Huntin' for Candy

I'm not really sure how a celebration of the resurrection of the Savior turned into a day (or weekend, in our case) for finding and pigging out on as much candy as possible.  I felt like it was really taking our attention away from where we should be focusing this year.  Maybe it is because I have two children who are old enough to understand, and we were just missing it completely.   We did have our Monday night Family Home Evening lesson about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  However, with Elizabeth's birthday mid-week and Easter egg hunts galore over the weekend, we kind of missed sight of Easter. 

I think maybe next year, the Easter bunny will visit on the Saturday before.  This way we can enjoy the "fun" activities, but also be able to set Sunday aside for the important spiritual message of Easter season.

To start off our huge candy-gathering weekend, there was an egg hunt at the park for the non-school aged children after library story time on Friday.  This prepared Annie and Maddie for the whole rest of the weekend.

 (I forgot to hunt down the Easter baskets before I left Friday morning.  On the other hand, I still had gift bags out from Elizabeth's birthday that were very accessible.)

 Maddie was impressing me by how many jelly beans she could cram in her mouth.

On Saturday we were invited to two Easter egg hunts.  I'd said yes to one, and yes to a birthday party.  I didn't realize the birthday party was going to have an Easter egg hunt as well.  Honestly, the Easter Bunny didn't need to come by our house after all that.

 (Ta da!  I found the Easter baskets!)  Annie and Maddie by this time were real pros at finding eggs.

Elizabeth did quite well herself.  We asked her to share with some of the other kids who didn't get as much.  That's one thing I can say about Elizabeth- she isn't selfish.  She was happy to share. :)

 The kids got together and swapped favorite candy.  And ate, and ate, and ate.

After this, we went to the birthday party.  Our whole family was invited.  We were the largest family there, so between the egg hunt and the pinata, we brought home a serious bucketful of candy.  That was after we tried dumping handfuls into other kids' buckets.... 

Easter morning came.  The kids had Eggo waffles and candy for breakfast.  They thought they'd died and gone to heaven.  My mom instincts were cringing at the amount of sugar digested over the course of the weekend.  However, this was the nicest Sunday morning in I can't remember how long.  The kids were all pleasant and there was absolutely no whining or fighting or procrastinating when it was time to get ready for church.

I'm curious- if I give them candy for breakfast next Sunday, do you think they'd be that nice to me again? :)