This year, we spent Holy Saturday in our usual manner--that is, decorating an absurd amount of Easter eggs. Seventeen dozen to be exact. I like to go the old tried and true food coloring route, with some vegetable oil thrown to spice things up. The kids love it and with so many eggs to dye nobody's very particular about their work. It's just a color mixing, double dipping, experimenting free for all. Clearly we are very fancy egg decorators.
I spent the rest of the afternoon filling said eggs with fruity pebbles and sealing them up for our annual Easter egg hunt and otherwise preparing the house and food and getting all the other things done that need to happen when you invite entirely too many people over for a party.
On Easter Sunday, we went to mass and then came home for a quick photo shoot in which we did not get an actual family photo and I also managed to overexpose pretty much all of the cutest pictures of the children. I'm nothing if not professional.
Once our mildly successful photography session was over we let the kids inside to hunt for their Easter baskets. This year (once again) everyone found their baskets except Henry. His preferred method of wandering about aimlessly and complaining that he can't find anything was surprisingly not the most successful way to locate an Easter basket. Even with my fairly obvious hint to "look behind the curtains" he still couldn't muster up the gumption to, I don't know, lift up the nearest curtain and look behind it. In the end, John, following my oh so subtle clues, found the basket and saved the day.
The kids each got a book, a bit of candy, a magnifying glass/watering can (or tea cup as John calls it?)/doll depending on who you were and some flower seeds. The flower seeds area perennial favorite and I think there would have been tears if they hadn't been included. There's already been much discussion about whose flowers are going where and I think we've worked out a game plan for where to put the sunflowers this time so that they actually grow. (Don't tell the neighbors but it involves the front yard....our neighborhood might be a little too classy for sunflower patches, but what do you when the front yard has the best light?)
After the kids ate nearly every single piece of candy in their baskets, we commenced with the party preparations--and naptimes. Naptimes were very important to the success of the party. The DeAngelo cousins stopped by for a visit and Jack even managed to win the egg hunt to which we can only say, thank you for coming and we're sorry about the glitter--it's probably not coming off for a while.
Though I had my camera with me for the rest of the party I did not manage to document any of it--which is probably not a bad thing since I was obviously not on my A-game. The egg hunt was a success, although it went really fast. Apparently seventeen dozen eggs is not nearly enough--this year the kids were bigger and the competition intense. I think next year we'll need to go even bigger.
It was such a lovely Easter. We loved having a full house and a chance to visit with family, friends and neighbors. I'm so glad we decided to host the party again this year, even if our house isn't exactly ideal for entertaining large numbers of people all at once. I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. I know our kids did :)
How were all of your Easter celebrations? Wonderful I hope!