Hop to it!

I have a hard time with Easter. It was one of my Grandmother's favorite holidays outside of Christmas, and it's supposed to be MY holiday when it comes to family gatherings. Unfortunately, since I'm the only descendent with children of "egg hunting" age, it seems a bit ridiculous to have everyone over. I'd much rather handle the whole Easter basket, egg filling and dessert making thing and not worry about whether or not the pre-teens are going to give away that there really ISN'T an Easter bunny. The last year I held Easter here, my oldest male cousin and his brother got out of their parents car talking all about how he wasn't real and neither was Santa. I quickly shut them up, because SERIOUSLY... My kids still believe in these things, it's exciting to think of this imaginary bunny pooping jelly beans in the yard and sharing plastic eggs full of forbidden treats in the bushes. They are still gullible in other words, and I'd like to keep them that way thankyouverymuch.

So now, our new tradition is to go to my Inlaw's and litter their yard with eggs and let the kids run off their sugar between the pool, trampoline, half pipe and (tick, flea, etc.) free yard. Our infestation seems to quadruple every year and they're pretty resistant to just about anything we've put out. SO SCREW IT. Inlaw's house it is! Seeing as my side of the family is pretty fragile right now, it's better this way.

I went into making their baskets this year with as little candy as possible. They'd already had an egg hunt at school, they had another one at Sunday School, and then SURPRISE SURPRISE (NOT!) the Easter Bunny visit my Mother's house AND my Inlaw's front yard. My cookie jar is filled to the brim with enough sugar to put a diabetic into a coma. Y'all, please come take this candy from me! I already ate all my fancy Peeps, y'all can have everything else.

The kids took the egg hunt SERIOUSLY. There was a no holds barred viciousness between them. People, we have entered the full on sibling rivalry stage. If they ask for a snack, each one has to have the biggest. If they're playing with a toy, it immediately becomes the toy the other child had their eye on. If one doesn't want to be a big helper, the other will knock the wall down to be the BEST CHILD EVER as they shoot daggers at the other child. Lord help me, pray for me, something. Lillie ran from one egg to another as if she were still in Color Run mode. Girlfriend HAULED between eggs and was overwhelmed by the amount and therefore got tunnel vision and couldn't see the 60 other eggs in the vicinity. She would focus on one egg and one egg only. Lo took his sweet time, inspecting each egg to make sure it held "the good stuff." Like that even mattered seeing as I dumped it all in the cookie jar at the end of the day. I love (and hate) that they're at this stage, where they know what to do and can do it all by themselves. Unfortunately, it also means they can open their own candy... all by themselves.

 Don't let their innocent faces fool you, they are ruthless egg hunters.

I have no idea just how much candy they ended up consuming between the three egg hunts, but I made doubly sure to scrub their little teeth in search of the elusive "sugar bugs." The Easter Bunny also conveniently left brand new toothbrushes and toothpaste... because that's how I roll. Their Easter Baskets also included books, bubbles and little Lego kits. They had one small snap apart chocolate bunny a piece. Because what IS Easter without a chocolate bunny???

Lillie LOST HER MIND over her "GURR WEGO!" and books. Lo was just as excited, but contained himself. I, for one, think 6 a.m. is too damn early to put together Lego kits. JUST SAYIN.

And then, what comes up... MUST COME DOWN. After three egg hunts, Lillie crashed. Tantrums of epic proportions echoed off the walls, toys were thrown, tears were shed... Logan just used all his extra energy to run laps around the backyard. Game of corn hole? Yes please! Back flips on the trampoline? HELLZ YES. And let's play ten rounds of Mario Kart on the Wii somewhere in between all this madness. His meltdown didn't really occur until it was time to leave. But we always anticipate that one.

We were all a little sugared up. We also got fun things in our baskets as well... like stick on mustaches. WHERE ON EARTH DO YOU EVEN FIND THESE THINGS???

Dinner was divine, and I did fairly well with my portions... until I debuted my Hummingbird Cupcakes. They were melt in your mouth delicious and the cream cheese frosting came out ah-mazing! My Husband walked in on me icing them and I have a tendency to make sound effects as I ice my goods. That day in particular, I added a little "bloop" every time I pulled the icing bag away from the cake. It was totally necessary to "bloop" or the little icing curly cue never would have come out perfect. Just trust me on this.

 And then God said "Let there be cupcakes!" And there was, and it was good.

So that was our Easter in a nutshell. I hope everyone else enjoyed the company of friends and family this weekend, even if you didn't have a chance to celebrate. We're all still riding high on our Color Run vibes around these parts. ((Except for the children who are STILL crashing 24 hours later and demanded chocolate for breakfast.... hooligans.))