Easter 2011

I hope you all had a Happy Easter! I love reading what others have shared of their Easter, so here is ours...

Firstly, these are the decorations that began my collection of Easter Decorations...

...purchased 7 years ago when Nick and I were in New York (and the first time I ever saw an Easter Tree!). Ever since then, we have been decorating our home with cute little Easter decorations, which I add to each year when the sales are on (much to Nick's concern, 'Don't we already have enough bunnies in this house?'). When will he learn, you can never have enough!!!! He should know better, as his Mum has a big, beautiful collection of bunnies too! These were the additions this year... more Easter Egg Bunting and a few more wooden bunnies;

Old favourites made another appearance;

Reusable window transfers.

And this year we dyed boiled eggs and painted some styrofoam ones too;

We used stickers like the one above, to make patterns before we painted...

And we filled some little homemade baskets with them;

Nick and I were so excited about getting everything ready for the girls for Easter morning. On an average night, we still can't believe we have two little girls, tucked up tight in their beds and we get to be their parents... how lucky are we?!?! But it's extra nice on special occasions, especially The Night Before... Easter and Christmas and birthdays.

On Saturday we took them to see the movie 'Hop'. On arriving at the cinema and taking our seats, poor Elly, sitting in the dark theatre, kept asking us, 'Is there a gate?... 'Where is the gate?... 'I can't see the gate'. We didn't know what she was talking about... until she finally said 'Mummy, is the Easter Bunny going to come and get me?'. Looks like she was a bit traumatised by the life-sized bunny that visited her Preschool last week! Needless to say, she was pretty relieved to see the cute little 'E.B.' in the movie.

The girls then left carrots on the front lawn for the Easter Bunny (E.B) and went to bed, determined to stay there all night (we often have little visitors in the night ie, every morning we discover a little girl {or two} tucked inbetween us!). Well, it was an Easter Miracle... because both girls slept in their beds ALL night! It looks like the Easter Bunny checked on them too, because he left a trail of little eggs all the way from the front door, to their beds. (I don't know if this will be encouraging or a deterrent for future sleeps, as I'm not sure Elly is too keen for big bunnies to come visiting in the night!).

Anyway, the Easter Bunny somehow knew exactly what they wanted;

They have been slightly obsessed with Humpty, after their 3rd birthdays! Somehow we managed to convince them to eat their Weebix before they smashed their egg open and we also had big drinks of water at the ready, with a special Easter Bunny straw;

They also had their yoghurt in a chocolate egg, which was such an easy treat to make;

We recieved eggs from our neighbours, so we returned the favour with these carrots I made using the tutorial at Clare's Craftroom;

I filled these ones with lavender, to make them a little useful, although I don't know how many people want a decorative carrot in their underwear or sock drawer! I laughed when I read Clare thought 'someone else might like to waste time making these might like these'. I think making funny little things like these, are the best way to waste time... they're bound to get a smile!

I also spent some time on Saturday night cutting up fabric scraps, for a little craft I saw on Make It Perfect. Once their sugar-rush wore off on Easter morning, the girls loved sitting down to make these scrappy Easter Eggs for their grandparents;

I made one for Nick;

He was wondering what he would do with it, but obviously it's to go on his desk... at work.... in the city... in the executive team ... at the bank! It will brighten up his desk and I'll be checking it's there when I visit with the girls next week (wink, wink Nick).

After church in the morning, we went to Nick's parents house for a big Easter lunch and the Great Annual Easter Egg Hunt. We made a few non-chocolatey gifts for cousins such as glitter playdough and these little Easter-y 'do-it-yourself clotheslines' for the teenage girls, to string up in their bedrooms and 'hang' their favourite photos;

Of course, there was much folicking in the garden;



Family photos;



And the dessert of choice for all of us... Nanny's Pavlova;

Followed by a Easter 'bush walk' (Not sure how common this is?!?!) down the bush track, opposite the house;

My dare-devil child;
She literally got 'stuck in the mud'. Fun times!

It didn't take long for the little ones to jump in (literally for Livvie, she was covered in mud from jumping up and down!);

Soon it was time to head back and have afternoon tea...

...do the Easter Egg Hunt (Elly said this was her favourite thing when asked about Easter this year, 'The Easter Egg Hunt at Nanny and Grandpa's!')... then we exchanged Easter presents. The girls got a beautiful doll's house of Easter Eggs and some Easter books (top left and bottom right) to add to their beautiful collection of Easter stories;

And then it was time for an early dinner, a bath with cousins and home to bed!

Needless to say the girls have spent ALL day today, recounting with stories and drawings, everything that happened yesterday. Of course, we've all had to 'play schools', where the girls are the teachers and they 'read' us their Easter stories. It's very funny to hear a three year old explain how Jesus rose from the dead, 'He got alive again and flew up to heaven'... but it's all lovely and my favourite part is that the celebration goes on...