vitalesweets: Easter Party Day!!

Much like my Santa and Christian Christmas post, I want to emphasis how seriously we take Easter as Christians. We have fondly spoken to Addison of the blessings of spring with all of its growth, the rebirth of plants, the birth of many animals and the awakening of all things hibernating. Most importantly we have thoroughly discussed, read books and observed art expressing the Resurrection of Christ. We are so grateful for how God works in our lives each day and we really enjoy teaching Addison to live and give as Christ does. We also find it very important to encourage a creative imagination and a large chunk of that is the fun of Santa and the Easter Bunny. There are Christians out there who respectfully have no place for such things in their lives but Santa and the Easter Bunny are about as real as Barbie and Spiderman in this house so on we go! This morning I headed out back with a bag full of about 100 easter eggs ready to be dispersed in their special hiding spots. After about two minutes of sticking them under chairs, near rocks and in low tree branches I realized we had way too many eggs. With my quick thinking ways I immediately began tossing eggs like chicken feed this way and that *BAM* Done. I went inside and resumed my hiding techniques by placing their Easter baskets all over the living room and playroom.

I prepped the inside of the house with some cleaning and decorating with easter babies like bunnies, chicks and lambs (duh!) and the lovely pastel table cloth I recycled from Addison's birthday party. I also baked a mean Berry Cobbler which you must try for yourself! Aimee and Sam were the first to get here. Livi handed me the most colorful bouquet of flowers I have ever seen. The best part of this day? NO SNOW! We were depending on it and had the kids decked out in snow gear but, thankfully, we were piled on with sunshine and warm weather - THANK YOU GOD! We decided to take a stroll up and down the block while waiting for Kelly, Alyssa, Matt, Kirsten and Lucy.

With all the sweeties gathered around, I told them a story: (high-pitched-talking-to-a-kid-voice) "Can I tell you guys a story?? Very early this morning I was making coffee in my kitchen when I saw something out the window! Do you remember the Easter Bunny we've seen at the mall?? Well, he was in our backyard! He was bouncing around and dropping eggs EVERYWHERE! I ran outside to tell him he dropped some eggs but he had already hopped off. Now there are eggs all over my yard! Would you like to go find them??"

Obviously, they got super charged to find all of these clumsily left behind eggs. Silly bunny ...

Once they had finished we quickly scurried them inside so they could scope out their findings. I really intended to be a bit healthier this time around and not go overboard with candy but it seems we had bought more candy than I thought so despite the few eggs with quarters and their baskets that included an Elmo juice box and stickers, the rest of their "gifts" were chocolate. At least it's not Easter everyday! They enjoyed the freedom of candy before lunch and then, of course, came lunch. We ordered pizza and everyone pitched in bringing plates, desserts, veggie snacks, dip, chips (healthy ones!), drinks and so on. I did plan on doing one of those spoon race games with the kids but they were enjoying their sugar highs and crashes and all the fun to be had in the playroom. I did engage them at one point, taking advantage of them all in the living room at once. I ran over with Addison's jumbo drawing pad and the Peter Rabbit cutouts I had made and began telling a story while drawing a bunny. Each of them put a piece on the bunny as the object came up in my story and our end result was a lovely Easter bunny.

Small Tip : If you have an easily accessible playroom and you're hosting a kids' party I highly recommend sifting through the toys and eliminating toys with small parts and that are more time consuming to pick up. The limited toys seems to help reduce overstimulation and makes cleanup SO. MUCH. EASIER.