Easter 2012

Happy Easter! Has everyone enjoyed themselves? We've been having a nice relaxing time here, if only the weather was a little warmer (highs of 9C/48F....brrrr!). Here are some highlights from our last week or so, starting with getting the house in the spirit of the season with decorations.

Remember how exciting it is each year when Mom got out the box of decorations for each holiday?

Kitty Kat helped decorate the Easter tree this year, too

Awwww, teamwork

Easter isn't Easter without bunny ears.....

....and Statue of Liberty points with a green decorative bag caught in them.  ?!?!?!  (some 4th of July decorations must have found their way into the Easter box....he didn't bother to differentiate)

(Blogger started playing nasty games on me here, so some captions are above the pictures, others are below. Consider it your fun little Easter game to try to make sense of it all)

He needed the mirror so he could draw his face on an egg.

A pretty sight, but we were limited by the fact I only had food coloring to use. Can you tell which of the eggs had the emerald green coloring, and which had the lavender? Yeah, me neither. Never mind, the deep colors look great!

Kitty Kat's artistic side

Helping decorate the bunny cupcakes

With great success, I think!

Nearly seven and still entertained by funny headbands.

There are no words for this level of cuteness

Then it was time for our annual Good Friday kids' party. On this side of the pond, Easter is a 4-day weekend with Good Friday and Easter Monday both off of school (am I the only American who had never heard of 'Easter Monday' before moving to Europe? Do we even have that day/phrase over there?). Since we're in a predominantly ex-pat community and lots of people go away for that weekend, having parties the morning of Good Friday is always the best time to catch people before they become swamped with Easter celebrations of their own. With the exception of only one year when it was a little damp, we've always been blessed with dry, sunny weather (if maybe cold) and lots of fun. This year was the same, and a great time was had by all!

I made jars of candy to give away as prizes for the different games planned. Bet you can't guess that the winner of this jar had to guess how many pieces of candy it held.  ;-)  There were some tears at the end of the day when some children didn't get the jars they were hoping for, and I started to feel bad....then I remembered playground politics are Life Lessons, and I got over it. Fortunately, so did the kids.

Mr T was so excited for the party, he sat in the window waiting for his friends to arrive.

'Toss the eggs into the basket' game

Big Chief's chalk basket for 'Pin the Egg on the Basket'

When we made the blindfold a normal size, Mr T cheated. (should I admit I'm a little proud of his resourcefulness?) Then we  adapted the shape and turned everyone into Easter bandits. They didn't complain.

By far the most entertaining game for the parents to watch. We tied a balloon with ribbon to each child's ankle, then they had to battle it out to pop each others' balloon. The last one with an intact balloon was the winner. Great fun to watch!

While hiding the eggs for the egg hunt in the backyard and setting up lunch, we kicked the kids out onto the street for a scavenger hunt. They had to find the house number that each picture belonged to. I cut up a cardboard box to give the kids something stable to hold, then covered with some wrapping paper and stickers. This was the kids' favorite game.

Mama loved this game, too, because the house was emptied of smelly boys...of ALL ages!

Kitty Kat and her Easter Party lunch (she was, by far, the healthiest of all of us)

We let Kitty Kat out to 'find' her eggs early, before all the big kids, but she had ZERO interest in it. Party pooper.

That's ok, though, because all the others LOVED it!

Mr T said he felt like he was in CandyLand. Yeah, and he had the sugar high to prove it the rest of the day, too.

 

 Mr T was so excited for Easter morning, he actually went to bed willingly last night when we cut short his special 'stay up late to play PlayStation with Daddy' night so that he could get some good sleep. Thankfully, he slept until a reasonable hour, about 8am. Wish I could say the same for his sister, Little Miss 6:20am for no good reason. Grrrrrrrrr.

Where are our baskets? In the buffet?

Under the table?

 In the fridge?

Under the sink?

 The washing machine?

 The cellar? (come on, lil sis', you can join in on the search action)

Oh man, the Easter Bunny JUST hopped out the window after sneaking them into your bedroom!

 And he must have dropped his carrot on the way out, he was in such a hurry!


Mr T is SO over the Star Wars thing, and gave his light saber to Kitty Kat.

She was thrilled to pieces
 

This was his favorite part of the basket. Because although Star Wars isn't cool anymore, ninjas most definitely ARE.

 His second favorite item received.....Goldfish crackers.  ;-)
 

 

 

My man wastes no time when it comes to Lego assembly

 What? I got an M&M??

 Oooh, looks like there's another one.

Alright, where the crap is the rest of them?!

 I got chocolate, I got chocolate, I got chocolate.

 The rest of our day is being spent very lazily. Daddy watching sports, Mr T playing with his Lego/PlayStation/etc and eating a disgusting amount of candy, Mama doing laundry/blogging/trying to find the motivation to go for a run later and burn off some of her own Easter indulgences, and Kitty Kat being......well, Kitty Kat.  ;-)

I hope all your Easters are equally enjoyable. Happy Easter!