Busy but fun Easter weekend with my family

Until I had my daughter, the last few Easters haven’t been nearly as exciting as celebrations with my family used to be. My husband and I went camping for Easter weekend with my family a few years ago, hiding plastic eggs for my youngest siblings to hunt, and it was a blast.

Since then, we’ve generally spent quiet Easters at home or sometimes at dinners with my husband’s family. While I love spending those dinners with them and it’s fun to talk with everyone, it’s been all adults until the last couple of years and I’m used to being surrounded by my younger siblings. The dinners have been fun, but comparatively quiet without kids running around.

Last year, our daughter was a baby. We loved giving her an Easter basket and doing pictures, but that was about all we did with her for the holiday. This year, she got to participate in more activities.

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Easter weekend

The big Easter weekend began when my husband got Friday off and we were able to hang out at home. My husband played with our daughter for awhile and cleaned while I did outside work. I finally got around to weeding our largest garden bed, getting it all cleaned out except for a small corner full of crabgrass. I cleared one bed already, so we’re making progress!

Once our daughter was in bed that night, my husband and I finally got to watch Spider-man Homecoming. We don’t go to the movie theater often, but used to go to see the Marvel films. Now that we have a toddler and are putting more emphasis on our savings, we mostly watch them later on Blu-ray through RedBox. (We generally receive at least one of the new films for Christmas from family. I also sometimes gift one to my husband for Father’s Day or his birthday, so we also own most of them.)

Saturday morning was supposed to be spent at a community egg hunt, but we missed our daughter’s age group by mere minutes. On our way to my husband’s family’s house to celebrate our niece’s birthday, I looked online and saw that another egg hunt was going on in their town, so we went there first. Our daughter played on the grounds while waiting for it to start, then loved gathering eggs in her first hunt. We pointed to a few eggs, but let her do most of the work. She found five!

She was impressed when she learned that the eggs opened and had treats inside. They had Laffy Taffy and SweetTarts inside. We don’t give her candy, so we took the candy out and let her play with the eggs. She took her basket and hunted for flowers and pinecones while we waited for the next part of the event. They gave away prizes for finding special eggs, the most eggs, etc., and had some random drawings. Our kiddo won a certificate for a free pizza, a one-time bowling pass and a small gift card in one drawing!

The rest of the day was spent with my husband’s family. Our daughter loves to play with her cousins!

After church on Sunday, we did her Easter photos, let her open her Easter basket and then did a small private egg hunt with about 15 eggs. She was wiggly for the photos, but had a lot of fun. Her eggs were stuffed with healthy popcorn from our air popper, Gerber baby puffs and some Teddy Grahams. This time, she got to eat everything in the eggs. 🙂

She used her new Peppa Pig gardening tools in some of my pots for a bit. She tried to use them to eat the dirt the first two minutes or so. I guess they kind of look like a giant fork and spoon…? Then she played with my husband while I did some more work in our larger garden bed.

It was busy and fun, but we got a lot done. The community egg hunt was free, and we spent very little on her basket and private egg hunt. Not bad for an Easter weekend!

Monday

My husband has today off, so I’m getting some work done for my freelancing business and we’re getting some cleaning and organizing done. We don’t generally have time for breakfast together except often-rushed weekend ones. When we all sat down at the table, she looked back and forth between us and signed, “Daddy.” She was so happy he got to eat with us! I think she ate her weight in biscuits and yogurt– she had seconds, then part of my meal, then a little more biscuit.

I put a few seedlings in the garden and a large container yesterday. I’m hoping to have time to move some more out today or tomorrow. For the most part, we’re just enjoying spending the time together this Easter weekend. We’ve enjoyed watching our toddler dance in her Easter bunny ears headband and play with a cardboard box (while surrounded by toys and books, naturally). She also got to read one of her favorite books, “Oh My, Oh My, Oh Dinosaurs” with her daddy before her nap.

Next Easter

Next year, we’ll probably go to a community egg hunt again. We’ll probably do a private egg hunt again, though maybe next time we can coordinate with her cousins.

We didn’t get to do an Easter dinner with his family this year, but next year we may do one with them, or maybe even camp.

This year she was still a little young to dye eggs, and we had a packed weekend without it. We might try to fit that in next time, too. She loves art projects.

What did you do for Easter this year? How have your traditions changed as your family has?