Huntin Eggs

We had our first official Easter Egg Hunt of the year!

My in-laws invited us to their church's annual Pancake Breakfast and Easter Egg Hunt. The same church we go to for Trunk or Treat. This was our third year attending. Madden has been so excited about hunting for eggs, he has been talking about it and asking when the Easter bunny is coming for a couple weeks now. 

Friday evening I got out one of his Easter baskets to get ready for the event Saturday morning. The moment he saw pretty lead to a meltdown because he could not wait till the next day, he wanted to hunt eggs then and now! AND he wanted the eggs outside. Ahh three-nager!

I eventually talked him into going with dad to pick up dinner so I could put Harper to bed and then I would fill up a few eggs with treats and hide them outside. I only hid them on our deck as it was starting to get dark and by a few I mean like 8. This just made his day! He was so pumped to look for them and then open them up to see what was inside....left over St. Patrick's parade candy ;) He hugged me and said "thank you mommy!" He was ready for Saturday morning!

The church served pancakes, sausage and assorted fresh fruit. Then they have several different stations with crafts, games, magic tricks, and Easter lessons around the gym and gathering space for the kids while everyone is eating and waiting to egg time. Madden's favorite games were Planko and Cross Toss. 

Then it was time to go outside and line up at our age group. Madden moved up this year to the 3-5 year olds. For the 0-2 and 3-5 year old groups they have two gated in areas. They put eggs outside in front of the gated area too. The excited of the kids standing there seeing the eggs and waiting for them to yell "Go" was just too cute. As soon as they were given the green light Madden ran over, picked up an egg them turned around, held it up and yelled "I got one mom!"

After all the eggs were found we hung around to talk and let Madden play. The majority of all the kids left, maybe only a handful stayed around to plan on the equipment and toys. Dave and MJ made one last round looking under all the play toys and Madden ended up finding another egg that no one had found. He was so excited about it that he had to run over to tell us and then go back and show which tractor it was under and exactly where it was under the tractor. It was too cute. 

Next year Harper will be able to participate in all the fun!

Once we got home later that afternoon Madden went outside to play in the yard and found one of the Easter eggs from the night before that must have blown off the deck without us realizing. He came running up the stairs and into the house yelling "I found one, I found one. Look mom the Easter bunny put an egg in the dirt down there". Then he wanted me to put all the candy he got from that mornings egg hunt into the plastic eggs we had at home so he could hide them for me to find. He ended up hiding them only on the deck in all the places I hid eggs the day before in. He would help me find the eggs and cheered every time I found one! 

Madden and his papa's!

Video of MJ emptying out all his eggs.