The Times Between: The Many Easters of Little Z (Episode 1)

21 March 2010 - Since my sister's (Auntie Kayra) C-section was scheduled 2 days before Easter, chances seemed slim that she and her kids would be able to make it to our other sister's house for the Saturday Easter Egg hunt on Bainbridge Island we'd done last year, and had planned again for this year. So I thought it might be nice to have a family party before the baby was born. Luckily, I roped my mom into hosting at her house if I did all the scut work. DEAL!
I loaded up on plastic eggs and some little toys at the Dollar Tree store, and more toys, mini-crafts and stickers in the Target, JoAnn's and Michael's dollar sections. And Party City had had all their big bagged candy at half-off a month before to make room for the same candy, but with Easter wrappers. SCOoOOooOre! We usually do potluck at our get-togethers, which is a good idea on their part, since I'm not known for my culinary skeelz. I brought strawberries and Dove chocolate (which my culinarily-gifted sister combined to make delicious yumminess!) and my hubby brought dip. It doesn't look like his crazy-delicious sesame miso dip, so it must be a garlic dip mix we get at the Farmer's Market. Yummmm.

The Spread 

(and 3 out of 5 of the Grammas present. We had my mom, his mom, his step-mom, and both my sisters' MILs)

WE had an egg-filling conga-line at the table, and the oldest child present, Taytay (8,) helped fill, but still got excited about finding the eggs later! Even though he KNEW they had Elmo and Dora and Blue's Clues stickers, plus candy that I had SO much extra of, he could have just helped himself! But finding eggs is always fun! Intellectually, when I go to egg hunts, I know I can buy all that stuff for her super cheap. But I'm like a rabid dog, impatiently slavering over the next egg for her to find! Since the candy was all right there in front of the kids, samples were had by all.

Sneak Preview

Surprisingly, the younger kids were in no hurry, while Taytay was chomping at the bit to go outside and hunt. When we were at a good stopping point after trying to get the kids to eat real food first, and Umpa Turt's (Grandpa Kurt) story time, we released the hounds! They went in shifts, with baby Piwu (1) and Little Z (almost 2) first, then Tually (3) and Khiss (3,) and finally Jhosh (almost 6) and Taytay.

Then it was time to free the loot from its brightly-colored confines (so I could re-use them again next year.) The kids delighted in tossing their empties back into my mail carton, almost as much as they enjoyed exploring the full ones in there earlier!

Then Baby Piwu got the genius idea to use it ballpit-style! She delighted in throwing those eggs across the room. They skidded very nicely on the hardwood floors!

27 March 2010 - A moms club I had just joined, Renton Moms Group, was having their annual Easter egg hunt/party/raffle fundraiser. It was actually the first event I was able to attend, so I felt like kind of a mooch. We brought something for the potluck at least. (I forget what. Nothing home-made, I'm sure!)

 Little Z 'VrooOOooooOOooming her Super Grover car on the drive up.

Well. Let me tell you. These mommies went ALL OUT! They rented space at a community center or something at a park, which included reserving a section of the grass! Inside, there was a long table with baskets of donated items for the raffle. Tables and tables of food. Tables with crafts for the kids on a raised section of the room. And a huge box of goody bags for turning in your empty eggs. When it was time for the hunt, Little Z saw the hugest expanse of grass, seeded with brightly colored eggs. They had mommies standing further back, and the older kids were told to skip the eggs until they passed those mommies (save the easy ones for the little kids.) 

Z was not a fan of waiting until all the kids were ready. She had a basket. She saw eggs. Ipso Facto, the eggs should be put into her basket now. She was so busy pouting and snuffling, she actually missed the okay to start. Luckily, these little kids (and their parents) weren't the vultures you see at most Egg Hunts. Even SHE passed over eggs. 

Then it was time to go back inside for food and crafts. She wasn't very hungry, and only had eyes for her shiny, easy-for-her-to-unwrap chocolates. Let me tell you. I got SO SICK of eating chocolates this Easter season! She mostly likes unwrapping the foil. She'd eat maybe 1 out of 5 she'd unwrap. So it was good she wasn't pigging out on the candy. But I couldn't just throw it away! (Well, except the Palmer stuff. Not worth renting out space on my thighs to.)

The craft tables were fairly well scavenged by the time we got there. They had some kind of cotton ball-and-glue craft (I think they were gluing cottonballs to outlines of sheep on paper to make them fluffy, then coloring the rest of the page with crayons) and a foam egg-and-stickers craft, which was more up her alley. There were mostly only the sticker 'frames' leftover, but she was happy with that, and they had glitter on them! She stacked and layered those sticker backgrounds like a pro! (She's very good at peeling the backs off foam stickers, as those are ones we've used the most with her. She can pull flat stickers off a sheet usually, especially if I peel off the background frame first, but if the shapes are cut too deep and the paper tends to stay on the sticker, its no good.)

They had a balloon guy there, and he was amazing! He made Elmo. He made Pooh. Z asked for a fairy! That's my little gamer girl!

Showing off her choice loot (fairy balloon and color-your-own inflatable egg.)