This is the first year we did anything special for Easter with the kids. We decided to divide the celebrating. We wanted them to have fun doing all the Easter Bunny/baskets things, but we also didn’t want to distract from the importance of the Easter celebration and remembering the atonement. That’s how Welcome Spring Day was born. So our new tradition is to do all the baskets and egg hunts and candy stuff the day before and to let Easter Sunday be a spiritually focused day. It worked really well for us, and we had a great time!
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/The Guinn family (our partners in crime) came over at 9 am for an Easter egg hunt. Kim and I went a little overboard with the eggs. All together we had over 200 plastic eggs, each with candy in them. We tossed them around the backyard. Kim had warned me that I had better practice with the kids because her girls were master egg hunters. They’d been doing it for weeks. Turns out, home-field advantage and inexperience win out sometimes. Alyssa, Makenna and Isabelle were so excited about seeing different toys than what they have in their own backyard that they mostly ignored the eggs and played with our stuff while our kids were like kids in a candy store (almost literally) and ran from egg to egg, filling their baskets until they spilled over. I walked around with Caisen. Once I showed him to pick up an egg and put it in, he was ready for action.
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/Kimball and Sawyer racing for eggs
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/Caisen putting eggs in his basket like a big boy!
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/Brinlee finds one the boys haven’t gotten to.
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/I wonder if I can get this whole egg in my mouth.
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/At most I managed to get six out of seven kids in a picture. Caisen was in someone’s lap getting loves.
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/After the egg hunt, we came inside and let them eat all the candy they wanted. Sawyer threw up, and promptly shoved more candy in his mouth.
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/When they had had their fill of candy, we brought out the cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes. What is this? Sugar torture? No, it’s the fulfillment of every child’s holiday dreams: enough sugar to make you sick. Sawyer had already had one lap around the track and was going for more.
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/I don’t think I can move.
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/Ready for round two! Bring it on!
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/I think I might get sick. Can you OD on sugar? I might be the first to come close.
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/After waking up from a much-needed nap, they came downstairs to find Easter baskets! They each got a mixing bowl, a whisk, a rolling pin, a hot pad, a toy motorcycle, bubbles, MORE CANDY, and a hat. They love their play kitchen and love helping mommy bake, so some baking equipment was necessary.
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/The hats are a hit!
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/Brinlee is carefully examining the contents of her basket.
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/Mommy and daddy! Look what we got!
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/The next day, believe it or not, we made sugar cookies. We had planned to do it the day before, but we thought we might have reached our maximum sugar for the day. It was a fun day, and we’re glad the Guinns came over to share it with us (and we’re totally going to skunk you in the egg hunt again next year!)