Easter Egg Hunt

The Easter Egg hung was {I think} the best part of the day. It certainly was my favorite.

We shang-hi'd Justin and Emma - they are way too old to be a part of the search party. They were the egg hiders {the Easter Bunny helpers, if you will}

The older kids didn't get super easy places. There were eggs hidden high...

... and eggs hidden low.

But, the little kids got easier hiding spots: out in the open on the railroad ties, in the fence, held in place on the cement mushroom and hidden in the ribbon bow.

I think Justin and Emma had some fun with the last few eggs. We did run out of semi-difficult hiding places.

Quite frankly, this egg may still be outside still.

Once all the eggs were hidden, the kiddos were let loose. The littlest ones were inside the fence and, even in that confined space, they were hard to follow with the camera. Many of my pictures are have blurry kiddos, half in/half out, already moved on to the next egg. But, I do have a few pictures where the who child is {mostly} in the frame.

Presley found the egg in the railroad tie, right off the bat.

Chase found the one in the ribbon.

And Kirk found the one in the fence.

There was no hope of getting pictures of the older ones finding their 10 Easter eggs. But once everyone had their limit, it was tallying time. This was Papa's tradition and one I insisted had to be a part of our {new} Easter traditions.

At the end of the hunt, each kid had to count how many of each color eggs they found. Each color is worth a certain amount of money {Papa changed the amount each year, so you never knew if the blues were worth more or less than the yellow eggs}.

Keith had the bigger kids count their eggs by color and tell him as he asked for the counts of reds, blues, yellows...

Zella was a little shy about giving her counts. I don't blame her - it took me a good 15 years to get used to {and feel comfy with} Keith's {big and boisterous} family.

Once the counts were in, the totals were calculated and the line was formed.

Now, this was the one part that I didn't get done ahead of time. I was going to go get rolls of dimes and quarters on Saturday {but didn't}. Luckily, Keith found a few dollar bills and enough coins. Amazingly, when the totals all came out, everyone almost got the same amount.

This whole part just made me so happy. A nice way to remember Papa.

And, I think the kiddos liked getting a little change too. Of course, they found the gumball machine so we did get a little of that change back {which was NOT the intention at all, no matter what you overheard Keith say}. That gumball machine will be put away next year.

I certainly look forward to seeing everyone else's pictures from the hunt, because I was not the only one with a camera on Easter!

Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life.
~ S.D. Gordon