The Great Easter Egg Hunt-Best Ever!!

So, my family has perfected the art of Easter Egg Hunts.  Seriously!  Last year and this year were the best.ever.Egg Hunts that I’ve ever been to!
Some ground rules for the Best Easter Egg Hunt ever!
1.  Everyone brings one filled egg per child (all of us went way over because each child ended up with 20 eggs to find!).
2.  Decorate some eggs.
3.  Buy some themed or shaped eggs (those bugs were dollar store!!).
4.  Fill with super fun things.
5.  Write children’s names on each egg (to help with hiding difficulty).
6.  Hide in unusual and creative ways.
7.  Have adults hide the children’s eggs because this part really is half the fun!
8.  Hide eggs depending on child’s abilities, make sure to go really hard on the teenage children!  They might scowl about it, but they are super eager to do it again the next year!
9.  If , last week, you just found an egg from last year, make sure to hide one of that child’s eggs in the exact same spot!
10.  Enjoy the amazing time with your family!!!

Some of our eggs are pretty to look at like these dangling eggs tied up with pretty ribbons and name tags.

I try not to post pictures of my kids for safety reasons.  Today’s post will give you glimpses of all 3 of my kiddos.  Here is my oldest next to Erika.  Um, Ya!  She’s bigger than me now!  I knew this would happen…just not yet!  Such a doll, too!

Can you believe Katrina?  She crocheted eggs for each kid, complete with their initial on them!  So darling!

Look closely at this picture.  Anjeanette made those washcloth Easter Bunnies!  Again, so darling!

Another thing that is so fun about our Easter Egg Hunts are what we put in them.  Last year I put Lego crayons that I made inside some of the eggs.  This year I made jean bookmarks with each child’s name embroidered on it.  We are avid readers in my family so this is perfect for my family!  Later this week I’ll show you the bookmarks and how to make the eggs I hid them in!

Nana had golden eggs that she filled with money!  Shockingly, that was such a huge hit!!

How about fun ways to get your eggs?  I made these this year.  The tags were so cute, sorry I had to ruin your view of them by blocking out the names.  Just trust me they are ca-ute!

I just planted them loosely so that all the kids had to do was pull on the tags and the attached egg came up easily.  I’ll show you how to make your own, later this week!
Did you catch those shots of my other two cuties?  I swear I could just eat them up!  They all looked so darling in their Spring-y clothes!  Mmmm, I love those 3!!

There are so many fantastic eggs out there that make Easter so much more fun!  Melissa (another sister of mine) got ones that looked like grass, stone, dirt, etc.  Too easy to find places to hide them!  Other super cute eggs were tennis balls, bugs, and camo!

The next important part is how and where you hide your eggs.  Some of the Uncles’ creativity is really what is making these Egg Hunts so much fun (plus we now have children that are old enough to actually be expected to “hunt” for their eggs).  Above is an egg that was buried with a shovel next to it.  This was from last year and it was the first time we had a buried egg.  Children were also finding the eggs up higher than they could reach!

This egg on top of the pole was passed by so many times before it’s owner found it!

Look closely at the lemon in the middle of the picture.  A hole was cut into a lemon, just big enough for a yellow egg.  The lemon was still attached to the tree, with an egg in it!  See the hole in the 2nd picture, after the egg was found!  This is still my favorite hiding of an egg EVER!!  So brilliant!

Can you even spot the eggs in these pictures?  They are there!

Holes are an obvious choice for egg hiding.  Lots of eggs are ending up on top of the house.  That one was under the roof of the second story!

You have to look everywhere, stuck to windows, and high up in the air!

OK this one is not officially my child, he’s Erika’s Son (don’t sisters’ children count as my own!?).  Such a cutie!!

I’m still on cloud nine from the wonderful time I was able to spend with my family!  It makes me so content to have quality time with my family!!

What are some of your Easter Egg Hunt traditions?  What has been your favorite Easter Egg Hunt?  Do you have any Easter Egg Hunt mishaps?  For example, one year we hid all of our hard boiled eggs for the kids.  One was on the top of an open fence…the egg slid down the inside of the fence pole and we could NOT get it out.  YUCK!!  Or another year our sprinklers turned on in the middle of the Egg Hunt going on on our lawn.  And of course we were all in our new Easter outfits!

Rebecca

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Happy St. Lucia’s Day

St. Lucia’s Day is a mostly Scandinavian holiday.  Though St. Lucia was actually Italian.  We have Danish ancestry so we love celebrating Scandinavian things to help us remember our roots.  I love the thought that in Denmark they started celebrating this holiday to bring light in a time of darkness, in 1944.  This was a protest to the German occupation!  Danish history during that time is fantastic!  You should read about how the tiny country of Denmark banded together to protect their people.  They did not see Danish Jews as anything other than Danes!  AMAZING!! 

 

The above picture was one of our star boys in our St. Lucia’s Day procession last year.  In traditional St. Lucia’s Day parades you carry an actual candle, this was our safe version!

The holiday tradition is to have a parade where one unmarried girl gets chosen to wear a crown of candles and comes bearing saffron buns.  The children in the procession all wear white with a red sash.

In our version we sing the traditional Danish song and some boys even wear a Nisse Cap (the red one in the picture, not the blue sesame street cap worn by my teenage nephew!).

 

Papa (my Father) goes along with our procession to help the children sing the song (they have written versions they are reading from in the picture above).  We get together with my siblings and all my Nephews to do this at my Mom and Dad’s house.  These pictures were from our St. Lucia’s Day festivities last year.  We are all gearing up for our celebration today after the kids get out of school!  I have the only girls in the family so my oldest daughter always gets to be our St. Lucia girl!

 

I hope you might try some version of this to help your kids learn about other cultures.  I always loved learning about how other countries celebrate Christmas!

 

What traditions do you have that are from other countries?  I’d love to hear about them or even give me a link!

 

Rebecca

Turkey Trot Tradition

Most of the schools around here hold an event called The Turkey Trot.  I love this.  Of course I used to run Cross Country and Track in High School, so maybe I’m biased.  This is held on the day before Thanksgiving, thus the name.

However, I love the idea of fitness in the holidays.  Each grade runs a set course around the school yard. 

It brings tears to my eyes to see my children do their best!  Even typing this up has made me cry because I’m thinking about it. (I do that at my children’s sports events, too)  Seriously, I just eat stuff like this up! 
Kids fall down, get back up, and finish the race.  There is so much goodness in seeing that happen, who wouldn’t that put a smile on the face of!?

There are prizes given for the first 10 or so runners.  My kids don’t come in anywhere close to getting a prize (we have well over 100 students per grade).  But everyone gets a cookie afterwards!

We also have a Jingle Bell Jog in December on the day before Christmas break.  Can you spot all the Santa hats?  They are all also wearing a necklace with a large bell on it.  Thus the name.

One of my kids does not care for the race itself.  However, she loves knowing it is an event that her Mother will be at.  I’ve always been there, on the sidelines, cheering her on!  My other kids love the race as well as knowing I will be there.

This has become a tradition for us.  My kids get more excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas once the races are here.  It’s like a precursor for those two holidays.

If we ever moved we would have to hold our own races.  This is one reason that I am mentioning this on our blog.  It would be a fun thing to do, even as a family.  Or even better, start one at your school.  Ours is put on by our PE department.  I think combining fitness as a tradition is a win/win for sure!

What traditions do you have that are a bit different?  We at Roots And Wings Co LOVE traditions!  One reason I love this time of year so much is all the great traditions going on!  Have you thought about what traditions you have, or what ones you want to start?  It’s never too late and I believe it is one of the ties that hold families together!

Rebecca
PS  This year I am so lucky that I get to spend the whole day at school.  I start off first thing in the morning with one of the Turkey Trots, then a Thanksgiving Play, another Turkey Trot, a Thanksgiving Feast, and then my last child’s Turkey Trot.  What are the odds that all of these would be scheduled so that I could make it to all of them?  It’s never happened before, but it did this year!  I’m so excited!

The Great Pumpkin Tradition solves the "too much candy issue"

Do you ever feel like you have too much candy around the house after Halloween? Do you have to remove certain candies from your child’s stash because of food allergies?

Last year I started a new tradition at my house. You know the Charlie Brown story “The Great Pumpkin?” Do you remember how Linus told the story about the Great Pumpkin coming to give all the faithful boys and girls gifts? Last year I elaborated on that story a bit. I told my boys that if we put out a nice sign letting the “Great Pumpkin” know that we believe and that we welcome him, he will come and trade their candy for a toy. This solves two things for me. 1. most of the candy is gone. 2. I don't have to replace candy my boys can't have because of food allergies (I have to replace something like 90% of the candy they get Trick-or-Treating).

Just before Halloween, I found this pumpkin decoration. I also purchased a small rectangular piece of wood that I painted up and put rub on letters to make a sign to welcome the great pumpkin. I Drilled a couple of holes in my welcome sign and into the bottom of my pumpkin. The night of Halloween we put this sign on our front door letting the “Great Pumpkin” know he is welcome. Why the night before? Because I have another Halloween decoration that also hangs on our door. ;)

I know, I know….my boys are a bit spoiled. ;) The toys they got were Bakugans. The “Great Pumpkin” left them with about 10 pieces each of candy they could eat. They still kept a little candy and were totally thrilled with the exchange.

Oh and by the way, I got my idea from Anjeanette. She was talking about the idea a couple of years ago. I have to give credit where credit is due.

Katrina

St Patrick’s Day Foods and Fun

I love St Patrick’s Day.  Any reason to celebrate is a great thing, in my book.  My Mom always instilled this in us.  For St Patrick’s Day she always makes our whole meal green.  My Dad would get disgusted by green mashed potatoes (I think some of the new spouses may also be wigged out by this tradition of green foods in our family).  However, I love it so much that I now do this with my own family. We do get quite elaborate (we’re having a delicious green layered jello, lots of green veggies, green chocolate covered pretzel shamrocks, and many other green foods), but you can go quick and easy and still have that wow factor.
So, I thought I would share a few quick and easy ways to make some fun St Patrick’s Day Foods, using just one tool! 
I am going to show you how a shamrock shaped cookie cutter is all you need to make every day lunch, dinner, and dessert into St. Patrick’s Day Foods. 
I’m not showing breakfast because we always have Lucky Charms for breakfast on St. Patrick’s Day!  Oh it’s so yummy.  It was my favorite cereal growing up.  I only buy it once a year and this is it!   (Oh but don’t forget to also use the Lucky Charms for an activity).

First up is my Son’s favorite lunch, Cheese Quesadillas.
 
I melted the cheese in the microwave, then cut them using my oversized shamrock cookie cutter. 
Then, I finished cooking these on my skillet because we like them crunchy and if I tried to cut them after this step, they would fall apart. (At least I think they would)
Another easy lunch would be a shamrock sandwich.  Meat or cheese platter would be cute in shamrock shapes.  Of course if you had a mini cookie cutter you could cut out most of your fruits in shamrocks too.
 
For dinner, how about Pizza?  Yum-O.  I cheated on this and made it with premade pizza dough.

Dessert…my favorite!
How about actually using your cookie cutter for cookies?
I’ve actually baked these cookies up already and will be leaving the frosting for my children to do.  I have the frosting already tinted green and the sprinkles are ready to go!
  
There is another fun part to my cookie cutter menu.  I made that cookie cutter myself.  No kidding.  Come back Thursday and I will show you how easy this is to do.  Now I can make any shaped foods that I want! 
Other uses for cookie cutters;
Pancakes, Eggs, stencil for cakes or other desserts, shapes to trace for coloring and other craft projects, hang as decorations, playdough, melted crayons, stamps, soap, polymer clay and so much more.
What projects/Foods have you used cookie cutters on? 

Rebecca

PS Don’t forget to set your traps tonight!  At our house we always find green glitter trails left by the Leprechauns.  Our traps get quite elaborate and my kids each make their own now.  However, we have yet to catch a Leprechaun, though last year the Leprechaun’s hat got caught in the trap and my daughter still has it.  We heard from my Nephews that leaving potatoes helps to lure the Leprechauns in.  We’ve tried that and we can attest that Leprechaun’s do love potatoes, as we had tiny nibbles in ours, the next morning.
And don’t forget to watch out for those Leprechauns’ as they can be quite naughty and leave some destruction throughout your house. ;)

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