Maya’s favorite holiday is Easter. You may think that she only cares about it because it’s the thing on her mind right now, but nope, she’s been looking forward to Easter ever since *last* Easter finished up. She loves it all: the egg dyeing, the egg hunting, the Easter bunny. It’s her jam. She even loves it more than Christmas.

She was able to do it by herself this year!

It’s difficult to tell what Ian loves because he sort of gets caught in the wake of his big sister’s enthusiasm. As an example, she loves octopuses, so he loves octopuses (to the point that he insists, often loudly and with tears, that he’s an octopus and ONLY an octopus). He seemed to really enjoy the egg dyeing, and he really got into the hunting this year.

Ian is getting in on the action

The weekend before, we had friends over for a belated dinner of homemade corned beef and root veggies and Irish soda bread. Our friend brought a pub salad that included, among many other delicious things, hard boiled eggs. Now, I have tried the kids on boiled eggs in the past and no one really took to them. This time though, Maya would have removed every boiled egg chunk from that salad if we had let her. That’s been her go-to protein for school lunch ever since, though she carefully picks out the yolk most of the time. It remains to be seen whether this egg love will remain after Easter is well behind us. (Update: it has remained! She continues to request boiled eggs in her lunch.)

The lead-up to Easter was fun. The kids received packages in the mail from both sets of grandparents. They got neat new clothes from Lolli and Pop. Ian’s favorite is this purplish outer space shirt. Maya has a dress with cars around the hem and a cityscape along the skirt. And pockets, which she loves because she likes to collect things. They got a smattering of wacky gifts from Grammy and Grandpa. Ian’s favorite was his Silly Putty, by a landslide. Maya received a purse full of goodies, and she really seems to enjoy having it. There’s a little unicorn coin purse and an ice cream-shaped lip balm that she’s particularly enamored with.

They had a little egg hunt for school the Thursday before Easter for which we needed to help supply eggs. Maya had been grilling me about the rules all week. Six plastic eggs. At least six; it could be more. But definitely NO CANDY. Just toys or stickers or that sort of thing. Every day she would repeat these rules to me. Where they chanting them in her in classroom? It was weird.

Decorating with Dad

We decorated all the eggs on Saturday and left them for the Easter bunny to pick up and hide for us. Sean and the kids are always the ones who dye the eggs; it’s good for Dad to have some traditions with the kids too. Plus, he’s more patient than I am. Maya cracked one of hers a bit (she decided it looked like lightning), but for the most part, she got the hang of doing it by herself. Ian did pretty well, but still needed a bit of help. They upped the ante this year by decorating a number of eggs with a transparent glitter that gave the eggs an iridescent sheen.

Since Easter fell on April Fools day this year, we thought about doing something trixy, but I worried the kids might be too young to find the humor in it. (Though a friend of ours called it “Easter Fools Day,” which I loved.)

On Sunday, the kids woke up to baskets full of chocolate bunnies and other sweets. While they were eating breakfast, the Easter bunny (aka, Daddy who had “slept in”) sneaked out and hid the eggs throughout the front yard.

Egg hunting

Once they were finished eating, we cleaned the kids up and sent them out to hunt. We think maybe 30-45 minutes passed between hiding and hunting, but apparently it was enough time. Maya rushed out and grabbed an egg and almost immediately called out, “Something’s wrong with my egg!” There was a slug on it. Ian, the texture-averse kid, found an egg that had two or three slugs lazing about. Maya wanted to know what the snails had done with their shells. Ian was simply disgusted (Sean too).

SLUGS!!!!!!

Every single glittery egg had some number of slugs on it. And they had squirmed their way into a couple of the plastic eggs as well. Good mom that I occasionally am, I picked off all the slugs so the kids could still enjoy their eggs (and so Sean wouldn’t have to touch them).

Maya was just a blur running through the yard

The funniest part to me was Maya though. Last spring, she was having her intestinal issues and couldn’t have any candy. This time, there was candy galore. “That darn Easter bunny only brought us candy and no toys this year!” I guess the Easter bunny may be adapting his/her plan for next season.

Maya applying a tattoo to Grammy’s arm

A couple weekends after Easter, Grammy and Grandpa came to visit! Most of the time was spent playing, playing, playing, including a visit to our neighborhood park.

The kids getting beard tickles from Grandpa

The rest of the time was spent eating all the good food. We cooked “steak machine steak” on Friday night (steak cooked in a sous vide machine so it’s crazy tender and perfectly cooked all the way through). The kids took Grammy and Grandpa to probably their favorite restaurant, Freddy’s, for Saturday lunch. We had a slightly chilly dinner sitting outside at a hot chicken joint called T-22 on Saturday evening. It had been a great visit, and Maya and Ian were sad to see them head back to Missouri on Sunday.