Easter Preparations

Spring is in bloom around these parts. And in the week leading up to Easter, we were quite busy getting ready for the festivities. Easter and spring décor was spread throughout the house. The girls have been playing with plastic eggs for weeks in preparation for the big egg hunts – there were so many plastic eggs covering the surfaces of our house and yard that I finally had to pack some away for our own sanity.

We’ve never dyed eggs before because we aren’t big egg eaters in our house. So, I’ve never been able to justify hard boiling a dozen or more eggs just to color them. However, Aunt Kathy and Uncle Rob eat hard boiled eggs, and live across the street and invited us over to color their hard boiled eggs! Hooray! We headed over there one evening for the big festivities. First up, blowing bubbles with Lucy dog, some time on the swings and then in for an appetizer dinner. When you’re four and two, most dinners are eaten like appetizers, so this was just thrilling! All of their favorites, wrapped up into various food groups: fruits, veggies, crackers, meats, cheeses and more!

It was then time for the eggstraveganza, along with a lot of reminders not to drink the egg water, smelling the vinegar to prove the point and then we were off. Eggs were colored and dyed. Perhaps it wasn’t the most gentle of egg dyings – there were a few casualties due to some over zealous egg dropping into the cups. But in the end, we were left with an assortment of beautifully colored eggs and extremely happy girls!

At the end of the night, we all walked down to the dock. Rob brought out a fishing pole and worked some fishing magic for the girls. While we were at the dock, he caught three fish. The girls were thrilled. In fact, earlier in the week, Loran had asked Ella who the best fisherperson was, her answer without hesitation, “Uncle Rob!” A few weeks ago, Ella grabbed a box like a suitcase, and told me “Goodbye!” when I asked her where she was going, she told me, “I’m going on Rob’s boat.” I have a feeling this is going to be a very fun summer on the dock, and Rob had better hide his boat keys…

As the week rolled on, Easter baskets were prepared with some furry helpers. Ella had Thursday morning off school so she was able to attend school with Lily and I and then off to her afternoon school. However, she had Friday off so she perused the paper to find something fun to do.

We settled on going to the open gym time at the YMCA. There’s always a lot of fun activities to try and plenty of little people to play with, and I’d heard rumor that the Easter Bunny would be making an appearance. Ella was very excited to work on her evolving hockey skills. Previously, I’d written that her hockey skills were pretty much non-existent. Suddenly, she has skills?! When did this happen? Hockey was going well, Lily was content throwing her puck through the net and then throwing herself into the net, then chewing on the net…Then, the bunny walked in. Hockey sticks were dropped and the girls were suddenly quite present on either side of me. Both approached with caution, and slight smiles. They weren’t crying and screaming so this seemed promising. I had my camera phone ready thinking this would be the year I might get a cute photo of both of my girls happily with the Easter bunny. Not like a couple of years ago. However, they wouldn’t get any closer than they had to so I wasn’t able to get a photo. They did happily accept and eat the treats he was giving out, the little mooches.

Later that day, while Lillian took a nap, Ella and I made some Easter sugar cookies. I figure it’s the next best thing to dying eggs. However, we got the best of both worlds this year! And I still have a fridge full of hard boiled eggs…