Sunday, April 12, 2009
Easter Egg Dilemma Solved!
Hooray! I’ve had a few desires regarding Easter baskets and hunts, which were fulfilled this year.
One - I’ve been wanting to keep Easter egg hunts to Saturdays and, if possible, have a hunt in Spring rather than Easter week. But I’m never on top of it enough to do it on the first day of spring! Saturday is my back-up desire.
Two - I’m wary of loading my kids up on sugar. So I’ve tried to find non-candy basket items. (I mean, who ever said it was a good idea to gorge ourselves on sugar and chocolate first thing in the morning... or at all?!)
Three - I try to keep the real meaning of Easter in all of our celebrations. The Spring egg hunt and baskets would solve it, but again, I haven’t gotten that far.
So...
The Easter Bunny visited our house on Saturday. He hid the kids’ Easter baskets this year (instead of the usual yarn tied to their bed, leading to the baskets). Their baskets had very little candy (and there was no complaining about it)! I’m grateful that we get to set the expectations for our own family! The boys couldn’t get enough of their bouncy balls and the girls were thrilled with their new books and accessories.
But one dilemma still remained: the kids wanted to hunt for eggs. Saturday didn’t work out due to rainy, cold weather outside, and a tired mom in a messy house inside. So Sunday was my only option left. I’d planned to find a religious puzzle for each child to divide among the eggs, but never found anything. So Saturday night the idea came...
Adam was ecstatic about his dinosaur chapter books! Andrew got books about vehicles. The boys also got bouncy balls, bubbles, and a Spider Man punching bag.
All the kids got a Cheetos “carrot” and one plastic egg with jelly beans. It’s nice to have an excuse to give them the books I’ve been saving for so long, on which I’ve found amazing deals - free or super cheap. (I gather little items throughout the year for various holidays, which I keep in a bin in my closet. When the next holiday rolls around, I search the bin for the most fitting items to use.)
The girls got new socks, a scripture reading light, a spiral notebook for taking notes at church, lotion, lip gloss, a sparkly headband, and a fairy book.
I gave each child their own color of plastic eggs to find. I pulled out my file of “extra pictures of Jesus,” and finally found a use for all the tiny pictures of Christ I’ve been cutting out forever. I put one in each egg, and wrote an accompanying message with each picture. I put one jelly bean into each egg, and hoped for the best.
The kids were thrilled to hunt for their own color, and it made it very easy to hide the eggs according to age. The 3 older kids were excited about the messages to read and about the candy. Andrew liked the pictures of Jesus, but only cared about the jelly beans.
So they still had the fun of a hunt, but the conclusion kept with a religious theme. Yahoo!
They also got the extra surprise of a few wrapped presents to open (pictured at the top): 3 new religious chapter books and two little books for church, which I recently made (and was able to get printed, cut, laminated, cut again, and spiral bound... by the hair of my chinny chin chin).
We had a yummy pancake breakfast before church on fun egg-shaped plates. It was all a great way to start off Easter morning!
