Secular Easter

In an attempt to focus on Christ and not the Easter Bunny on Easter Sunday, we did all of our secular egg and bunny activities on Saturday. I'm thinking the Easter Bunny will always visit our house a day early compared to other kids... I would do it a day late so I could get 50% off on Easter candy, but it seems a little too cheap. At least with Orthodox Christmas eve, it's always on the 6th of Jan, but the Orthodox Easter date moves.

Benjamin loved his Lightening McQueen Easter basket. (Thanks Grandma!) We had an egg hunt in the back yard and Benjamin got an extra special surprise (a toy garbage truck) when he found the plastic carrot. We used the video camera for the hunt and I haven't downloaded the footage yet.

We dyed Ukrainian style Easter eggs.




And Benjamin decorated random things with stickers to stay out of trouble.

After decorating eggs, Ryan and Benjamin used wooden spoons to have a "White House Lawn style egg roll" in our hallway. Benjamin really enjoyed that.

Next year I'm thinking we'll add "egg tapping" to our traditional activities.

The Lewis Boys Meet the Easter Bunny

Bellevue schools has a really amazing early childhood center. We usually only make it there about once a month, but should go more often. We missed the "Polar Bear Club" kickoff at the zoo by accident b/c we were randomly at the ECC (a.k.a. Welcome Center). It was great that we went though because we found out there was an Easter Egg Hunt the next day. Benjamin got to decorate a bunny milk jug basket for it.
Benjamin was allowed to find 5 eggs each filled with 3 jelly beans. They wanted the eggs back after the hunt so Benjamin insisted on eating all 15 jelly beans as he cleaned the eggs out. I didn't fight him on it so he was sugar loaded for the day. I'm glad we went to the 1400 hunt and not 1000 where they had 150 kids. It was still a madhouse with 40 or 50 kids.
The Easter Bunny made a surprise appearance. I didn't think about putting Alexander in the photo, but I'm glad they offered. It was Ms. Mary in the costume and she was trying not to talk so the kids wouldn't recognize her, but she wispered "I did this earlier today and it worked" which put me a little more at ease.
I have a hard time talking to Benjamin about the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus becuase I feel like I'm lying to him and I don't want him to think Jesus is pretend like they are when he finds out they're not real. I haven't reconciled it, but try to be low key about the EB and SC.

So much for being clean...

There's a reason I don't bother to shower daily any more or even change my shirt when I get spit-up on me. I had just gotten dressed and made the mistake of picking up Alexander without a burp cloth. You can also see why I use a swaddling blanket and not just a burp cloth. Alexander gets better coverage than Benjamin ever did.