Make-it Monday!!

Today is Monday and that means we're gonna start the week off right by making something! It could be a recipe, it could be a craft or as in today's idea, making a low-sugar Easter Egg hunt!

Since Easter is just 6 days away, we thought it was a good idea to have an Easter Themed Make-it Monday!

Last year I had decided that I did not want my kids having tons of candy for Easter. They did the Church Easter Egg hunt and already had enough! My kids are not fans of coloring eggs (which is fine with me!), so we tend to hunt for plastic eggs filled with goodies. As you can see in the picture above, most of our eggs have the kids names on them. They know that they are only able to collect the eggs that have their own name on them. I have equal amounts - they count - and I have a HUGE variety! Some are shaped like eggs, some like Lightning McQueen, a few "High School Musical" pennants and even princess crowns! Oh - and how can I forget the Autobot Symbol?!

We like to hide them in fun places and sometimes in plain sight! This one took my kids quite a while to find! OK - enough about the hunting! Now on to the filling!

Unfortunately, last year I was not thinking that I would have this blog, so I did not get photos of what we put inside of the eggs, but here are some ideas!

For each of my kids I purchased a 100 piece puzzle from the dollar store (or maybe it was the Dollar Spot at Target - I can't remember!). We (my sister helped me with all of this!) opened the puzzles and put 10 pieces in each of 10 plastic eggs and put the empty box in their baskets! They were giggling opening the eggs and finding just a few puzzle pieces and later had SO much fun putting them all together!

Small toys. I am a couponer and last year I got some crazy awesome deals on Littlest Pet Shop which my daughter loves, so I put a couple of those in eggs! They are small enough and with just 2 packages of 2 pets each I was able to fill 6 eggs! Four with the little bobble head pets and 2 with their little accessories! For my son we got a small LEGO set and sorted the pieces between about 6 eggs. I think that was his favorite thing!

We did put some candy in them, but not much. Maybe 10 eggs worth. It may not be an issue for most, but I try to avoid things like jelly beans which are loaded full of food coloring and make my son behave like an out of control Tasmanian devil! Instead we stick with things like Reeces eggs or Reester bunnies, some M&M's (he does OK with just a few), small chocolate bunnies and Hershey Kisses.  Also, since we had a 10 hour drive coming up the day after Easter, we made sure that the kids had fun stuff to do in the car in their baskets like a Toy Story mini marker/coloring page set for my son. He STILL loves that thing!

Another thing that we love to put into eggs is quarters! The kids love hearing the jingle of the change inside and my daughter LOVES counting up how much money she has! I'm sure my boy will like it too - once he learns that skill! For now he counts how many coins he has!



We do our best to keep it fun - even including the dogs!

Most importantly, we make sure that our kids understand the TRUE reason for Easter: Jesus is Alive! He rose from the grave to save us from our sins! He has given us the opportunity to live forever in Heaven with Him! Have a wonderful Easter! I hope that some of these ideas can inspire you to have a very fun egg hunt with your kids while not sugaring them out too much! I'll try to take more photos of this year's hunt to share in another post!

~Alicia