Inside Egg Hunt

Last year we had a bit of a Dora the eggsplorer adventure at Eastertime  (mainly, if I'm honest to use up the surplus birthday Dora plates) so on Friday as we put up our Easter decorations (WHAT???...Do you not?), Bea wondered when she would be having her Easter party.

Never one to turn down a potential party and eager to entertain Bea as she awaits the return of the prodigal papa (don't panic...we do know where he is  AT WORK....and when he is going to return) we decided Tuesday looked like a good day.  Our decision making process was influenced largely by the timing of Josie's gymnastics and consultation with the BBC weather pages as the weather recently has been somewhat unseasonable.

So we planned our party and shopped in the pound shop for crackers...

...and I found this little plate in the Hospice shop. I've been longing for Easter and little eggs to use it for ages!

We started off with a little indoor egg hunt.

Searching for paper eggs....This was quite a complex game for nursery schoolers....if you found half of an egg, you scored 1 point, but if you found two halves of the same egg you got 3 points.  They didn't worry too much about the score system...they just hunted for eggs.

The number of points you had earned determined your ranking in picking from the prize basket.  

It was not surprising that Phoebe came in last.  She hunted eggs all the way into Bea's bedroom where her attention was somewhat diverted.  She found princesses and pink things to play with, promptly sat on the floor and....played.

Then we made some little chocolate nests.  Each girl mixed up their Rice Krispies and melted chocolate....then spooned the concoction into bun cases and decorated with mini eggs and chicks...

Phoebe wondered about the bun cases and decided that a much preferable course of action was just to spoon the mixture directly into her mouth....In these times of austerity, it was good thinking from the queen of the Rice Krispie bun to cut out the middle man.

But, even for those determined to make some buns for their Daddys and Mummys, there was a small degree of finger licking.

Then we had lunch.  Phoebe was unimpressed by anything not covered in buttercream.

Josie's tongue illustrates the concentration required in balancing sausages on a paper plate.

Phoebe drank like a big girl.

Grace demonstrates the art of having a balanced diet...in this case, balancing it on her knees.

Then after lunch we performed surgery on glued some pom pom rabbits.

Then it was time for a final egg hunt.

There were chocolate eggs in some of the plastic shells, grapes in others as well as love hearts, jelly babies and fluffy chicks.  Hence Phoebe's interest in this version of the indoor egg hunt.

And there was absolutely NO dressing up as princesses!

OK, there was a little bit.

A little miracle

A little miracle has occurred for the first time this year.

I have hung wet clothes on the line and they have dried...in an afternoon.

I believe this is a miracle.

Now I know that science boffins with try to remove the miraculous in this with very complex explanations, which I will politely listen to and translate into "so the water molecule is shaped like a boomerang and looks like Mickey Mouse and those oxygen atoms become a little sticky because they love electrons and so become a little negative...and the hydrogen molecule becomes a bit positive and that results in hydrogen bonding" and after five minutes of my brain threatening to implode we shall conclude that the air molecules bashing into the washing line and the heat from the sun gives those little Mickey Mouse molecules energy to evaporate.

If I force myself to, I can understand how it happens.  But I allow that understanding to escape.

You see, I just love the miracle of stretching a piece of soggy cotton between two jolly pegs and returning later that afternoon to find that the washing has dried.

Not only has it dried, it has absorbed the amazing smell of happy laundry that has had an outdoor adventure.  I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that the washing has played rounders and had a picnic, but you can smell the joy created by an afternoon in the garden.

I choose to believe it is a miracle.

Just like I choose to believe Dynamo is "just magic"

Footnote:  Pre Bea laundry was sorted into darks, lights and whites...These days we have four categories; darks, lights, whites and pinks.