Easter Egg Hunting is a Sport
Make no mistake, when it comes to Easter egg hunts my girls are in it to win it. Any holiday that involves candy is their jam, but Easter is the only holiday they actually train for. A few weeks before Easter Ella and Adriana start running practice drills throughout the house.
Each girl is armed with a basket and 24 eggs as they take turns playing the Easter bunny and the hunter. They case the house first to identify the nooks and crannies that the Easter Bunny might choose to hide their candy. Then one sister closes her eyes while the other hides the empty eggs. From anywhere in the house you can hear, “on your mark, get set, go!”.
The come barreling down the stairs in their sweatbands and workout gear- the only thing missing is me blaring the Rocky theme song. The focus is on speed and agility as if our family Easter egg hunts are timed. It must be those community egg hunts they are conditioning for. The girls are just a teensy bit competitive so if you see them out and about be careful, they might throw an elbow or two.
In effort to avoid Easter Day egg wars at our house the bunny leaves a note that tells the girls how many eggs each one of them should be looking for including the coveted golden egg. The Golden Egg usually has money in it so that is a huge score for the kid who discovers it.
Within a matter of minutes, they have successfully conquered the living room gauntlet securing all 48 eggs. Each year the Easter bunny intends to hide eggs outside but doesn’t quite make it that far. I am sure the bunny is super tired after staying up late sipping and stuffing all those plastic eggs. Who can blame her? This year I will advise the bunny to use the prefilled candy eggs.
After 8 years of Easter egg hunts, I have learned that my kids get cracked out on sugar pretty quickly. So, in effort to save our sanity and their teeth we limit the candy haul and put something fun and more useful in their Easter baskets.
Each basket has a theme and it is filled with an activity or a few small toys. Here are some fun themes that we have done in the past with a few suggestions of what to put in each basket. The other plus to a busy basket is that it will keep the kids entertained for a while.
Five ideas to fill Easter basket that are not candy:
1. A Beach Basket: bathing suit, towel, sand bucket and goggles.
2. Arts and Crafts Basket: crayons, coloring books, paint, construction paper and playdough.
3. A Backyard Basket: bubble wands, water guns, kite, and sidewalk chalk
4. A Gardening Basket: Plant seeds, gloves, watering can, shovel and rake.
5. A Baking Basket: cookie dough mix, cookie cutters, sprinkles, frosting and apron.
Happy hunting!
