Easter Egg Hunts

Our kids got to participate in two Easter egg hunts this year - one a few days early at a park with their cousin, Lexi, and the other with all the cousins at their house on Easter day.

The one at the park was kinda weird, mostly because my kids and I didn't know anyone there except Jacob's sister and her daughter. So we pretty much kept to ourselves, anti-social as we are. Plus we got a bit lost getting there. And then the people in charge (just people from Kathy's church ward) "hid" the eggs and then didn't get the kids on the playground for about 30 minutes because they were waiting for one more friend to show up.

I was proud of my kids that they were able to (mostly) resist going after the eggs until they were given permission. But considering they were the oldest kids there, I wasn't terribly surprised. I honestly don't know where the other 4 almost 5 year olds are in Phoenix. I feel like every kid thing we go to, Hazel is the oldest kid by at least a year, if not two. I know there are other kids her age out there, right? It's not like she's going to be the ONLY kid in her grade next year? So where are they now? I digress.

One of the funny moments from the park Easter egg hunt was when they were all done hunting and had started opening their eggs. The first one Hazel opened contained some homemade stickers. In her (rather loud - she is Jacob's daughter) voice, she asks me, "Mom, what the freaking crap??" Though not terribly polite, I cracked up laughing. Once she figured out they were stickers and some of the eggs did have candy in them, she was quite happy.


The cousin Easter egg hunt on Easter day was pretty fun and not just because I mostly set it up. You see, last year, Jacob was in the Young Men presidency and around this time of year, set up a huge Easter egg hunt for all the youth in our ward. And being the semi-hoarder that I am (thanks for that, Mom), I kept all of the eggs he used. So I was able to put on an Easter egg hunt with over 100 eggs for my kids and their cousins. So after dinner the men of the family took the kids out on a walk while we women hid eggs.

The older two (13 and 11) weren't as excited as I thought they'd be (apparently free candy isn't cool anymore???) but the rest of the kids, especially Hazel and her 6 year-old cousin had a great time finding as many eggs as they wanted. Speed got tired after about 10 eggs - I think he was sad that he just wasn't finding them as fast as his sister. I did actually have to go retrieve the last 10 myself because they had their fill.
I also had "The Mondo Egg" which is about 5 times the size of a normal Easter egg that I stuff with some extra good candy that us women hid on top of a ceiling fan. That did manage to intrigue the older cousins, so at least they participated a little. It was a fun time and it was especially fun to see Hazel get so excited. They did burn through their candy pretty quick because we're pretty lax about that stuff around here, at least for the first couple of days after the holiday. And I didn't snitch any. At all. Not much. Kinda. :-)