Easter, Our Way

I almost feel silly putting this up. I'm sure everyone is over Easter by now, but we had some fun this last Saturday before I came down deathly ill (don't worry, I'm better now), so I wanted to share.

I haven't really "done Easter" since I started college. I do Lent pretty regularly, but I just don't throw a big bash for Easter. I think this is because while I find the whole Easter Bunny, crappy chocolate, chick tchotchke thing horrible and ridiculous, I find the attempt to cheesily re-Christian-ize the holiday just as ridiculous. "Resurrection eggs"? Really? Also, our church is not at all liturgical -- we don't do anything special for Easter. I kinda wish we did, but we don't.

This leaves me with a few options: become Catholic or Orthodox, or just pick and choose whatever festivities sound good and I feel up for in any particular year.

Well, this year I picked an egg hunt, because I thought it would be fun for Lucy.

It was!

I bought some plastic eggs at the dollar store and filled them with number and letter magnets, stickers, those little pills that dissolve in water and leave you with an animal-shaped sponge, apple slices, walnuts, and "bars". These all thrilled Lucy to no end, so don't think you have to put candy in your Easter eggs. You don't. In fact here is a bunch of suggestions for things other than candy to put in eggs.


The animal sponge pills were a huge letdown. Either I'm remembering them wrong from when I was a kid, or these dollar store ones were particularly crappy.

[She was very impatient waiting for me to hide them.]

[I "hid" them at 24-month-old level.]

[She didn't even find them all before she wanted to sit down and open them. She had plenty, I guess.]

[We finished opening the rest inside, as it was pretty chilly and a tad sprinkly.]

Happy Birthday, Lucy!

How is it possible that you started out like this...

and moved on to this...


and now look like this...


and that someday, if God wills, I'll be putting up photos of you driving cars and getting married?

Happy 2nd Birthday, Lucy!

We make a great team.

Lucy's 2nd Birthday Party

Lucy's 2nd birthday party happened. How have I already thrown 2 of these things? Despite my creeping nostalgia, a lovely time was had by all! The weather shaped up perfectly, despite it having been crazy windy the day before.

[Random present- opening photo]

We had it in the front yard. Partly because there's an insane dog next door, partly because the front yard is easier than the back yard to get to from inside of our house, and partly because we reject modern suburbanity and believe that you should not hide your life away to yourself in your back yard.


We set up the sit n' spin (which was more like a stand n' spin on this particular day) and some sidewalk chalk on the driveway, and we also had a bowling alley! More like just one lane, but still! It was awesome and it worked out perfectly. I bought the blow-up bowling pins at a garage sale, and we set up some garden fencing to keep everything contained. (Lucy loves to watch us play bowling on the Wii.)

[Bowling!]

(You can click on the photos to see them larger.)

[Sidewalk chalking]

We had fruit, veggies and sour cream, and herbal sweet tea, much like last year. But this year we had strawberry shortcake! I made this recipe, so the shortcake was grain- and dairy-free. It was amazingly spongy -- I highly recommend it. I tossed some cut strawberries with honey the night before, and whipped the cream during the party. So. tasty.

[Om nom nom!]

We also had plenty of bottles of bubble solution! The (not crazy) wind carried them nicely.

[Norman took this photo and the next one. I love them! He's got the eye, I think.]

[See? Fun!]

I couldn't have asked for a more pleasant party. It was fun (for kids and adults alike), laid-back, tasty, and had perfect weather. What more could you ask for?

[Hello!]

This Year's Babby Birthday Invitations

Lucy turns 2 in about a week and a half! Her party is early, though, to avoid Easter problems. Last year, the birthday theme (if you can even call it that) was polka dots. This year it is "outside". So I made these invitations!

[The chaos of the craft room mid-project]

[Pieces ready for assembly]

[Ta da!]

[The inside]

This was all using stuff I had. I used a "2" cookie cutter as a stencil for the twos. I always have plenty of colored card stock on hand. The cloud paper I just picked up at the thrift store a month or two ago. And the grass is the plastic grass they put in packaged sushi! I knew I had been saving it for a reason! :-)

Norman said they look like Pixar. Not really what I was going for, but I'll definitely take it!

Party pics should be up on Tuesday, assuming I remember to take any!