easter

Our family is getting too old for Easter. On Saturday Melanie asked me about hunting for Easter eggs and the look on my face gave away the fact that I was not prepared with plastic Easter eggs filled with jelly beans ready for the great Easter Eggs Hunt of 2011. She shook her head in despair and walked away ashamed of her mom.
I actually was sort of ready for Easter. I sent an awesome package to Brady and his companion earlier this week. I had odds and ends ready to fill some Easter baskets for the very few people that would actually be home for Easter. (I have received comments like "If you happen to be talking to the Easter Bunny this week, could you tell him I need some new mascara?"), so yes, the Easter Bunny and I and Walgreens have been communicating.
But here is where things went sour. We had a ward campout on Friday and Saturday, we had been in Utah the previous weekend, and we had an extremely busy workweek. So Sunday we got home from church and kind of relaxed into oblivion for the afternoon. Rachel, who gets home from her church at 4:30, announced that she had to be somewhere at 5 and so we had a 15 minute window to have Easter dinner together. My afternoon nap accidentally consumed all the food prep time and the table was empty at 4:30. Dave and Melanie and I had a very simple Easter dinner at 6, Rachel had leftovers at 8. (Roxanne and Billy are out of town for the weekend.) The beautiful tulips are compliments of Dave. I've got a great husband!Melanie patiently waited for Rachel to get home before she looked for her basket. The Easter Bunny usually leaves an elaborate scavenger hunt for everyone to go on. He must have been exhausted or just simply too old this year because the scavenger hunt lasted approximately 1 and 3/4 minutes. Then fortunately we found some plastic eggs to hide in the backyard so Melanie wouldn't have to run away from home to a new family that loved her more. It was 9 o'clock at night and the backyard was dark and the lawn had not been mowed for a significant amount of time so the lush winter lawn was a winter jungle. We could have tossed the basket of eggs out the back door and they would have all been hidden randomly across the lawn. Instead, we supplied everyone with flashlights and had a night hunt.Rachel has issues about Easter egg hunts and pinata games. She says she spent a lifetime of Brady outdoing her in candy gathering games. She thought she'd have an advantage with him gone, but Melanie outdid everyone 3 to 1. So we made Melanie hide the eggs the second time and Rachel barely out-gathered her mom and dad, although I've got to say Dave turned it into a game of tackle and steal. I've never been thrown to the ground before playing with plastic Easter eggs. There's never a dull moment with Dave.

Looking at the pictures above, I realize that Tivo is in the background of one picture and Facebook is in the background of another picture. Although our day did involve Tivo, it also involved going to church together. We had a wonderful worship service. The talks were great, Dave and I sang with the choir which I think went quite well. Dave directed the primary children in singing a selection of songs which included a couple of the young boys singing solos, and duets and the older girls taking on a harmony. It was beautiful. He loves those kids and they adore him.

Next year Melanie and I committed to making Easter dresses - although I told her if I was going to make a dress for her, it had to be a pastel floral with a big white lace edged collar. We also are going to grow wheat grass in our baskets, actually dye Easter eggs (we didn't quite get to that this year), and have actual candy in the plastic eggs for the egg hunt, although she said if I didn't have candy, cash would be acceptable too. I think I will commit to that for her last year at home. So . . . question to other parents of adult children - when do (did) Easter baskets stop? I'm thinking I should have stopped in 6th grade? 9th grade? High school graduation? College graduation is coming up next semester . . . should I warn everyone that Santa Claus and the Easter bunny stop coming after a bachelor's degree? I think I already may have missed my window of opportunity.