Easter Ideas & Checklist

Easter is only 2 weeks away and are you prepared?  Since Easter is a date that moves each year, sometimes it catches me by surprise   That's why I love a checklist!  Here is what I do for Easter each year, give or take a few.  It's just so nice to have it all written down with photos so I can quickly prepare for a magical morning!  Happy Easter!

Easter Ideas & Checklist Download

Dying Easter Eggs....a station for each kid!

The night before the doorbell rings with a fun surprise of magical jelly beans!  We quickly plant them! :)

The next morning they wake up to breakfast and this clue!

Breakfast...an egg ham basket :)

Then off to check our magic jelly beans....lollipop flowers grew!

And the scavenger hunt begins!

They find their baskets!

A fun Easter lunch.

Our Easter Clothes!

Last year I forgot to take a photo of our food, so here is one that's similar.  I always love ham on Easter!

I make a carrot cake from scratch every year and it's so delicious!

Carrot Cake Recipe

 Prep Time: 30 Minutes

Cook Time: 1 Hour 

Ready In: 2 Hours

Yields: 18 servings

 INGREDIENTS:

Cake:

·         4 eggs

·         3/4 cup canola oil

·         1/2 cup applesauce

·         1 cup white sugar

·         1 cup brown sugar

·         3 teaspoons vanilla extract

·         2 cups all-purpose flour

·         2 teaspoons baking soda

·         2 teaspoons baking powder

·         1/2 teaspoon salt

·         ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg

·         3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

·         3 cups grated carrots (use food processor)

·         1 8 oz. can crushed pineapple (drained)

·         1/2 cup chopped pecans

Icing:

·         1/2 cup butter (one stick), softened

·         8 ounces cream cheese, softened

·         4 cups confectioners' sugar

·         1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1.    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan. (or use spray Pam)

2.    In a large bowl (or mixer), beat together eggs, oil, applesauce, sugars and 3 teaspoons vanilla.

3.    Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

4.    Stir in carrots and pineapple.

5.    Fold in pecans.

6.    Pour into prepared pan.

7.    Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

8.    Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

  

To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Frost the cooled cake.

SCAVENGER HUNT

If you are interested in doing a scavenger hunt for your kids Easter morning (to find their baskets), here is one that I made for my kids.  Click on the link for the whole set.

Easter Scavenger Hunt for Easter Morning

Lastly, a girlfriend of mine makes these confetti eggs (cascarones in the Mexican culture) each year which are a huge hit!  I will be trying these soon!  Here's how: Making Confetti Eggs

Easter Playgroup

Happy Easter is right!  We had a very successful Easter party today! I had asked everyone to bring a side dish for lunch as well as their child's Easter basket.

When guest first arrived, I had chalked out a path for them to follow to the backyard gate...since this was an outdoor event.

So they followed a trail of differently decorate Easter eggs that I quickly chalked out this morning!

Everyone brought some amazing foods!  I just have to highlights some here....

I made ham biscuits with a honey mustard/cream cheese sauce.

Deviled eggs that were DELICIOUS!

Carrots and hummus to appease the Easter Bunny and the healthy!

Also appeasing the healthy was fresh fruit!  Juicy!

Now for us unhealthy types, jelly bean cookies...how cute?!

These are Oreo cheesecake balls...OMG!  Addicting!

I made carrot cupcakes with green cream cheese icing and threw on a peep!

They were very cute!

I also made a signature drink...it's my thing!  We had Easter Extract Punch, which is basically ginger ale, Hawaiian Punch and raspberry and orange sherbert.  Then we had Hoppin' H20 which was water and sliced oranges.

So the spread was a hit!

For outside decor I bought some great fabric and cut to size for each table.  I also hung an array of butterflies and glittered eggs around the deck.

I already owned these greenhouses, so I filled them with Spanish Moss and birds nest, then sat them on artificial grass and added some speckled eggs.

The kids area was a slew of activities.  Chalk to color with, coloring books to pass time and fun Bunny masks to make!

Oh, and I also had these great egg lanterns but nothing to hang them from, so they fit perfectly in my kids Easter Tins...so voila!

So I wrote the agenda on a chalkboard just to keep myself on track!

We started with making these bunny masks so the kids could do the Easter Egg Hunt wearing them.  I got them from Orientaltradding.com and all the pieces are self-adhesive so we didn't have to worry with glue and they could be used immediately.

There were boy and girl masks so no one felt left out.

We did the hunt on two sides of the yard.  One side was for 1 and 2 year olds and the other side was for 3 and 4 year olds.  This way the older kids didn't monopolize all the eggs.

Lastly we ended with an egg relay race.  It was so much fun watching the kids try to keep that egg on their spoon!

It was a great party....but it's always the people that make parties great, no matter how much decorating you do!  So thanks to my peeps...and I don't mean the marshmallow ones!

Kid Friendly Easter Crafts

Are you looking for some fun Easter crafts to do with your kids?  If so, here are a few websites that describe a lot of different options:

This topiary is so fun and creative!  Check out more crafts from:

Family Fun Easter Crafts

Anything quick and easy with bunny ears is always a plus! Check out more crafts from:

Kaboose Easter Crafts

Love this hand print Easter Basket idea. Check out more crafts from:

DLTK's Easter Crafts

Martha Stewart's Kid's Easter Crafts

And, if that doesn't keep them busy, you can always try coloring pages or some fun kid-friendly Easter recipes!  Have fun with your kids!

Easter Ideas

We've all probably struggled at times with celebrating Easter...do we stick to the Biblical stories only or do we also add in the Easter bunny?  Well, if you decide to go the bunny route, here are a few ideas that will help get your party "hoppin"! :)

First of all, decorations.  There are a few essential things I like to have in my decorating: a banner of some sort, a decorative buffet or table scape, music and themed food.  Initially you  need to choose your colors.  For Easter, you should either go with a light pastel pallet, bright pastels, or pick 3 colors to stick with.

So banners.  I love this cut out bunny banner which was also used as cupcake toppers....do you notice that they cut them out of the gift bags they used?!

I also really like this egg garland.  It's very festive!

Table scape.  The right table scape is about layers.  A cotton tablecloth can be used year after year and looks more expensive than it actually is.  Just buy some material at Walmart that you think looks "Eastery" and has your color choices.

I love the trees with hanging egg ornaments.  I think they are very festive and you can usually reuse the tree for other holidays by changing the ornaments.

Centerpieces.  You can go anywhere with this one.  With Easter, you're either doing one of these themes: Bunnies, Chickens, Eggs, Flowers, Candy or Spiritual.  You can mix them as long as you stick with the same color pallet.  I also love the idea of using fresh things.  For example, fresh flowers, fresh food or candies, fresh grass, ect.  If you just grab a few spring flowers and stick them in baskets or pails, that would be good enough.  But adding in some wood or ceramic painted eggs, a few ceramic bunnies or chicken and then scatter some jelly beans, that would make it more impactful.   I also think it's very cute to add a birds nest and fill it with colorful eggs.

Love that the centerpieces are multi-functional as snack containers!

Here they used a great color pallet and added jelly beans that match.

I also couldn't resist this paper lantern made into a bunny.  How adorable is that?!

Activities.  There are a lot of great ideas out there for kids.  An Easter Egg hunt is a must!  Hide plastic eggs (filled with toys or candy) around the house or yard.  You can even turn it into a scavenger hunt if you have the time.  

If you are decorating outside, go ahead and hang some from your trees.  You could also add some beautiful nylon butterflies or birds to your outdoor decor.

You can also do an Egg Relay race with hardboiled eggs.  But my favorite is to do a craft making Bunny Masks.  They look great doing the Easter Egg Hunt in these masks.

Dying and painting eggs is always a favorite, but with younger kids can get very messy.  I would suggest purchasing Styrofoam or wood eggs and have them either color them or stick on stickers/jewels.  www.orientaltrading.com has A LOT of craft ideas for Easter.

If you're feeling brave...dye away!

Food.  Hmmmm!  Traditional, lamb is served at Easter time because spring was the only time of the year that sheep were lambs.  However, in the USA with a shortage of lambs, ham became the staple.  If you're hosting a lunch, ham biscuits would be most convenient.  

Side dishes can be anything from macaroni and cheese, quiche, scalloped potatoes, sweet potatoes, spring vegetables, a spring salad, hot cross buns and fruit salad.  Don't forget the deviled eggs!  You mostly want to think about what is in season and what represents "spring" for your area.  For dessert, however, carrot cake is the norm...or some variety of it in cupcakes, muffins, cheesecake, ect.  However, some beautiful cupcakes would work as well, strawberry shortcake or your favorite fruit pie.

Oh, and don't forget a fun drink!  Perhaps a fruit smoothie, a pina colata (for the adults) or a chocolate drink.

Easter baskets!  The fun part! Well, I am not a big fan of the baskets.  My kids usually like to carry them around the whole day and end up sitting on them and breaking them.  I like the tin buckets or felt baskets from potterybarnkids.com best. Traditionally, I do not put that much candy in my kid's baskets.  They get so much on the hunts and events we go to, so I like to stick to more spring clothes or toys that they will be using.  A spring outfit, flip flops, bubbles, sun glasses, jewelry, a sun hat, plush bunny, books, crayons, movies, ect. are all fun gifts.

And I can't leave out favors.  Of course you just sent the kids home with eggs filled with candy or toys, but this would also be a special gift.  Icing piping bags filled with orange jelly beans look gorgeous as carrots!

If you can, set up a photo shoot for the parents to take of their children.  Hang a sheet from the clothes line, add in a big bunny and some eggs...and viola!  Unless you can convince one of your friends to come dressed as the Easter bunny, this is a good alternative.

Whatever you choose to do, have fun with it.  Do not stress...use your strengths to make it the best party for your guest and your children.  Taking shortcuts is necessary and helps make the party run smoother...so take them!  Happy Easter!

*most photos taken from www.marthastewart.com.