Easter madness

Candy candy candy candy candy.... and I had to buy barely any of it! :)This year we had two Easter egg hunts that we attended, and Evelynn had an Easter party at school. By the time we bought our candy on Saturday, I told Doug to only buy a little bit, which he did not, but that was so he could have most of it later. In his words "It's not going to be here tomorrow, might as well buy what I want today so I have it for later." This translated to a big Winco size bag of gummy bunnies. He also said he only stopped when he got to the point where he thought, "Any more and Geneen will be upset." :) Love you sweetie, enjoy your gummies for the next six months. Anyway, back to the matter of candy for the kids. Our neighbors put on a neighborhood Easter egg hunt for the families every year. This year they did it on the Saturday of conference, before the first session. They do eggs with candy, some with money in them, and a few special golden eggs that are redeemed for bigger prizes in the house. Michael really didn't care about the eggs, mostly because he didn't know what was inside them. Evelynn and Eloise were egg collecting experts though. They got their allotted amount in no time flat. Eloise even got one of the eggs with a dollar in it. Evelynn was very jealous, but the tooth fairy made up for that deficit quite nicely (see previous post). They then proceeded to eat all of their candy during the first and second session of conference, and I was just fine with that. Kept them quiet-ish, and when the sugar rush got too high I sent them in the back yard to burn it off. Through this method I watched almost 1/2 of each session. Not too shabby.

 All the neighborhood kids and grand kids of our neighbors who participated.

On this past Saturday, we attended BYU's 1st annual Easter egg hunt at Lavell Edwards Stadium. They sent out an email advertizing it and asked people to tell them how many people would be coming through an online survey so they would know how much candy to get. I put down five people, but then later realized that only three people would actually be participating in the event, but it turns out it didn't matter. What they did was divide the football field into a two-thirds sections and a one-third section for the age groups (4-8 and 0-3) and then set out about 5000 eggs that had prizes in them. Some you redeemed for candy bars, shirts, football tickets, and tours of the locker rooms. Then they took bag and bags and bags and bags and bags of candy and opened them and flung them all over the field, along with some other random BYU paraphernalia. 

 The field.

 Pre-hunt waiting. They took forever to get started. It was advertized to start at 12:00, but we didn't walk down to the field until 12:30.

 Walking out onto the field, view to the 4-8 age group side.

 The chaos, when most of the candy was gone. It only took about 5-7 minutes for the candy to be gone.

Side note about something that bugs me, and if you are a parent that does this, sorry to offend you. It bother's me that the young age group even included 0 year olds. Seriously guys, if you want candy, go buy some. Don't go out their with your 6 month old and collect candy "for them." Everyone knows you're going to eat it, not your baby. Save the candy for the kids, buy your own. That being said, I did not pick up any candy for Michael. I figured that he knew what it was, and he most certainly did, and so he could pick it up or leave it as he would. Turns out once he realized that there was more candy out there than just by his feet, he was more than willing to get his hands on as much of it as he could. And he got plenty. All the kids did. In fact, we got so much that the Easter bunny took what had not been eaten on the way home (Evelynn ate almost all of hers on the car ride home before I could stop her) and redistributed it more fairly among the Easter baskets.

That afternoon we colored eggs. Only had one dye spill, and I think they turned out pretty cool this year. 

 Doug's smiley face egg.

 My starry night egg.

 Doug's happy egg.

Evelynn's stripes egg.

Easter day when the girls got up we told them the Easter bunny hid their baskets this year. They were so confused. They wandered from room to room "looking" for their baskets (read as walk in, turn around in the circle, walk out and run to us and whine that they couldn't find it). Finally Doug and I had to drop some hints. We didn't think we had made it that hard, but apparently behind the bulging couch cushions and in the washing machine with the glass front door was too difficult. This could explain so much about why my kids can't find anything when I ask them, even when it's right in front of them, sometimes literally. We had Stake Conference for church, so we battled, I mean endured, I mean went to church for two hours and then came home. The girls did really well, but Michael did not. He spent most of his time wandering the halls, playing with the drinking fountains, and screaming. We then came home and made the traditional Easter feast (aka ham, potatoes, rolls, asparagus, salad, deviled eggs from the 7 eggs we actually got to peel properly, and dessert. Never gets old, but that's probably because we only have it once a year). I didn't get any pictures of Easter day, but hey, that's ok. All you need to know is that we came, we ate, and that was enough.