More fun with a kid

I have decided that pretty much most holidays are way more fun when you have a kid to plan a little celebration around. For example, Christmas is way better when there are kids to wake you up early because they want to open their presents, Halloween is way more fun to dress up for when you are trick-or-treating with a kid, Easter is much more enjoyable when there is a kid to plan an easter egg hunt for. Otherwise all you really do at the holidays is either wish you were doing those things while knowing you are too old to pull off getting free candy and presents, or doing something else that doesn't really have to do with the holiday at all. Now, I also understand there are deeper meanings for holidays like Christmas and Easter and I know there must be a limit to the commercialization of the holidays. However I really think you can celebrate the lighter side of the holiday and also teach the gospel to make it a fun well-rounded experience!
This year we decided to make Afton's Easter full of fun activities. On Saturday we went to the big park here in Boise and participated in a huge easter egg hunt with hundreds of other kids. We were a bit late for the 0-2 age group hunt, so we snuck in on the 3-4 age group. No one seemed to mind and I was proud of Afton for hanging in there on her own and getting a good share of goodies.
All the eggs had erasers in them (boring!) but there were lots of hershey's kisses squished into the ground that Afton picked up. She loves her chocolate.

Later that day we made some sugar cookies. Afton helped roll out the dough and cut out the shapes: an egg, a chick, and a bunny. (By the way, notice her hair was looking fine until she wanted to take out the piggy tails. This is how it looks at the end of each day) She loved the chick the most and kept calling it "Big Bird." Then when they were cooked, she helped to frost them all. As soon as the last one was smothered in frosting she dug in and ate an egg shape cookie.

It didn't take long until she was pretty much covered. What joy!


On Easter morning we got her all dressed up in her new dress and shoes and did a photo shoot. Since we have afternoon church we knew it would be way too traumatic to take happy photos after a no nap day of being around strangers. Here are my favorite ones.



Last of all we did an Easter Egg hunt in our apartment (didn't really feel like putting eggs around all the cigarette butts on the ground outside). She rocked. Last year her first hunt was in Hawaii. Nothing could really compare with that scenery! But Afton loved this one and had a fabulous time discovering the bunny candy inside the eggs. Of course she wanted to eat a purple one first.


We rounded off the holiday with a FHE about Jesus and his resurrection. We had to make it pretty simple, but she enjoyed looking at pictures of Jesus and we learned a new song: Jesus wants me for a sunbeam.
Happy Easter!