Just Thoughts and Nothing Else

I think I love Easter as much as the children do!  Coloring eggs, I don't do this anymore but I know all of my twelve grandchildren still do.  I remember as a child coloring Easter Eggs and we all were allowed to color 1 dozen eggs each.  That was so special!  I remember being all excited about searching for our Easter baskets the next morning too.  I remember that giant Chocolate Bunny and all those chocolate Easter eggs and boy were we sick my nighttime.  But awfully good memories!

Now that I'm a Mimi (grandmother) to my childrens children, I started a tradition once the children were big enough to know what it meant to pick up the eggs out of the yard and fill their baskets with them until they were overflowing.

I started with about 500 eggs and as the family kept growing and growing, I had to keep adding to the eggs I had to fill.  At first I had my husband to help me on Easter morning to go through the entire 2 acres of property and slowly drop the eggs that were filled with wrapped candy throughout the yard.  I got up as high as 1,000 eggs and I made it very easy for my little ones to just spread from side to side and just keep going towards the back of the yard to fill their baskets.
Of course, having mostly boys it got quite chaotic because boys will be boys, and they sure are competitive sometimes, but we were able to keep them in line and by the time they got to the end of the yard, they were all tired out from the long walk to the back of the yard.
As the children keep growing, I keep having to find new ways to make it exciting for the older ones and this year will be the first year that I decided to do a scavenger hunt to make them work a little bit harder for the prize at the end and give them a bit of a challenge too.  So I've devised 10 little poems that they will have to use to find each item and then at the end there will be their baskets filled with goodies.
With my grandchildren we have to be very careful not to cross contaminate with lots of different food allergies involved, but it works and the children are none the wiser that they've missed out on anything.
One of us makes chocolate lollipops that our children can have and we buy candy that although limited, it works for all of them.  Then of course there is the money filled eggs and the grand prize of Frisbees, kites, bubbles, chalk and of course McDonald's gift cards too.
I even have my nieces 2 little girls come now too.
So although we still have quite a few little ones still searching (not too hard) for those eggs, this year will be the added pleasure of watching the big kids squirm a little while trying to figure out the clues to the hunt.

So in the morning I'll start going out very early to drag my wagon around until I fill the yard with eggs filled with treasures just so that when they all get here, I'll be ready for them!

I'll hide all the little pieces for the scavenger hunt and hide the baskets too.

I'll wait with such excitement in my heart just to see thier cute faces light up when I yell; 1, 2, 3 and GO

and they'll all start scattering in different directions and I hope they'll all be very happy.

I know I will be!  I'm not saying that the parents are going to have as great a time with all those children with all those sugar highs going on, but they all go home from my home some time tonight!  Although at times that can be sad, but when they are so filled with sugar, it's a good thing!
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