Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Celebrating Easter

The Saturday before Easter, we colored eggs. Each kid got 6 hard-boiled eggs (yes, we will eat them all! My kids like those better than the candy). Here is everyone set to go. They had a fun time and they are getting more and more creative as they get older. I was very impressed by some of those eggs :)
We had a great Easter that we spent with my family. We went to church on Sunday morning (very early by the way, because Cory and I were both in the choir), had lunch at my parents house (with some out of town extended family) and then had the crazy egg hunt.

We had a total of 11 kids hunting. So, we decided to split the hunt into older (5-9 years old) and younger (baby - 4).
Here are the little kids running out to hunt
A couple of years ago, I decided to start writing the initials of my kids on "their" eggs. When they go hunting, they can only pick up the eggs that belong to them.

There were 2 reasons for this:
1) This eliminates the problem of 1 kid with 30 eggs and another with 2.
2) I like to do more trinket toys (trash) than candy. If I know who is going to pick up the egg, I can be more specific about what I put in it.

This system has worked really well over the years. Now, we just have to write the full names though because we had 4 J's and 2 A's.

The kids have gotten very good about not spoiling the surprise for someone else if they find theirs. This year, daddy made some kids really have to work for their eggs. He hid Morgan's in particular in very odd and hard to find spots.
Do you see that egg clipped to the leaf?
I know it seems like all we did for Easter is eggs and hunt's, but we did talk about the true celebration for the day as well. It's just not as fun to take pictures of that. Don't worry, they know why we are celebrating :)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow sounds like great fun! Whose great big home and yard looks like a great place to live! How about putting initals on the eggs that worked for me I have to SH even but I have on SKH and one SEH so can make it work that way as well.
I like toys better than candy too but they learned quickly to look under the green grass in their baskets for an added surprise and they balked loudly when they turned 18 that they wanted their last basket before they left for college ( I almost made the mistake of thinking they were too old how dare you Mom I want me gifts!) LOL

Anonymous said...

This also taught me be careful how big of the little surprises you make them because 12 year old and 18 year olds like CD's in fact so do 30 somethings and plus.

nate and liz said...

The egg hunt is the reason we celebrate- haha J/K! Colored eggs - so fun! I plan to color eggs next year with my girls and I am already looking forward to it. =) And the mess...
Looks like you all had quite a few kiddos hunting as well. The family we joined has 10 kids and some of them have children as well (my girls ages)! We have enjoyed spending a couple holidays with them and their clan.

Brittani said...

that looked like so much fun! Your kids are too cute, Cass :)