An Easter Recap

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!

Three

We threw Henry a Cars and Trucks and Things That Go party for his third birthday because Richard Scarry books are his favorite things right now, second only to vehicles of any kind.  If he disappears, you can usually find him reading one to himself and if you try to sit down and read it with him he will tell you that he wants to read it "by himself!"

I'm sure people with more sophisticated software and computer prowess than I possess could come up with much fancier invitations than these but in our house we make do with what we have!  I will say though that cutting out all those pickle cars by hand seemed like a much better idea before I actually started doing it.....

.....the same is true for cutting out goldbugs from yellow posterboard......I hid a bunch of these goldbugs all over the house and yard which Henry and David thought was hysterical (if you aren't familiar with the book, goldbug is hiding on pretty much every page). 

For decorations I used (surprise!) our homemade birthday bunting--which goes up for pretty much every birthday celebration in our home and I also made some paper garlands from an old, used Richard Scarry book I picked up at our local used bookstore.  I've never destroyed a book on purpose before and it was really hard to make the first cut but it was really fun once I got going.  We really live on the wild side here :)

We also transformed our thing-a-ma-jig into a pickle car....I was pretty proud of myself with this one and Henry thought it was fun :)

Okay I was also proud of myself for my sprinkle cake masterpiece.  It's supposed to be a two layer cake but I had a cake-tastrophe when I was removing one of the first layers from its pan so I had to make a second cake and ended up with three usable layers and one plate of extra cake parts in the fridge...I mean you don't just let good cake parts go to waste, am I right?

Henry was beside himself with the desire to lick all of the sprinkles off the cake once he laid eyes on it and it may or may not have needed some sprinkle patch jobs before the guests arrived.....

The pinata was a big hit too....well really, who doesn't like pinatas?  Chris said he was surprised at what a good job I did stuffing it.....I'm not sure if that was a complement or not....maybe he was afraid it would be full of healthy granola bars and toothbrushes instead of the generic matchbox cars and copious amounts of candy.

To all of our little guests' parents....you.are.welcome :)

We didn't have party games planned, mostly because I really dislike the idea of rounding up a bunch of one to seven year olds and attempting to make them all do the same thing at the same time.  Instead we just had activities strewn around--a table for coloring Busytown coloring pages, a sand table with construction vehicles, bouncing balls and balloons....but mostly the kids played (i.e. wreaked havoc) in the boys' room where they ran with their stolen candy to devour it away from the watchful eyes of their parents.

David said his favorite part of the party was getting presents and "eating all the yummy cheeseballs."

Henry says his favorite part was the sprinkle cake.

It was a really good day....even if I still couldn't manage to get one good picture of all of my men together.....

Well, at least Goldbug is smiling.......and we did get one good picture of my littlest man :)

A big thank you to everyone who made the day so special!  

And check out my pinterest board for info and sources for all of my party inspiration :)

Easter is for Throwing Eggs.......

Well, we got all of our eggs dyed and filled right on time....and it was a lot of eggs....and by we, I mean mostly me.........

.....and when Easter morning arrived the boys had to hunt for their baskets which was quite the challenge since they are both afflicted with can't-finders-itis.....I think it's hereditary....from their father's side :)

They both got new flashlights and the obligatory Easter candy, and then Henry got some new garden tools and flower seed packets and David got his first real hammer....we've gone over the hammer rules but, it's David, so we'll see.....

Then it was off to the two hour mass, but not before I attempted a family photo shoot..............it went just about as well as you would expect........

....the blur in the corner is the surprise Henry blanket attack.

After mass was over--did I mention it was two hours?--we came home to set up for our fourth annual We're All a Bunch of Nomadic Drifters Who Have No Family Nearby to Celebrate With Easter Egg Hunt and Potluck....I know, the title could use a little work.........

We had seventeen adults and fourteen children so it was a little crazy in our tinyhouse.  But good crazy :)

Good crazy....and not a bit overwhelming :)

I think everyone had fun.....

.....and no babies were actually harmed.....well John Michael did intercept an egg meant for our neighbor with his head......so I guess I'll have to amend that to no babies were seriously harmed.......

Our raccoons are going to have quite the Easter celebration as well, once they realize our yard is littered with fruity pebbles--who am I kidding, I totally bought generic dyno pebbles...hopefully the raccoons won't be too put out :)   

Happy Easter everyone!