Big Plans this weekend

Well tomorrow is Easter and the Easter Bunny is ready to hop. This year will probably be the first year Nicky is really into the basket and egg hunt stuff, so I'm getting everything ready and planning out some of the traditions from my childhood.

The basket has been ready since Monday night. The Easter Bunny will hide it for Nicky to find Sunday morning. When I was little the Easter Bunny always hid our baskets. We had AMAZING baskets every year, with both candy and lots of fun handpicked little toys and stuff. So of course Nicky's basket is loaded with neat handpicked things. There will be pictures upcoming.

Easter 2007 (Daddy makes a great bunny!)


We always dyed easter eggs too. In fact since we did this every year with my sisters and cousins, we've gotten pretty good at it. But this year I bought a kit to tie-dye some eggs with silk ties. It didn't cost much and looks so neat! I also found instructions online that brought up something important: these tie-dyed eggs aren't for eating! So I'll be tie-dying about a dozen just for looks. Then we'll use regular food coloring to dye some that we can eat. And Donna had a good idea for dying some with colored tissue paper, so we might try that too. Today is egg-dying day, and I have 3.5 dozen eggs ready to go. Be ready for lots of egg photos!

Our EGGstrordinary masterpieces from 2007)


Of course we have to do an Easter egg hunt! When I was a kid we actually hid the eggs that we dyed and we've been hiding plastic eggs with Tom's family for years now. A few years ago I was in charge of hiding the eggs at my inlaw's horse farm over an area of several acres. I had a whole chart of where I hid each egg so that we'd find them all, and I think I hid over 50 of them! Well, we're not going to spread them out that far this time for Nicky to find, we'll keep them close to the house. Tom's picking up the plastic eggs and some little non-candy trinkets to go in them today. We'll be having the tomorrow at Grandma & Grandpa's house after lunch/dinner. I anticipate some photo opportunities there also, but I'm sure JM will have that event well covered.

Nicky's First Easter
(4 weeks old was just a bit too little to hunt Easter eggs)


I have one more project I'd like to do this weekend. I checked the book The Bountiful Container out of the library and it has a great idea for a toddler garden. I'm hoping to take Nicky and I to go pick out pansies and seeds to plant today too. I have the perfect container and will take the daisy/bush thingy that's in it now to replant in the front yard. (Obviously I'm a stellar gardener with my innate knowledge of plant names.)

One more thing, I just received these photos of Aunt Liz with her turkey centerpiece she made for Thanksgiving. You know, I think this would actually be a really neat project for Easter too. Look how colorful! And with the tie-dyed eggs around it? What do you think? Either way, it's really pretty. And I think it was her first one ever. She's very artistic. (And probably wishing she was here to dye Easter eggs with us this year. We miss you Aunt Liz!)