Spring Celebration

Evan and "Na-Na" aka Ginger

Every year, much to Alan's chagrin, I have a spring festival (aka easter party). Never having celebrated Easter as a kid, this is somewhat of a large pill for him to swallow. We have compromised though and he seems to accept it more if I phrase it as a celebration of spring. For better or worse, each of us in our playgroup have "claimed" a holiday. Nancy has Halloween, Meredith Christmas, and I do Easter. I guess I just like throwing a party.

The previous years I have made a bunny cake. Previous years I have also had my mom here visiting. This year mom is coming in June for the big 4-0 celebration for Heidi and for Evan's 3rd birthday which is a couple weeks before. So, needless to say, I didn't have her help and the bunny cake did not get made. I did make some pretty killer cupcakes though (Barefoot Contessa knows her cupcakes!) and Easter cookies as well.

After some "keep the kids out of trouble" crafts and "settle the tummy" food before the massively frosted cupcakes, the kids lined up at the door to hunt for eggs. Now, Kiira has asked me whether the Easter bunny hides these eggs. To be honest, I can't coordinate stuffing the eggs (they are little plastic eggs that I fill with fuzzy chicks) and hiding them (there are a couple hundred) without her knowing so I settled on the following answer which she seems to have bought. I said that the Easter bunny is too busy before Easter to hide all of the eggs so mommy helps out. On Easter day though, the Easter bunny comes to hide all the real eggs. Phew. Innocence preserved for a little longer I think.

Anyway, the egg hunt lasts for about two minutes. However, in the actual chaos of 20 kids looking for eggs it feels like 15 (!) minutes. Usually I put the big kids in our postage stamp sized front lawn and the little kids on the back deck so that everyone can get some eggs. Luckily for us, there was no hair pulling, no dress ripping and no pushing and shoving. Kids were good too.

Thanks to all that came and we are looking forward to next year's party!

Keep checking back for the link to all the photos from Easter - I just haven't had time to upload them yet! Ok - here is the link!