While we aren't big Easter people around here, I will take any excuse to occupy both my kids throughout a weekend when Nick has jetted off to Chicago for Cubs Opening Day. And so we had a jam-packed weekend. One of our good family friend's also was down a parent for the weekend. And so us moms, left with kiddos, teamed up and had a weekend full of Easter related activities.
Saturday morning started out preparing for the City of Pasadena egg hunt. Ellie knew we were headed to the hunt (which wasn't until 11:30) and immediately after waking up at 6:15am she kept asking when the hunt was, when we were leaving, etc. And so at 8:15 we were out the door. We were parked at the Rose Bowl, where the hunt was and by 9:00 I was wondering what to do with both of them. Last year the city hunt was in the park near our house and there was a breakfast and a festival and all sorts of activities. This year, with the hunt at the Rose Bowl, everything was behind the stadium gates and there wasn't anything until 11:00 when the gates opened (unless you planned ahead and had VIP Bunny Brunch tickets...yeah, we didn't). Fortunately, we are members of KidSpace which is located very close (walkable) to the stadium and so we headed there. Unfortunately, the museum was having an egg hunt and so it was super crowded when they opened at 9:30. But we got into the baby area and Cal was able to crawl around, which was especially nice considering that he would be cooped up in his stroller for a while. We ended up meeting up with our friends at around 10:30 and headed over to que up to get into the stadium.
It was crowded. Very crowded. And since it was the first hunt at the stadium, it was chaotic. But we eventually made it through the tunnels and down onto the field and got the kids to their starting points. By "hunt" it really is a egg dash. Kids running every direction grabbing as many eggs as they can. Ellie and her friends ended up with a gigantic haul. Ellie ended up with 64 plastic eggs (yes, this number is important later). This is the first year I have actually gotten pictures of Ellie in the chaos of the hunt/dash; thanks to our new camera with the amazing zoom, I was able to keep track of her in the chaos and get pictures of the kids!
Cal slept through the whole thing.
Not to waste a great Saturday (and the fact that 3/4 of Pasadena was down at the Rose Bowl) we ended up going out to lunch, and then Yogurtland, and then back to our house. The kids ended up playing in the backyard for a long time. We had dinner and then both kids were sound asleep by 7:30. Which gave me plenty of time to hide Ellie's 64 eggs in the backyard.
When Ellie work up she found her bucket, which she used to gather he haul of eggs at the hunt/dash, empty. She started to freak out and then said, "did you hide my eggs?". Yep! But we couldn't go egg hunting till everyone had eaten and gotten dressed.
After breakfast we all headed out into the backyard to look for eggs. Ellie gave one of the first ones she found to Cal to keep him happy. He was totally content crawling around outside with his one egg while she ran around hunting for her eggs. I did hide one in our half-barrel planter which Ellie didn't find...but Cal did! He pulled up on the barrel and saw the egg and got himself into a spot where he could reach it and grabbed it. He was so excited that he found one on his own! Ellie (and Cal) ended up finding 63 of the eggs. I couldn't remember (or find) where the last one was hid. And since I did it the night before, I figured maybe a squirrel got it or we just didn't find it, no big deal.
Just after lunch our friends came over. We had lunch outside and all the kids played well. Then, they asked for another hunt. And so we ended up hiding Ellie's 63 eggs and the 36 that they brought over. They kids had a blast running around finding them again. There was a little frustration (because we actually hid them and they had to work at finding them), but in the end it was a lot of fun (and the best part...about half of E's eggs ended up leaving our house with our friends! Less plastic eggs for me to deal with!).
Then the kids dyed eggs and then there was some cookie decorating. Calvin was pretty good and had a great nap outside. He got thoroughly dirty crawling around outside and totally frustrated that he didn't have free reign when the kids were dying the eggs. But he had fun in his swing and in his car.
After dinner, I couldn't get the kids in bed fast enough. Both had a bath and they were both asleep before I could get through a story with either one of them. Ellie hasn't even fallen asleep while I read to her, but she did tonight.
It was a long weekend, but it was a great one. Thank goodness for family friends to help out and hang out with.
Happy Easter!
(and yes, we found the 64th egg...as we were cleaning up from the day, we spotted the last egg hidden in a planter...pfew!)
