When as I was putting out the recycling this morning a toilet paper roll in the bin triggered my memory of a craft project Sam wanted to make. Egg people! I brought them in, snipped them up, gathered a few more supplies from our craft shelves (googly eyes, wool roving, oil pastels, pipe cleaners, ink pens, glue and tape...), set it on the table with the eggs we'd dyed the day before... and the creativity began. The whole family got involved and before we knew it, hours had gone by. I nearly forgot I had a turkey to put in the oven!
While we worked, we all oohed and ahhhed and laughed over each funny mouth, comical tuft of hair or googly eye that slid down the face because of too much glue. I took a snapshot of each, then we loaded the photos to the computer and processed them; together we added funny captions or jokes, giggling at how silly they all looked, each one with its own personality.
This was the best part of Easter for us all, I think.
I also used the holiday as an excuse to gift the kids with some new Playmobil sets (spring theme) and some useful items for outdoors and many seasons of nature watching: a good magnifying glass, another more powerful pair of binoculars and some good quality sketchbooks to doodle anything inspired by nature (or otherwise).
so excited to receive a colorful gift and some good chocolate
at last I was able to find the chicken coop for my chicken-loving boys
a rabbit hutch and a woodland stump with hedgehog family were also fun finds Sam spent a lot of time in his bunny suit. He was just so excited about the whole Easter affair that he could hardly talk about anything else. He even spent time waving and flashing big bunny smiles to everyone in our neighborhood. He brought smiles to everyone's face.
We don't do the conventional Easter Bunny story with the kids, so they knew by mid-day it was time to urge me on to get hiding the eggs outdoors so that they could find them. The hunt is the best part for them, of course, they could keep finding the same eggs over and over and over...
It made me think, why wait until Easter each year to do this? We really need to organize more scavenger hunts throughout the year. Also it has been a desire of ours to get geocaching as well for the same reason, the thrill of the seek. Yes, we'll have to get on that.
What a laid back, easy and fun-filled weekend it was!
Hello and happy belated easter!!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading about how the traditions you created were so much fun and allowed for a laid back kind of celebration. We too, value the traditions over the more mainstream (and sometimes religious) overtones of this holiday. Making those egg folk looked like an activity to lose oneself in so easily. ...something to remember for next year. At our house easter morning saw a fun outdoor egg hunt, and then the boys decided to color more eggs using the dye tablets we'd bought as back up in case the natural dyes weren't appealing once they got going. And then Matthew decided to pull out some thrifted white roving and dyed it various colrs for the ealy part of the day. It was relaxed here as well:)
I love the idea of scavenger hunts, the boys love to dig holes around the farm (where they can) and then bury a container with "treasure" inside, usually things of value to them, special rocks, shells, little items, and then make a treasure map describing how to find it and how far down to dig. It would be fun to do one when you guys make it over!!
~Erin