 So these are a few of our yearly Easter traditions.  I will share some other things we did that we don't normally do in another post.  This one is long enough!