City Egg Hunt

Our city has a giant Easter Egg Hunt. They use 5 soccer fields for the hunts (divided by age) plus one soccer field for activities. It is one of our annual traditions.

Photo with the bunny 

Before the hunt - the entire field is surrounded by families and they are all let go at the same time

Go, Go, Go! 

She ran off so fast I didn't get a photo of her picking any up, but here is one of Sweet Son.

They are done! They both filled their buckets full and then stopped collecting so other kids could have some. :)

Home Easter Egg Hunt

The kids love doing Easter Egg Hunts so we always do one at home. I collect the small toys, candy, and stickers we already have and stuff eggs then "hide" them all over the backyard. Yes, I'm cheap and lazy like that. Don't worry, we also do the big city egg hunt.

 And they're off!

They ignore the obvious ones and try to find the ones I have hidden 

Then they go back for the obvious ones

Spring Egg Hunt

The kids both had Spring Egg Hunts at school. This is their last year at the school since it only goes through Kindergarten. I have many photos, but all of the others include their friends. It was difficult to get them by themselves long enough for a photo.

He helped friends find eggs and didn't get many himself.

She wanted all the eggs.

After the kids went back to their classrooms, every child dumped their eggs into a pile and they were divided equally between the students. This works best since they are a mixed age classroom. Everyone knows this will happen ahead of time so no one gets upset. The teachers also notice patterns, i.e. one boy in Sweet Son's class only wanted orange eggs, so when they divided them up they only gave him orange eggs.

Cascaron

One tradition our kids love around Easter every year is to smash cascaron - eggs filled with confetti. Most people we know make their own. We ran out of time and just bought a dozen at the store. Here they are sold in grocery stores and big box stores.

Smashing is always fun!

The final result. Surrounded by eggs and confetti.

Other ways of decorating Easter Eggs

In addition to the marbled eggs I wrote about yesterday, we experimented with other types of decorating eggs.

Painting with a toothbrush

Painting with a paintbrush

Coloring with permanent markers and then...

Spray with rubbing alcohol to make the colors run

The more color before you spray the better these look

The painted eggs

The permanent marker and rubbing alcohol eggs

The eggs with tattoos - another really easy and great looking result.

Marbled Easter Eggs

This is our favorite way to decorate eggs. They are beautiful and so much fun! We started by giving each kid a square of foil with the edges turned up. Then each child got to pile on a lot of shaving cream. I didn't get photos of that this year. Sorry!

They each picked 2 colors of food coloring and put drops around the shaving cream. He picked red and yellow of course.

Here she is dripping blue and green.

Then they take a straw and drag it through making swirls and designs.

This is one of the most fun parts.

Still going - you can see some really cool patterns here.

 He preferred the swirl technique.

The messy part is rolling the eggs in it and then lifting them off. They need to sit for at least 24 hours to dry. With the left overs, the kids pushed a sheet of paper on the top to make marbled paper.

 The three set aside are the final eggs. After 24 hours, we gently wiped off the excess and this is what was left. Beautiful and fun!

Play time in Florida

Any vacation with kids should have some down time and this was no exception.

Listening to books

Getting ready for an egg hunt

They are off looking for eggs!

Want to see a great magic trick? They all climb on his lap and...

Magic

Another Egg Hunt

I'm a member of a local mom's board and this year a group Easter Egg Hunt was held. The hunt was held together, but they let the 5 and under group go first. Everyone was told to stop after getting 12 eggs.

The field is set and ready to go.

The little kids start.

At the end of the hunt there were still eggs left on the field. I love polite kids. A couple of kids were only picking up eggs in their favorite color and other kids were willing to trade. Some eggs had candy that others with allergies can't have and many offered to trade. It was so sweet. The parents were trying to make sure everyone had 12 and many kids ended up taking home more.

School Egg Hunt

Our kids are in different classes, so their school egg hunts were separate as well. Here are the only photos I can share of them.

Sweet Son's egg hunt on the natural play ground.

He's happy with his finds.

Sweet Daughter picking up an egg.

Sweet Daughter's egg hunt on the big playground.

She's running to find the last few eggs.

City Egg Hunt

One of our annual traditions is to attend our city egg hunt. This is the kids last year in this age group. It was much better organized and people were more polite this year!

Photo with the bunny

The kids look out at the field and plan their attack.

She's off! 

He's searching for specific colors.

A couple of things changed that made this a much more calm experience this year. #1 They didn't have any "special" eggs. Last year some of the eggs looked like soccer balls and could be traded for a real soccer ball. The parents rushed out and picked those up before kids could even have a chance. This year they did away with that. #2 They increased the number of eggs. Almost everyone we saw had a full basket. Even the kids with the giant baskets (what's up with that, by the way?) were able to get enough. After the hunt, which only lasts 3 minutes, there were still eggs on the field. My kids and others were looking around trying to find kids who didn't have a full basket and pointing out the eggs.

Marbled Egg Decorating

Normally we decorate eggs 3-4 different ways each year. This year we were busy and ran out of time. We only decorated them one way, our favorite way. Marbled eggs using shaving cream. You need shaving cream, food coloring, a straw or stick, and eggs. We do this on aluminum foil so it is easier to clean up, but that is optional.

 Step one: Spray a lot of shaving cream on your work area.

Step two: Drop 8-10 drops each of two different colors around the surface.

Step 3: Use a straw or stick to swirl it all together.

Step 4: Place the egg on top.

Step 5: Roll the egg making sure it all gets covered.

Step 6: Let dry overnight - the longer the better.

Step 7: GENTLY pat off the excess.

You end up with beautiful marbled eggs and a nice fresh scent in the house.

Spring Egg Hunt at School

The kids love the Spring Egg Hunt every year at their school. The school has grown so now they do multiple egg hunts. Since my kids are in different classes, it didn't surprise me that they ended up in different hunts. They put 3 classes together for each hunt (so 72 kids in each hunt). My concern was that both of the hunts they were in were at the same time on two different playgrounds. I would have to choose which to watch! After helping "hide" the eggs -72 kids each provided 24 eggs for each hunt. When you have that many eggs, you don't really hide them, you just try to spread them out.

I saw that the group Sweet Son was in was more organized. The eggs were "hidden" faster and the teachers were ready. They had the kids lined up and ready to go quickly. The hunt itself only lasts a few minutes. Those kids really clean up. Later the kids went back into the class and divided up the eggs so that each child went home with the same number. I rushed over to the other playground to see if it was also over.

It had just started! Sweet Daughter was thrilled that I got to watch her get all of the eggs. One of the things I love is that the school encourages parents to fill the eggs with non-candy items. We ended up with stickers, poppers, bouncy balls, erasers, and in a few the kids found money (2-3 coins of various amounts).

Our Easter Eggs

After testing out various methods, here are our finished decorated eggs. We have painted eggs, dipped eggs, marbled eggs, and my favorites - tattooed eggs. I highly suggest just sticking tattoos on eggs. They are neat, easy, and look great.

 Sweet Daughter's Eggs

Sweet Son's Eggs