Easter Egg Hunt

We haven't had very good luck for the last few Easters. On Max's very first Easter, he was only just out of the hospital and still on house arrest (although we did risk smuggling him over to Grandma and Grandpa's for Easter dinner). His second Easter he had a nasty case of bronchiolitis and was not feeling well at all. Last year, he was laid up with a broken leg and had to endure the humiliation of having a baby sister who was more mobile than he was. So, THIS year, we definitely wanted to participate in some Easter fun.

The Saturday before Easter, the church (also home of Max's future preschool) was holding an Easter egg hunt for all the kids. Since we hadn't been able to participate before, I grabbed a couple of baskets, buckled everyone into the car, and headed over to the church for some egg-hunting fun. Everyone gathered in the gymnasium and it was packed! Of course, I quickly rediscovered how hard it is to keep tabs on a wiggly 1 1/2 year old and an energetic 3 year old at the same time. Happily, Grandma and Grandpa were there for the festivities and I was really grateful for some extra kid-wrangling assistance.

They had the egg hunt broken up into two age groups -- kids three and under had their own egg hunt in one section, while the older kids had a bigger egg hunt in a different section. It was really funny -- we lined all the little kids up around a big square of grass that was covered with plastic eggs. One the hunt officially began, all the kids wandered onto the grass and started picking up eggs. Max thought it was great fun, although his strategy could use some improvement. He'd run up to an egg, pick it up, shake it, decide that it wasn't the egg for him, put it back on the ground, and move on to the next egg. With a little prompting, he eventually started to put some eggs in his basket. Molly, on the other hand, was an egg-hunting fiend! I held her basket for her while she methodically picked up egg after egg and piled them in the basket. She eventually filled her basket up completely and we had to start putting her eggs in Max's basket! I wish I could have snapped some pictures of the actual egg hunt, but I had my hands full helping the kids.

The whole thing was over within 10-15 minutes -- once all the eggs had been found, the kids all trooped back inside to empty their eggs and check out their loot. You should have seen the look on Max's face when he discovered that all of his eggs were full of candy. He started unwrapping candy and shoveling it into his mouth as fast as he could. Not to be outdone by her big brother, Molly started handing pieces of candy to me and asking me to unwrap them, so she could get her sugar buzz going. One of the eggs ended up having a prize ticket in it, so in addition to all the candy, we took home another whole Easter basket full of toys and goodies.

We hadn't been in the car more than about 60 seconds before Max was begging to "go to Max's school, find Easter eggs more!" Needless to say, after all the excitement and goodies, nobody took a nap this afternoon!