Our Sort Of, Kind Of, Annual Easter Egg Hunt

As I mentioned in one of our vacation posts, my Mom decided to hold off on an Easter Egg hunt until the rest of the family could participate. This meant that we did it AFTER Easter, but if you know kids - they didn't care. They were just thrilled to be doing one.

My Mom set up the egg hunt for this past weekend on Friday night, the 20th. The way she worded her email, I assumed it would be at her house. So when the kids got home from school, we loaded up the car and we were off. We had to stop by TRAX to pick up Eric and then because we had like 30 minutes until the Egg Hunt we headed to a few stores.

I dropped Eric, Lex and Ailey off at Lowe's, while I went to Walgreens with the other kids. Eric had to get stuff to fix a sprinkler head (that the fence guys broke) and other items to fix the backflow thing in the frontyard. I had to take Shaylyn to get some birthday presents for some friends. She was invited to 2 parties the next day.

After the shopping was complete and we were loading kids back in the car, I get a call from my sister. She simply says, "You do know the egg hunt is at Grandma's (my grandma), right?" I utter my frustrational 'no' and we are off to Grandma's.

I didn't let it get to me after the initial frustration, because my Grandma's house was only another 15-20 minutes away. I was also happy to have an excuse to visit my Grandma. And for the record, I had 2 other siblings who went to my Mom's house first as well. So I'm not the only crazy one.

After arriving at Grandma's, we had Little Ceasars for dinner. (And I'm a slacker mom and didn't clean faces before taking pictures...) After everyone was finished with dinner it was time for the egg hunt. The kids went crazy. The older kids knew what to do and ran in every which way. The little kids, not sure what was going on - were a little more timid, until they caught on. I missed a lot of Nate and Ailey's first moments because I was trying to get pictures of everyone.

When the egg hunt was completed it was time to open the eggs and see what was inside. Some had candy, some had a 'ticket' for money redemption and others had 'tickets' for a prize. Ailey got a good assortment of eggs, but had very little money - all things considered. Nate did alright all around. Lex got tons of candy and did okay with the money. Shaylyn did her own thing, so I'm not sure how she fared. Tanis was a lucky duck and found mostly money eggs and walked away with $8.00 and some change.

We spent the rest of the night playing in my Grandma's huge yard, enjoying a strawberry shortcake dessert and of course, visiting with Grandma.

I couldn't pick and choose only a handful of pictures this time, so I made a video instead. I know, but it makes me happy! It's about 8 minutes long - so make sure you have 8 minutes to kill. (Oh and my dear sisters, KNOW that the pictures of your child(ren) will be in your inbox sometime soonish...)

I am so happy that I live so close to family and that we can have these special moments during the year. I'm praying it'll be these things that my kids remember, instead of all the times Mommy gets mean. I'm also thankful for a Mom who makes her Grandkids a priority and tries to make holidays special for them.