Easter Fun

Easter is one holiday that feels strange living here in Japan.  I really love to be with family for a big Easter egg hunt and also a nice dinner.  I think we are getting used to doing it on our own though.  The kids really enjoy going to a big Easter egg hunt in the community but because of the virus that has been cancelled this year.  

We kept it low key.  We studied and learned about Jesus and his resurrection.  

We colored eggs.

And we did our own indoor egg hunt.

I'm a big fan of color coding.  Each child goes for a certain color.  That way everyone can look at the same time and Bob and I can hide eggs based upon ages.

Beatrix even got some candy this year.  She didn't really hunt, but we did give her a few eggs and gummy bunnys.

I made my first ever carrot cake with actual carrots.  It was delicious.

 Happy Easter!

Easter Fun

The kids wanted to try out the Easter Egg hunt on base this year so we gave it a shot.  I was hesitant.  Sometimes these things are so crowded and not at all worth it.  But the kids all said they were really happy that we went, and that it was totally worth it.

 Bob was working and it was separated by age and all ages were going at the same time, so we had to split up.  Luckily it worked out that everyone had a partner with them and I went with Calista.  Calista didn't really get it.  She was able to get six eggs before they all disappeared.  At first she didn't know what to do, then when I convinced her to pick up an egg she promptly sat down and tried to open it.  I thought six eggs was just fine.  What I didn't realize was that she would eat all her candy in two minutes and then spend the next two hours crying over everyone else's candy.

We had a plan to meet at the bounce house after the egg hunt.

We had a some time to kill before the baptism on base we were attending so we hung out and lots of time to try out all the little games.

This Tiara toss was next to impossible.  The kids literally did it over and over again for about half an hour.  The weather was nice so I just sat down on the grass and let them go at it.

The next day was Easter but unfortunately some kids were up in the middle of the night throwing up.  The kids have been rotating who was sick for about two weeks.  We would go days in between where everyone was fine and then the next night someone would be sick.  It was not fun.  Everyone actually felt pretty good in the morning, but I didn't want to chance getting someone else sick so we stayed home from church.

 We painted eggs.

Since we were all feeling fine, I made everyone get dressed in their church clothes.  I still wanted it to feel like the Sabbath day.  We sat down on the couch.  Penelope gave us her talk that she would have done in primary that day and then we watched the Easter performance by the Morman Tabernacle Choir.

Then it was time for a second hunt.  I like to really hide them around the house.  Each child had a certain color to look for.  And we had plenty of eggs form the day before to fill with candy.  It works really well, because they can all look at the same time and Bob and I can adjust how hard we hide them based on color.

 Penelope had a little bit of a struggle getting her egg out of a glass of water.

Tucker actually gave up before he found all of his eggs.  He figured he had enough and would find the last three eventually.

Scarlett, Leon, and Penelope were the most diligent hunters.  They didn't want to give up until they found all their eggs.   This took some time for Leon.  He was pretty upset that we made him stop looking so we could eat dinner.

Calista was having the time of her life eating candy.  She really loves candy!

Easter and April Fools

A couple days before Easter I set up my letterboard in preparation for the big holiday.

It was so fun having Easter and April fools day wrapped up all in one this year.  There were just so many prank options!  I started out with some yummy orange juice made out of water and a macaroni and cheese packet.

I thought it looked pretty good, just like OJ.  Unfortunately the kids were ready for me to pull some pranks and they already knew not to trust anything I gave them to eat or drink.  Leon was brave enough to try it for everyone.  He took a couple of drinks and announced "It's ok guys, its just milk!"  haha I thought it was hilarious.  It looked so good I think I'll try this again another day when they aren't expecting it.

The kids, all dressed and ready for church.

We didn't have time to take our picture in the mirror before church so we did it outside afterwards with the timer.

When I tried to go into my room later the door handle was off.  I think Bob was helping the kids attempt to prank me.  I didn't get a picture of it, but Penelope also drew spiders on the toilet paper and offered me a drink of "water" aka straight vinegar that I had to drink to pretend to be fooled.  She loved it and was so happy with her tricks.

We made resurrection rolls, that weren't a trick.  For those not familiar they are rolls that you put a marshmallow in the center of, then after backing the marshmallow is gone leaving an empty roll symbolizing the empty tomb.  If you are really good you make them three days ahead of time, but I forgot about that part until the morning of.

I think our best pranks came during the Easter egg hunt.  We threatened all the eggs were going to be empty but that would be way too easy.  Instead we hid a couple eggs out front and told them to start searching.

After a few minutes when they were really begging for hints I told them that the eggs were really inside!  APRIL FOOLS!

And off they ran in the house looking for eggs.

We gave them each a color to look for and told them to leave the other colors alone, but there were two very special eggs one gold and one silver.  We only had two of those so whoever found them got more than the other kids.  They really wanted these eggs.  After a while Scarlett and Tucker found them and Penelope was devastated.  I let Scarlett open her special egg up to lessen the blow for Penelope.

Carrots!  A rabbit's favorite!

Scarlett was so happy to get these sour patch candies as well, until they were opened.

Rocks.  Yep, bob sliced them open, filled them with rocks and taped them back up.

Don't worry, we gave the kids plenty of real candy to go with the tricks.  I think that helped them not be too mad at all the fake outs.

These grape candies worked pretty well also.  They looked like chocolates but I had bob unwrap the chocolates and put grapes inside then rewrap them up.  The kids were like, "huh??? I thought this was chocolate.  Oh well, a grape!"

Talitha made a yummy Easter dessert with the kids.

I hope you all had a great Easter!