Happy Easter

We ended up being by ourselves for Easter this year. A family from church had invited us over to spend Easter dinner with their extended family, but Dave leaves tomorrow for a five day mission trip with 50 high schoolers. He hadn't packed yet. With all the other last minute getting-ready-to-leave preparations it takes in leading a large group, we decided to conserve our energy and stay home.

Justin was disappointed. He's made friends with two grandchildren of the couple who invited us over. We spent Easter there last year, and there was a gigantic egg hunt for the three appropriately-aged children. We promised Justin an egg hunt of his very own here at home, and he was mostly mollified. With food allergies, simple and supposed-to-be-fun things like Easter egg hunts are stressful, challenging, and fraught with land mines. Last year, we had to sort through scores of eggs and separate out everything Justin couldn't eat, but he inevitable snuck some anyway. I can hardly blame him. Justin does very well for the most part realizing what happens if he eats anything with soy, dairy, or food coloring (i.e. ALL mass produced candy). But of course it's still hard for him, and unfair. This would also have been the third egg hunt we had been invited to participate in. (THREE?! We're talking a little overkill here, aren't we?)

So, Dave picked up a package of plastic eggs at our rinky-dink grocery store while picking up some last-minute miscellaneous items for his trip. They only had packs of 100. (What was I just saying about overkill?) I didn't fill them all, or even half of them. But Justin was not deprived in the Easter egg hunting at our house this year. His eggs were filled with Justin-friendly homemade chocolate bunnies, chicks, and eggs, and Justin-friendly jelly beans, and nickels, dimes, and quarters. Lucky duck!

Of course, solo egg hunting does lose a little pizzaz without other kids to compete with. So we threw a few dog treats in some eggs and let Koty in on the fun! I also set up a treasure hunt for Justin with various clues. His "treasure" was egg-shaped sidewalk chalk and a new Psalty CD. Happy Easter!

Justin chose a dinosaur-themed egg dying kit this year. Roar!

Koty finding one of his eggs

Justin filling his basket

What's this growing amongst the cabbages?

Finding more goodies

Justin, thrilled with his collecting. Koty, wishing for more.

Justin showing off to Koty how much he got