Easter Egg Coloring and Hunts

It is so much fun, now that Chase is almost 4. He gets really excited about Easter egg hunts and coloring eggs. It has been or family tradition since I was young, to dye Easter eggs from Noon to 3pm on Good Friday. I was so excited that I would be with my Grandma this Good Friday, so we could color eggs. Grandma had everything ready for us to color eggs after lunch, but then Chase was crabby and being sassy. So we postponed coloring until Chase had a nap. I wanted Chase to enjoy our long standing tradition. It ended up that Chase was really tired. He slept for over 2 1/2 hours. We ended up coloring eggs around 4:30pm, and had a fun time helping Chase dip the eggs.

On Saturday, the clubhouse in my Grandparents subdivision was having an egg hunt. Eric and I took Chase up there at 2pm. There were about 15 kids that showed up. Unfortunately, there were some older kids, that probably should not have participated, since they found most the eggs before the little kids could. This one girl, who was probably five took Chase under her wing. She held his hand and led him all around outside. She ended up giving Chase three of her eggs, since she would find them before he did. I finally found two that the older kids hadn't seen yet. I picked one up, and put my foot over the other. Then I finally got Chase to come over, and told him to look around. He at least felt like he found 2 eggs. All the eggs had pennies, nickels or dimes. I think Chase would have like candy instead!

I also put together and Easter egg hunt for Chase when he woke up Sunday morning. I hid some eggs out on the Lanai. He had a lot of fun looking for them, and they were filled with candy this time! He then went looking for his Easter basket and Tony's basket. Grandma and I thought we hid them in pretty tough spots. Well, he found them both within minutes. I guess being shorter makes it easier to spot under the table, and behind some chairs. Chase was so excited that the Easter bunny remembered him, even though we were in Florida. There was a full size basketball in his basket and lots of candy. He just kept saying, "I can't believe it." He was really excited. Tony's basket had a mini-soccer ball, which he loves, a boomerang that I gave away and a yo-yo and candy, which Chase claimed as his.

We then all got ready, and headed to church for the final Easter egg hunt of the season. We got there just as they were starting. This time they had it divided. The older kids hunted somewhere else, and the younger kids eggs were all hidden in plain view. Chase very quickly found 8 eggs. After that we told him he needed to leave some for the other kids. One thing that didn't make a lot of sense was, they put chocolate in the eggs. The hunt was outside. It was sunny, humid at close to 80 degrees already. The chocolate didn't have a chance. I ended up throwing it away, but the jelly beans survived.

After church we went home and relaxed. The kids changed had a bite to eat, and went down for naps. Grandpa and I cleaned the pool and then I went swimming. Meanwhile, Grandma was busily cooking Easter dinner. They invited their long time friends Margie and Jack over for dinner too. We ate at 4:30 and had a delicious ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, salad, Jell-o, mixed veggies and bread. I was so happy to be able to spend an Easter with my Grandparents, and Tony's 1st Easter. We hadn't celebrated an Easter together since '96.

Eric and I then spent two hours with Chase in the pool. Through out the week he was getting more comfortable in the water. He went from playing on the stairs, to riding on my back, to wall walking around the whole pool, and by Sunday night he was letting Eric and I toss him back and forth. We played until it got dark, Monday we were heading back to Iowa.