Hippity Hoppity- Easter 2012

This year we decided to do some additional non-religious traditions for Easter now that M is a little older.  I got an egg decorating kit from a friend that we put to use and she even got to give the Easter Bunny a high five at the mall since she was a bit too tentative to sit on his lap. :)  Let's not forget that the Easter Bunny paid a visit to our house this year and brought her a small basket (without candy) with goodies for her to play with.  Her favorite new treat is by far the bubble stuff the Easter Bunny put in her basket.  Every night when we get home from work she asks for her bubbles and does an insanely cute happy dance when we blow bubbles for her.

Thanks to the whisk trick a fellow toddler mom taught me about, dying eggs was mess free and fun.  M loved dipping the eggs in the various colors and seeing what came out.  The kit we had also came with stickers and she loved putting them on the eggs.  We'll definitely do it again next year!

I don't think she quite understood the whole Easter Bunny concept and frankly I don't blame her.  Come on...a bunny that delivers eggs?!  It does seem a little far fetched.  The Easter Bunny wasn't huge in our house growing up and we won't go all out at Easter time with our kids, either. Teaching her the religious reasons behind the holiday are more important to us.  Even still we got her a little something this year (all from Target's dollar section) and let her discover her Easter basket on Easter morning in the kitchen.  Of course she was excited about it seeing all the goodies inside -coloring books, crayons, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, travel coloring kits, and a Tangled puzzle.

This year we took her to both the Good Friday service and Easter Vigil mass.  She slept through most of the Good Friday mass (YAY!) and did pretty good with the Easter Vigil mass despite the extended length and the fact it started pretty much right before her bedtime (8pm).  We attended my friend's church for the Vigil mass as she had her 1st Communion and we wanted to support her and all the hard work she's been doing studying to become a Catholic.  She'll be confirmed Catholic next month!  The Vigil mass always starts in darkness with candle light only and M was enthralled.  She thought it was a huge birthday celebration and kept saying, "burfday, Mami! Burfday!"  Candles to her equal cake + happy birthday song + blowing out said candles, so she kept trying to blow out our candle and the candles held by the procession walking past us.  Adorable!  She LOVES the choir in church and any singing and there was quite a bit of it during the whole service and we just happened to sit right in front of the choir, so she loved watching them sing.

Easter morning we took our time waking up and just relaxed.  Since we went to mass the night before, we didn't have to rush off to Easter morning mass and it was kind of nice.  M opened her Easter basket while A.R. cooked breakfast and then we all snuggled on the couch for a "MOOO-bie!!" (movie).  Of course the day's selection was yet again another Disney delight, Tinkerbell.  After snuggle time we got ready to go over to the in-laws' house and spent some time over there.  It's hard to believe it was her third Easter already and it was a great one spent with family.

Fine. You can take my picture, but make it quick.