Catching Up - Easter Party Bento

Ever since Little Z's first Easter, we've gone over to my sister's house and spent the night Friday, then done the girls' baskets on Saturday morning. We tell them that the Easter Hippopotamus brought them. My sister didn't want to lie to her kids about Santa, and one day in the Spring, just before Z's first Easter, when we were at the zoo at the hippopotamus pool, I joked that she could do an Easter Hippopotamus. Since, you know. They lay eggs too. Just like bunnies, right? We both thought it was a fun idea and have had Easter Hippo baskets ever since.
The fun will probably end once the kids are old enough for school chums to tell them that they got their baskets on the wrong day, or that "it's a Bunny, stupid."
After baskets, breakfasts and bleary-eyed showers, we usually drive 20+ minutes to an egg hunt that lasts around 3.5 seconds. But they have a petting zoo! This year we didn't end up going, since we diddled around too long. This year, since our other sister wasn't having her baby 2 days before Easter, we decided to have our family Easter party that same day, since my household and our mom would already be there for the Saturday egg hunt (that we ended up skipping anyway. Ah well.)
But before they arrived, I made a snack lunch in my nieces' new bento boxes from the Easter Hippo!

Tually's Bento

Butter and honey bunny, American cheese butterflies (and scraps,) edamame, grapes

Pilu's Bento

Cheddar butterflies (and scraps,) broccoli and grapes, PBJ bunny

Little Z's Bento

Cheddar butterflies, PBJ bunny, grapes, broccoli

(This ended up being in a Ziploc box because my sister's EasyLunch Boxes were all dirty. Since I wasn't needing lids, this one was okay. I don't like the Ziploc ones at all for on-the-go.)

For all three girls I used a bunny cutter for the sandwiches and a mini butterfly cutter for the cheese.
Since my nieces' new boxes came with chopsticks, Z had to have some too. Luckily my sister had a disposable pair in a wrapper from some take-out at some point. Pilu's box had dolphins on the lid, and Tually's had cute animals. Otherwise, they're the same. We got them at Daiso for $3 each!

After lunch, our other sister and family arrived, so we had lunch outside. (Second lunch for the girls!)

Tually, my hubby, Z, Pilu and Spirit the dog (in the background)
having meatballs and burgers and chips

And then an Easter Egg Hunt in the backyard! Sadly, I someone stupidly forgot that we were waiting on the egg hunt until after all the kids ate lunch, and hid eggs filled with melty chocolate out in the sun too early.

Khiss and Z

Baby Wivia's first Egg Hunt!

Tually, Z, Pilu and Auntie Kayneen

My husband had found a stupidly huge chocolate bunny (probably around 12" tall, at least) at Rite Aid and had to buy it for Z. I packed it along with all our Easter basket stuff, but after we got there we decided to save it for her Easter Day basket (from the Bunny. Now that she's old enough that people might ask her about it, or she might start linking the Easter Bunny in books with the fact that she gets nothing from no stinkin' bunny.) My husband put it in the car Friday night, and I told him it would melt in the trunk, and he said it was nighttime and cold out. Ha! I went out before noon to get the eggs for the hunt out of my car and it had caved in! It's getting melted down to coat strawberries now!

I ended up putting all the stuff that I bought for all three girls (Target had some butterfly wing headbands, and ladybug and bumblebee Gitchigumis and magnifying glasses at their Dollar Spot, and a set of 4 wooden animal whistles and some star deely-boppers and matching fairy wands on clearance for $1/set.) into her Easter Hippo basket, and then the stuff that was just for her (and some recycled egg hunt candy) into her Easter Bunny basket. Since the giganto bunny that had been slated for Easter Day had mutated beyond recognition, I held back the nasty white-chocolate "cookies and cream" bunny she had indicated was her favorite at the store for Easter, and used a nasty chocolate crispy bunny that my sister had got in a 3-pack for the day-before-basket. Ugh. I hate cheap chocolate. Eating it I mean. Great price though, for fobbing off on indiscriminate children!